Ratings & Reviews of products etc Forum?

[VHunter]

WHOOPS
First thread got duped and I asked that dupe get deleted.. but I guess we have two mods online working very hard at the moment LOL
Here we go again LOL


How viable would it be to create a forum where one could rate either negatively or positively a product or distributor WITHOUT slander?
Strictly fact-based?

Similar to this http://www.ratings.net/ and other related forums?

Often we see threads asking opinions on this product, that system, this distributor, or that school.

And sometimes someone will purchase something, and find out later from other geeks "oh yeah, we knew it was blah blah". Or they sign up for a course, or try to buy product... later to learn that at that School the diploma is worthless or they won't learn something pertinent. Or maybe that distributor is slow to ship or whatever.....or worse.

We see the same threads over and over and over... same questions.

Example:
ABC Distributor
Retails blah blah products.
Products perform 9 on scale of 10 (ratings averaged by votes by posters)
Prompt Shipping. Excellent support.
Offers Traininng with insurance recognized diplomas.

XYZ Distributor
Retails blah blah products.
Products perform 6 on scale of 10
15min training video.
Encourages MLM, and retailing of products to unlicensed professionals.

123 Product
etc etc etc......



What are your thoughts on this?

 

[naturalnails]

I deleted your duplicated thread. Then I deleted the second one which you said - delete as you got duped - duped to me means suckered and I thought you wanted it deleted too LOL - differences in translation.

We have actually discussed this very subject recently and decided it was a no no because we dont actually know all the distributors and some people join under various usernames, sometimes unbeknown to us and the result could very easily be distorted so I think based on that, it will be a no go!

 

[VHunter]

LOL Thanks for working so diligently HEHEHEHE :lol::hug:

I understand your concerns, and appreciate them. Slander and other such problems crossed my mind.
But, I'm thinking if done right, and moderated... keeping it factual, there must be a way?
If something is a fact and not a personal statement or issue, be it pro or con, then it can't be deemed as slander.

For example.
If a certain school's diploma is not honoured by said insurance company, it wouldn't be slander to say "so-n-so diploma not honoured by blah-blah insurance company". It's not slander. It's straight information.
Or
"On so-n-so's site, it reads... (indicate link here)..." and either give a star for TRUE information (with regards to industry facts as proven in Doug's book or similar dependable resources) or an "X" if it's a negative hit against the industry due to misleading/faulty/incorrect info, or whatever...

Did that make sense?

I'm not saying a forum where people rant their complaints. No one needs or wants that.
Just a minimal detail type of thing, with ONLY FACTS.
And people can add ratings via point system for the products/services/education.



I know that here on geek, it's against the rules to slander a business or trash them. I fully respect that. AND I truly understand the why's and wherefore's.

BUT sometimes on forums such as this, because no one wants to get sued or whatever, factual information is not shared, and people are left ignorant about important info.

Case in point: I did business with a distributor that I could find nothing negative on the web about, but it turned out later I should never have done business with them.
All the 'negative' that existed about them was wiped from another forum and member's prohibited to speak of that business.
NOW, had I known of all the negative, I might have saved myself 2yrs of wasted money and headaches (and some current ones too).

This is where being politically correct hurts us.
How do we prevent that from happening to others?

 

[naturalnails]

Problems I can see with this are as follows, but not limited:

For training courses - we are an international forum and every country has different rules and regulations - in one country CND training may be terrible (probably not) and in another country it will be fantastic so problems will arise when someone asks for a rating on CND training - please substitute CND for any other manufacturer who does training and the results will be the same.

In some countries there are government regulations - as in the US for example you have to have done so many hours in school, in the UK there are no such rules.

When it comes to a training course and whether it will result in insurance - unfortunately if you pay enough money you can virtually get insurance for anything so again this would not be representative - just because (in the UK) Babtac or the Guild or Profecional Beauty wouldnt give insurance for xyz course, doesnt mean that some other insurance company wouldnt.

You talk about you having done business with a company and had there been a rating system you might not have - this again is so difficult to moderate on here - for example say we have a company making nail products called Acme Nails for want of a better name and they have 10 staff and each of those 10 staff create 10 accounts on here - we dont always know this so there you will automatically get 100 positive results for that company.

I know you have the best intentions and on the face of it it does sound like a good idea, but as I said, this was discussed recently and for all the above reasons it doesnt seem feasible.

I do wish others would give input or this thread may become closed as we are talking to each other Victoria LOL.

 

[yeahyeah]

i think this is a great idea, maybe its not right for this site but im sure someone could be very successful if they started something like this. it would be more a database of information than a forum. maybe a consumer reporting type thing with no discussion capabilities (with professionals being the "consumers", not our consumers
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