Review: True or False

[Emma Smith]

The last review (Jenna @BP) has made me thinking about reviews.

I have been checking massageplanet.net for a while now and read a lot of reviews. When I read a positive review where reviewer uses all these superlatives about an MPA without providing any details to justify the review, I think that the review was written by the MPA herself.

Negative reviews are more likely to happen since nobody is perfect and MPAs cannot be 100% all the time. Also, guys are more likely to express their anger if they had unsatisfactory session. If one likes MPA a lot, one might want to keep her for himself.

These were my thoughts. What about yours?

 

[Mary P]

Yes and no. Every review/reviewer is different. IMO the best approach is to judge each review on it's own merits. Most reviews that are posted by MPAs themselves can be easily spotted. Likewise, a negative review can be planted by jealous coworkers or a competing establishment.

Hence it is hard to generalize.

 

[bak0ntrak2009]

Yes, its hard sometimes to tell the shills from the genuine. I dislike explicit reviews, no need for it. However when you see a review from a long time poster, you can take those comments to the bank. Sometimes a newbie will post a review and a veteran poster will back it up.

The more people talk about a certain lass, the more popular she is. The more popular she gets, the more people complain. Its a vicious cycle sometimes.

 

[Lorna]

If a newbie posts and a veteran backs it up, it's the real deal. What you have to look for is the reviews that pop up by a newbie and a second, and a third for the same MP or MPA. One of the best things that Fred did for this board was the search function. I said in a prior post I would love to see a rule where a newbie had to review three different MP's with the first post. Almost an initiation

 

[Hina Jamil]

and make it 3 visits in one day...then we'll know a serious mp goer

...as for reviews...I go with the flow...if it's obviously a fake I just throw it to the side and move on...if I agree I comment...I have given good and bad reviews of good and bad mps...it's all the same...bad ones are easy to spot because without backup to a post that posting really looks bad...discrete details that most need to know will be enough...

 

[mayank]

The biggest problem here is that the reviews are very subjective (of course) and there's no uniform way of guiding or validating them. How about if we ALL try to compose some general principles of writing a review. What I have in mind is something in a form of categories, which we already have, but perhaps we could expand on them, e.g.

1. Appearance: (here, specific items to chose from, e.g. blond, brunette, etc., no personally coloured expressions such as "the look of a goddess"...
2. Personality: (same concept as above)...
3. Friendliness: (same)...
4. Level of service/skills: e.g. type of massage, etc.
...etc.
5. Miscellaneous/Comments, etc.

These are just to give everyone an idea. Yet, the categories with subtypes are to be thought of and constructed here. Possibly, in order to increase objectivity, we could limit or give a choice to reviewers in each of categories, so there's less room for an exaggerated description or a temptation to discuss some illegal extras.

Well, the point is that we could get a matrix/template to generalize hobbyists' experiences. This way the reviews might lose alluring and prose like character, but gain more objectivity. If some of our talented reviewers feel like mentioning particular highlights of their experiences, they could express themselves in the Miscellaneous section and again try to keep it to the minimum with concrete examples.

Additionally, if we adopted a standard way of writing reviews, the process could be more economical and possibly allow for involving more lurkers who hate composing long paragraphs.

In reading the reviews, of course, we would still have some reservations as all of you mentioned here.

Just a thought that requires some refined work to put it into use. What do you all think?

P.S.
This format could serve as an alternative to writing reviews, not the only possible way of doing them (for those who wouldn't like it).

 

[MixedMojo]

Although some interesting suggestions have been made, I don't think there is really any solution to the bogus review. I think the most effective solution is Fred's "the best approach is to judge each review on it's own merits".

Part of the problem is it is hard to verify a review that is too vague, but it is not fair to the mp or the mpa if you are too graphic in your review. The best reviews walk the fine line inbetween.

As far as restricting or setting conditions under which new members are allowed to post reviews, is a bad idea imho. Only because there are not enough members that post their mp experiences as it is, and setting more obsticals in the way of timid lurkers will not help the review base grow.

To be honest I do not think that there are all that many fake reviews. I know it happens time to time, but I suspect when it does they are called into question, by the veteran members.

TheFan brings up an interesting classification of review, the "Shill" review.

"Shill reviews are different. They tend to come from members with a few posts to their names and, while they may have some basis in reality, are written more to impress the lady in question rather then to add any value to the board. You can usually identify these sort of people by doing a search of their posts. Inevitably, 80%-90% of their posts will be in threads related to that SP."

I have seen many posts that fit this description, hell I have posts that might fit this description. However I am not sure there is anything wrong with them, as long as they are based on actual sessions with that mpa. Think about it if your first trip ever to an mp was last week and you had a very expensive session at a place like IT or BP, you know there is a great chance that you would be blown away by a girl who a seasoned hobbiest might consider average.

 

[Zachariah]

This probably won't solve the problem of real/fake reviews but maybe the thing we need is some general feedback for each review. I don't go to MPs that often, (only did two reviews of 6 or 7 mpas) so when I tried to write a review I really didn't know what to say. When I finally did a review I liked the feedback I got (from posts and PMs).

Since many of us massageplanet.netos read reviews but don't post any replys, the person posting the review doesn't know what everyone thinks of their review. If we are knowledgable about the mp or mpa in question, as responsible posters we should always try to give feedback in some form. Was the review lacking in detail. Was the praise too glowing, or the criticism too harsh? In most reviews that highly praise an mpa I often see replies like SPAM SPAM SPAM. And in highly negative reviews I see YMMV. This type of response doesn't help other massageplanet.netites that don't know that mpa. And in false reviews the posters probably don't care what others think so you'll never hear from them again.

Feedback won't stop fake reviews but it might help real reviews. By seeing the reaction of other posters we should all be able to get a feel (no pun intended) if the review was fake/spam or was real. It might improve our understanding of each other and improve our review skills.

For starters I'll review a popular mpa from a popular mp and see you folks react (I had a session with her for the first time last week).