Problem Where are the stars for opening the review form?

[Mpmackenna]

I just wrote a review a couple of weeks back but now I swear I can not find the link. Have I lost my mind?

Screenshot From 2018-05-15 09-24-06

• Mpmackenna
• May 15, 2018

Where oh where is the spot to create a review?

 

[AngelDeVille]

Was it the one on taking your centipede on walks?

 

[BoyFromLA]

From here:



Scroll down a bit more.

 

[Mpmackenna]

Looks like you are in Dealer Reviews inside of Reviews and Reports, which is where I am at on the site. My page doesn't look anything like yours when I click on The Invert Shop and I still don't see anything that says "Rate and Review Item". I even did a search with the browser for "rate and" and their were no results found. I am on a PC using Google Chrome as my browser. Thanks!

Update: I can find the link to create a review for other dealers just not the one for The Invert Shop. Tried on my phone too. No luck.

 

[cold blood]

Not sure what the issue is...going to that review page, your review from 4/18 is there.

http://arachnoboards.com/reviews-reports/the-invert-shop.256/

 

[The Snark]

Forums > Reviews & Reports > Reviews > Dealer Reviews

Alternately, just accept yourself lucky and recall the olde adage, "Never look down and see stars".

 

[Mpmackenna]

Not sure what the issue is...going to that review page, your review from 4/18 is there.

http://arachnoboards.com/reviews-reports/the-invert-shop.256/

I agree. Which makes it all the more confusing. I was able to write a review on 4/18. I would like to write a new review. Now I can't seem to find where the link is to create a review. Here are two screenshots showing the issue.

View media item 50345
View media item 50344

 

[cold blood]

ahhhh....you are only able to write one review per seller with the new system...thats why you no longer see the option to leave another.

 

[Mpmackenna]

ahhhh....you are only able to write one review per seller with the new system...thats why you no longer see the option to leave another.

Good to know. Thank you.

 

[The Snark]

ahhhh....you are only able to write one review per seller with the new system...thats why you no longer see the option to leave another.

It is sometimes called 'Padding' and falls under the false advertising glop of both criminal and civil jurisdictions. AB has taken commendable measures to assure the reviews are as honest as possible.

What you don't want:

Spoiler

It came to my attention a few days ago of a forum that lures people to their site with the claim of over 45,000 visitors and 10,000 member log-ons per 24 hours. Alarm bells went off when it was noted there were less than 50 active regular posters. A group of net security people doubted the figures and did a little checking. The base number count wasn't zero but rolled over, therefore never could go below 5000, and the majority of those log-ons appeared to be bots. What was of interest is this is a law enforcement forum. Not illegal but certainly a good example of the need of truth in advertising and applying certain restrictions on net sites.

 

[Mpmackenna]

It is sometimes called 'Padding' and falls under the false advertising glop of both criminal and civil jurisdictions. AB has taken commendable measures to assure the reviews are as honest as possible.

What you don't want:

Spoiler

It came to my attention a few days ago of a forum that lures people to their site with the claim of over 45,000 visitors and 10,000 member log-ons per 24 hours. Alarm bells went off when it was noted there were less than 50 active regular posters. A group of net security people doubted the figures and did a little checking. The base number count wasn't zero but rolled over, therefore never could go below 5000, and the majority of those log-ons appeared to be bots. What was of interest is this is a law enforcement forum. Not illegal but certainly a good example of the need of truth in advertising and applying certain restrictions on net sites.

Not sure I agree with all of that. There's no substitute for active moderators on a forum and limiting reviews to 1 review ever seems counter productive to me. Perhaps a better system would be one review per member for any one item per month. They should also be moderated for content. In this particular case, the review was to be five stars like my previous review, but what if a vendor quits being great after a long period of time? Should only those who haven't reviewed the vendor before be allowed to comment on that experience? If the experience declines then am I to edit my previous review? If so, does the bad experience somehow trump the earlier good experience?

Mike

 

[The Snark]

Not sure I agree with all of that.

I assume you know the moderators here are all volunteers.
AB is in part, a labor of love. As it stands, it's amazing the forum works as well as it does. I know @MrDeranged has spent an awful lot of sleepless nights gluing and taping this thing together. A shoe string bootstrap operation that owes it's thanks to a heck of a lot of voluntary efforts and hours.

We are always free to offer suggestions as to how to make AB run better, but take into account programming on the forum is primarily the efforts of one individual, often unpaid.
If it was a highly profitable enterprise with a trained staff of professionals all sorts of tweaks and improvements could be made.

I wish MrD would set aside in a sticky the efforts that went into porting AB to XenForo. 3 nightmare months of fussing and troubleshooting. It would offer a glimpse into all the voluntary efforts that have gone into this place.

 

[Mpmackenna]

I've worked in IT for twenty years. I've spent the last 12 of them working as a network and systems administrator. I've stood up forums before and I've managed forums before. I completely understand how much of a pain managing a forum can be. I am not questioning any of that. I didn't even say I wanted anything changed. All I said was "Good to know. Thank you".
I already assumed that this site was probably managed/owned by a single individual. I also already assumed that all the moderators were volunteers. The part I disagree with was the implication that any changes to the review system would lead to 5000 bots logged in to the site making fake reviews. If you have 5000 bots with valid accounts on your forum then you are not managing your forum. You are just standing it up and walking away.
I am a paid supporter of the forum. When you pay for something I feel you have the right to make suggestions. I didn't even make a suggestion about what should be changed. All I did was ask a few questions about what is considered the best process for making more than a single review for a particular vendor and I am absolutely OK with the the answer being "you can't at this time".
If the site is really that much of a heavy burden for a single individual then something should be changed. What happens when the single owner of this site decides he is tired of it? What happens if tomorrow the single owner of this site gets hit by a bus? The answer to these questions are that some other single individual will probably stand up another site and in this site's absence everyone will move to the new site.
However, if that is not the answer, if this site is really such an anomaly then you should be looking at a way of better protecting it rather than having it solely owned and operated by a single individual. Perhaps that individual should be forming a nonprofit organization and adding someone else to the organization so that in the event of his untimely demise someone else can take over and maintain what he has built. He (the current owner) should of course pay himself a salary from that NPO as his efforts should absolutely be compensated.
Again, I am not suggesting that.
All I am suggesting is that your implication that my questions about the review items may ultimately lead to armies of bots taking over the universe are false.
That is and was my only disagreement with your previous post.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you (The Snark) for taking the time to ponder these ideas and to offer your take on all of this as that indicates that you are an engaged member of the site and that you care about its future. That is great and appreciated!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the owner/operator of this site. It is a great site that I thoroughly enjoy which is why I gladly pay my monetary subscription to the site and make an effort to click on any ads that I find even remotely interesting.
I would also like to thank all of the moderators that volunteer their time to help keep the site running smoothly.
I'd say "Make Arachnoboards Great Again!", but it's too late. This site is already great.

Mike

 

[Ungoliant]

Not sure I agree with all of that. There's no substitute for active moderators on a forum and limiting reviews to 1 review ever seems counter productive to me. Perhaps a better system would be one review per member for any one item per month. They should also be moderated for content. In this particular case, the review was to be five stars like my previous review, but what if a vendor quits being great after a long period of time? Should only those who haven't reviewed the vendor before be allowed to comment on that experience? If the experience declines then am I to edit my previous review? If so, does the bad experience somehow trump the earlier good experience?

I would like to enable multiple reviews by the same person for the same seller, but I believe this is a not-so-easy-to-fix limitation of the way the current review system works (as opposed to a deliberate effort to prevent bots from spamming phony reviews).

Unfortunately, the software we are currently using only supports one review per user per item. We're working with the developer on that issue.

Sorry, at this point, they still have not come up with anything to resolve this issue.

 

[Mpmackenna]

I would like to enable multiple reviews by the same person for the same seller, but I believe this is a not-so-easy-to-fix limitation of the way the current review system works

Thank you. I appreciate all that you guys do. I also would like to apologize to @The Snark if I seemed overly defensive or if my suggestions/questions seemed to imply that changes to the site are somehow trivial to implement. That was not my intention.

Perhaps I should cut back on my caffeine intake.

Thanks again.
Mike

 

[Malo]

It came to my attention a few days ago of a forum that lures people to their site with the claim of over 45,000 visitors and 10,000 member log-ons per 24 hours. Alarm bells went off when it was noted there were less than 50 active regular posters. A group of net security people doubted the figures and did a little checking. The base number count wasn't zero but rolled over, therefore never could go below 5000, and the majority of those log-ons appeared to be bots. What was of interest is this is a law enforcement forum. Not illegal but certainly a good example of the need of truth in advertising and applying certain restrictions on net sites.

There's actually a XenForo plugin that someone made that basically allows site owners to add visitor padding to the site statistics so it looks like the forum is really busy when in fact it's not. It's a terrible practice and I'm fairly sure of one forum I visit that does this though it's hard to prove without devoting some significant time spent on it.

 

[The Snark]

@Mpmackenna Insightful post. I put my time in as sysadmin a while back. Quit when the boss had the -?bright?- idea of porting a customer DB from linux to NT, 3.5 no less. (You want to trade your Scania in on for a Jeep Cherokee with flat tires?).

Hopefully @MrDeranged and XenForo will be able to work things out.

I think the past presidential election was a good slap in the face wake up call as far as the internet corrupting and hijacking goes. Time for people to become discerning and stop swallowing wholesale. The BS is out there in force and with crap like net neutrality on the line it's going to get worse before it gets better. It's up to the individuals to take to the moral high ground.