Is it a job or a hobby?

I ask that question because sometimes I forget. At times the fun and joy of TrailCentral becomes work. Recently I received an email that turned it into work. I received the email on Friday and I let it stew for a couple days before I responsed.

Let me summarize very quickly. Allegedly there are some false comments being made about a shop and it touched the nerve of a visitor to TrailCentral who wanted me to remove the comments.

Email From Visitor

(I've removed the shop name, name, and username so you could understand the email without knowing who it was from)

In the reviews, you should remove the two reviews about (name) who is referred to as the owner...there has never been a (name) that has been an owner...i believe these are malicious reviews attempting to bad mouth the shop...same with the comment from (username) ... (username) works at the shop down the street...there have been numerous attempts on various sites to leave negative feedback which was all traced back to the bicycle shop down the street and a terminated employee. Thanks for looking in to this. I think some sort of more secure sign on system/registration is needed to keep this from happening more. Malicious and made up review are very easy to spot.

My Response

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to send the updated address. This has been changed on TrailCentral.

I appreciate your feedback and I did look into the reviews you brought to my attention and I have some good and bad news.

The bad news is that I won't be removing the reviews. Unfortunately, there is no way I can validate that the comments you made are true anymore than I can validate the comments on the shop listing are false. (I did try to validate your comments by searching google and looking at the shop website. I came up empty handed) The shop listings are an open forum for comments and I can't get into the business of censoring peoples opinions based on the opinions of others. That being said, I do have some good news.

I would recommend several things.

#1 You have the ability to review the shop. In your review, I would point out your argument that a person named doesn't own or work at the shop, while adding good points as to why you rated it as you did.

#2 Tell valid customers of the shop about this rating tool. Maybe link to it from your website. Allow them to rate your service and get a very good idea of what the customers think of this store. Soon these "bogus" reviews, which seem to happen about once a year will quickly not matter.

#3 Your comments did bring up a good point and although I don't think that a registration system for reviews is the answer, as it will not make it any less likely for stuff like this to happen, I do now see a flaw in the system. Many other sites allow people to rate the reviews in terms of how helpful they are. Your comments have put that ball in motion and I will do the same. Obviously this will take some work on TrailCentral and I can't deliver an ETA on when that functionality will be added, but I will save this email and when it is complete I will notify you of the new functionality.

Finally, I ask that you have faith in those that visit TrailCentral.com. As you said, "Malicious and made up reviews are very easy to spot." I truly believe that visitors to TrailCentral have the ability to spot and weed out the bad reviews.

Thank you and I'll be in contact,

www.TrailCentral.com
Colorado's Online Mountain Bike Resource