superpeeve Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

[AmeliaJ08]

It's a shame how few people leave reviews on MP. It is definitely gamed but gaming could be negated with people bothering to leave real reviews.

I know it's a flawed system (only applies to MP purchases for one) and it does require you to spend a minute doing so but... reviews can be useful, I have gleaned genuine information from them a few times but the vast bulk of products get absolutely no reviews at all.

I wish LL would fix this, they've got Caspervend now, they could integrate the bulk of MP and IW sales data to at least make it possible for more people to engage in the system and make it better.

 

[AmeliaJ08]

10 hours ago, Mistress Morbid said:

Very peeved once again at what passes for customer service by some merchants in SL, as twice in the past week I have had to contact sellers about issues with purchases, and been completely ignored. There are no consequences for merchants who refuse to provide customer service, other than losing customers who have bad experiences. New customers are not protected at all.

Yeah.

If you buy enough in SL you *will* run into it and maybe 50% of the time it will be solved. The rest... they just ignore you.

I'm probably being generous with that 50% figure, I have definitely had some problems fixed (and promptly, recently bought a hair from one of the big names at an event and the HUD was faulty, informed creator and it was fixed within hours) but plenty more have just received no reply from the creators.

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

36 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

It's a shame how few people leave reviews on MP.

There is generally no point in leaving a review on the MP.

If you give it 5 stars, people assume you are an alt of the vendor, and ignore it.

If you give LESS than 5 stars, the vendor complains to LL that your review is unfair, and has it removed.

Meh.

[PermaRuthed]

4 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

There is generally no point in leaving a review on the MP.

If you give it 5 stars, people assume you are an alt of the vendor, and ignore it.

If you give LESS than 5 stars, the vendor complains to LL that your review is unfair, and has it removed.

Meh.

Wait, you're saying it's Maddie giving all these fake 5-star reviews all along? If everybody is Maddie's alts, then this some grandfather paradox stuff. Or something.... Those poor vendors!!

[Love Zhaoying]

Peeve: First weather this season under 50F today here, in Florida.

[Arielle Popstar]

On 11/28/2023 at 10:52 AM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

There is generally no point in leaving a review on the MP.

If you give it 5 stars, people assume you are an alt of the vendor, and ignore it.

If you give LESS than 5 stars, the vendor complains to LL that your review is unfair, and has it removed.

Meh.

Lots seem to think the reviews are gamed but if that was really the case I would expect to see many more positive reviews across a Creators product line, which I personally don't see. 

How often does LL actually remove negative reviews and would they really remove a review which is often subjective at best? One would think reviews are a resident to resident dispute so something the lab is quick to wash their hands off of besides the fact that if they start doing that, the disputes would be more likely to spill over into the forums.

[Rolig Loon]

They're not necessarily gamed; just unreliable. People are most likely to express an opinion if they feel strongly about a matter, so reviews tend to overemphasize the extremes.  Couple that with the fact that most people don't leave reviews at all, and what you get is an unrepresentative sample provided by a handful of enthusiasts and another handful of grumps. The best you can say in most cases is that the answer is "meh". I rarely pay any attention to reviews unless they make a specific observation about some feature of the product, like "The description didn't tell me that this is fitted mesh" or "I was really pleased by the way the doors open in this house."   💗💗💗💗💗 doesn't tell me a thing.

[Arielle Popstar]

35 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They're not necessarily gamed; just unreliable. People are most likely to express an opinion if they feel strongly about a matter, so reviews tend to overemphasize the extremes.  Couple that with the fact that most people don't leave reviews at all, and what you get is an unrepresentative sample provided by a handful of enthusiasts and another handful of grumps. The best you can say in most cases is that the answer is "meh". I rarely pay any attention to reviews unless they make a specific observation about some feature of the product, like "The description didn't tell me that this is fitted mesh" or "I was really pleased by the way the doors open in this house."   💗💗💗💗💗 doesn't tell me a thing.

I did say they were often subjective but those reviews where the Creator did not respond at all to the negative review or to an inworld message or notecard is telling to the degree they support their product.

[Orwar]

23 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They're not necessarily gamed; just unreliable.

   Feels like that's often the case with reviews on other sites as well. My father visited the town I'd been studying in for years, during which I'd thoroughly tested all the pizza places with a classmate to figure out which one was the best. But he didn't seem to trust our judgement, and instead went to browse reviews on some app; our favourite restaurant had like 3.4 stars, one a little further down the road had something like 4.8. I couldn't be bothered to argue about it so I let him feel like a tech wiz genius and have his pick - of course he ended up complaining about how the pizza toppings didn't feel very fresh and how the crust was all doughy and the sauce was bland, and how back in the metropolis they had better pizzas made by genuine hipsters equipped with wood burning ovens. 

   Our favourite pizza place might not have had any hipsters or wood burning ovens, but they used fresh stuff, and the pizza crust was great. But noo, the hive mind's judgement was more important than our experience. 

   Reading reviews can give you an idea of what to look for when demoing a product, if someone mentions the rigging looks weird when seated in a dress it might be worth trying to sit down with it to see for yourself, but I'd never buy a product based on the reviews alone.

   .. Peeve: soggy pizzas. 

[Rolig Loon]

30 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I did say they were often subjective but those reviews where the Creator did not respond at all to the negative review or to an inworld message or notecard is telling to the degree they support their product.

They're always subjective.  They can't be anything else. And yes, if a review made a point of saying that the creator didn't respond to feedback or a request for help, that would be helpful information. I don't often see people write that in a review, though.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Rolig Loon
typos. as always.

[Love Zhaoying]

58 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They're not necessarily gamed; just unreliable. People are most likely to express an opinion if they feel strongly about a matter, so reviews tend to overemphasize the extremes.  Couple that with the fact that most people don't leave reviews at all, and what you get is an unrepresentative sample provided by a handful of enthusiasts and another handful of grumps. The best you can say in most cases is that the answer is "meh". I rarely pay any attention to reviews unless they make a specific observation about some feature of the product, like "The description didn't tell me that this is fitted mesh" or "I was really pleased by the way the doors open in this house."   💗💗💗💗💗 doesn't tell me a thing.

^^THIS!!!!!

[Arielle Popstar]

21 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They're always subjective.  They can't be anything else. And yes, if a review made a point of saying that the creator didn't respond to feedback or a request for help, that would be helpful information. I don't often see people write that it a review, though.

I'll have to stick with "often" subjective as I have run into cases of non-delivery, false advertisement of colour swathes and scripts not working as intended. Though they were matters that were eventually resolved by the creator, it did take leaving a negative review and the creators reply and fix for those to be sorted out.

[Love Zhaoying]

Are merchants "notified" when someone leaves a review? Otherwise, how do they even know?

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I'll have to stick with "often" subjective as I have run into cases of non-delivery, false advertisement of colour swathes and scripts not working as intended. Though they were matters that were eventually resolved by the creator, it did take leaving a negative review and the creators reply and fix for those to be sorted out.

But in many of those those cases the review is misleading.  "Non-delivery" is very often either a Marketplace system error or a user error, neither of which tells you anything about the merchant or the product. "Scripts not working as intended" tells me nothing, unless it says specifically what the scripts didn't do.  Reviews like that are particularly misleading if the creator has already resolved the issue (perhaps by rewording the ad or by pointing out to the reviewer that -- duh -- she has to press the big SAVE button to store new preferences).  A stale negative review is even worse than one that was written by the merchant's alt or ex-partner.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

43 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

They're always subjective.  They can't be anything else.

I am going to respectfully disagree on this.

Yes, a 💗💗💗💗💗 review is going to be highly subjective, but I find that many do provide useful details. I remember one I ran across last year, for a supposedly mesh plant, that noted that the item was literally a flat mesh piece with a texture identical to the one in listing on it. And there are a great many others that offer useful detail, such as objects with poor LOD.

I don't leave reviews for everything I buy on the MP by any means, but I do try to praise really excellent products, and I do leave "warnings" about ones that have serious problems. Probably unsurprisingly, my reviews are rather wordy, but I do make an effort to detail why I love -- or don't love -- something.

Reading reviews is, I think, like anything else: an exercise in critical reading. 

[Rolig Loon]

6 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Are merchants "notified" when someone leaves a review? Otherwise, how do they even know?

Yes, if someone actually typed a message (not just clicked a button) the system automatically sends a note that gets forwarded to e-mail. It just says "XXX left a review of YYY." I suspect that most small time merchants (like me) log in to MP to see what the review said and then send a note back to XXX if it's something that needs a reply.  I am less confident that larger merchants or non-English-speaking ones respond as reliably.

[Rolig Loon]

6 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes, a 💗💗💗💗💗 review is going to be highly subjective, but I find that many do provide useful details.

I don't deny that at all.  When a review actually includes a detail that says more than "I liked it" or "I hated it", it can be quite helpful, especially if the comment is about something factual ("The ad says the dress is navy blue, but it's actually black").  A review is always a commentary on how well the buyer's expectations matched the seller's presentation, though, and that's a subjective matter. After all, some buyers are much more attentive to detail than others, have higher standards, or are simply more observant. 

All in all, I'm not quibbling with your observation, Scylla. Writing and reading reviews are both exercises in critical thinking. There can indeed be some helpful reviews. However, my feeling is that there are enough possibilities for confusion/misdirection/ineptitude on both sides of the equation that reviews in general have little value.

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

💗💗💗💗💗 doesn't tell me a thing.

We differ so much, Rolig.  Such a review tells me EVERYthing!

[Love Zhaoying]

27 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I suspect that most small time merchants (like me) log in to MP to see what the review said and then send a note back to XXX if it's something that needs a reply.  I am less confident that larger merchants or non-English-speaking ones respond as reliably.

I suspect most medium-or-larger merchants use a separate account for actual listings and transactions from their "real" main account, so as to avoid SPAM.  Those accounts funnel the money.. Anyway, unless they actually check those accounts, they won't see or get messages so..one more reason merchants may not respond sometimes.

[Luna Bliss]

On 11/28/2023 at 9:52 AM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

If you give LESS than 5 stars, the vendor complains to LL that your review is unfair, and has it removed.

Meh.

In my experience if you do submit a support ticket for what you perceive to be an unfair review the review actually does have to be unfair/inaccurate if it does get removed.  Generally they don't remove a customer's valid opinion on a MP review.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Luna Bliss

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Rolig Loon said:

But in many of those those cases the review is misleading.  "Non-delivery" is very often either a Marketplace system error or a user error, neither of which tells you anything about the merchant or the product. "Scripts not working as intended" tells me nothing, unless it says specifically what the scripts didn't do.  Reviews like that are particularly misleading if the creator has already resolved the issue (perhaps by rewording the ad or by pointing out to the reviewer that -- duh -- she has to press the big SAVE button to store new preferences).  A stale negative review is even worse than one that was written by the merchant's alt or ex-partner.

A negative review without a response from the store owner always tells me how invested the proprietor is with customer service, regardless of what the problem really was. I spent most of my adult life interacting with a customer base and found no faster way to lose them then to not respond to complaints regardless of how silly they were.

[Sid Nagy]

46 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I suspect most medium-or-larger merchants use a separate account for actual listings and transactions from their "real" main account, so as to avoid SPAM.  Those accounts funnel the money.. Anyway, unless they actually check those accounts, they won't see or get messages so..one more reason merchants may not respond sometimes.

You get e-mail notifications, not inworld.

[Sid Nagy]

6 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

A negative review without a response from the store owner always tells me how invested the proprietor is with customer service, regardless of what the problem really was. I spent most of my adult life interacting with a customer base and found no faster way to lose them then to not respond to complaints regardless of how silly they were.

Responding to customers is indeed essential, also in my book.
But one never can win them all. There are people who think that one has to respond instantly, like 5 minutes max, as if merchants are 24/7 available for Second Life and all live in the same time zone.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I'll have to stick with "often" subjective as I have run into cases of non-delivery

A while back, a well known merchant who DESERVES to be nameless, did a discount promotion of a new product on the MP.

I like a fairly significant number of others, attempted to take advantage of this offer, only to find that due to some foul up, it simply wasn't delivered.

Just over HALF the reviews left were 5 stars and "Wow, this looks great, and WHEN it's delivered I'm sure it will be perfect ♥♥♥♥♥", the rest were mostly 1 star "was not delivered" with a smattering of 3 star "was not delivered but looks nice".

 

The merchant, responded with comments thanking the 5 star spammers, and belittling the 1 stars. Then they started manually sending the product via IM to the 5 stars, but anyone who didn't fawn over a thing they hadn't had, got left to the end.

The brands CSR IM'd the low star reviewers and ORDERED them to remove their reviews, and threw copies of the product at them via IM several DAYS after the delivery failed, and the merchant did like wise later.

 

46 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

In my experience if you do submit a support ticket for what you perceive to be an unfair review the review actually does have to be unfair/inaccurate if it does get removed

Despite about 45% of the reviews being UNDER 3 stars, the "average rating" for the product was supposedly 5. Then the merchant had all the reviews that were even slightly negative, removed.

A short while later they removed the listing, and relisted the product at the full price, with all the drama and bad reviews and doubting comments on the good reviews removed.

Relisting to purge reviews is against MP rules, removing reviews that are legitimate isn't supposed to happen.

But the application of the rules is ALSO... Subjective.

 

On the whole, I'm sticking with my original assessment of the usefulness of the review system.

 

"Meh..."

 

[Luna Bliss]

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

But the application of the rules is ALSO... Subjective.

 

On the whole, I'm sticking with my original assessment of the usefulness of the review system.

 

"Meh..."

lol about MEH 

It is subjective, and not always perfect.

If you can teach me how to get the bad rating on one of my products removed let me know!  It did not work for me. But...it was long ago and I think they outsourced customer support for the reviews then, and, they did not see the knock-down-dragout fight I had with that customer who went berserk in email outside our comment war on the MP.  I learned -- don't fight with the customer in the comments!  And, I only try to get a review removed if the customer truly did not read the blatant graphics and description that tell them what the product is, yet complain that the product is exactly that and so deserves 1 star.