Rewards (or bribes) for reviews?

[Poenald Palen]

Since the person could give bad stars, since you are not able to control the star reviews it is more of a reward. But, if a person puts in thier listing they will reward good feedback only, then it is more like a bribe..sort of, right?

I am not sure, but I don't think this is unethical. But, more or less....I mean, is it wrong or against some TOS I can't remember?

 

I am not necessarily wanting to do this myself, so need to check my listings lol. But, I saw one listing on marketplace.secondlife.com that had a mention about giving the first so many reviews a reward. I figure this was maybe not ethical, but then realised....they do not say it must be a good review!

Strangely, I am not thinking it really helps as much as other promotional things. Plus, you run the risk of a competitor thinking you are cheating and out do you or even simply use 5 alts or friends and trash your product! But, this is rare I bet....but, since it appears to mean something to the offerer...it makes you wonder. So, I see little risk and a tiny reward that is maybe just nice for word of mouth AND the big important factor....if you do this for all your products people will sign up for you news/updates list or check your marketplace.secondlife.com store all the time!!

This is the where it pays off for the creator, they get people checking for new releases all the time? I wont be following them, but if I was in teh market for something like they sell....well, can't do much harm and I can give feedback of any type...well, maybe. Maybe they might not pay if you give it mediocre reviews (legitimatly) because...well, there are not any official rules or laws governing this I guess!

So, most likely they will not get below 3 stars, right.....but then again, if they are remotely even trying to keep thier item listed, it works enough ect. and is close to as advertised there usually isn't a reason to give something less than 3 stars...so, yeah....seems like it pays off. By the time I get done thinking about this, I figure it might be worth doing something like this. But not on the marketplace, more like a beta test group that gets the itemm for free for thier feedback and complaints....sort of still a free for feedback program though. Still not sure though, I will have to figure it out in time, to much RL stuff to deal with. 

[Ry0ta Exonar]

It's on KB. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Writing-item-reviews-on-the-Marketplace/ta-p/954941

3. Reviews must not violate the Second Life Terms of Service or Marketplace Listing Guidelines in any way.
This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Reviews should be appropriate to the maturity rating of the listed item.
• Reviews should not be left by the seller of that item, whether with the selling account or an alt account.
• Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation unless both positive and negative reviews are rewarded

[Poenald Palen]

Ry0ta Exonar wrote:

It's on KB.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Writing-item-reviews-on-the-Marketplace/ta-p/954941

3. Reviews must not violate the Second Life

Terms of Service

or Marketplace

Listing Guidelines

in any way.

This includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Reviews should be appropriate to the maturity rating of the listed item.
• Reviews should not be left by the seller of that item, whether with the selling account or an alt account.
• Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation unless both positive and negative reviews are rewarded

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Thanks, this is what I thought. But, it is rather strange still. I didn't think it was against TOS, but still seems almost like a bribe. Why? Well, for example. The store owner could easily just contact the ones who favored it first, then tell them only when a new product is out! I mean....you get all your money back, or even more! So, it seems a so easy to game with little thought, I mean....I thought of this work aroudn as I was typing here just now! 

So, I get it's an ethics issue, and maybe unstopable either way...but putting the offer right in the review? Not saying the people who are doing it are cheating, I have gave items to people for feedback in world...but not stars! I gave them an item because they told me what they didn't like, or test driven a car. I like the idea of using legit feedback to help make the product better. But star reviews on the site....well, like I said....what is to stop a person from getting cheated or cheating....so, maybe not bother? But, this guy was obvious with it and you can ethically see how we can now maybe discount the first paid reviews lol. So, he gains little but feedback and search ranking for those who sort by star rating and maybe popularity. 

IU say he generically, I don't know the avatar or even thier name! I just say it as I was browsing and clicked the product because it looked and sounded cool. And, then I was sort of laughing and thinking....isn't that a bit untrustworthy? But, it makes me think twice about the first few reviews!! Now, this upsets me....I didn't pay people for my reviews....but, will others think as I have and discount anything with less than 100 star reviews or something? And, what if they guy simply paid like 20+ reviews and said nothing and the people who did this just spread it all word of mouth? Makes me wonder! Are star reviews that useless? I mean, the very latest ones will let you know of bugs or maybe if the store owner basically has no delivery happening....but, seriously..I should have made a different thread about "How many reviewers have been paid to review?" or something else....but, bride seems totally an odd feeling I get when I see that. Weird...much more of a social/pschological question there really, not really something to post here on an SL forums. But, there are some smart people here....so, maybe I should have went that route? Either way, I predict the abysmal failure of this thread lol.

But, thanks for the TOS post! I think I have heard about this and didn't want to bother, because I know it is almost unstoppable anyway due to circles of freinds and such. 

[BlacksunN8]

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Reviews should not be written for pay, or for other rewards or compensation unless both positive and negative reviews are rewarded

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Well, nobody observes this rule when it comes to bad reviews. Therefore I advice to ignore this what they call rating system completely because its too easy to game.

Couple of months ago I purchased a product where the seller said in the description that you will get a few money back when you leave a review.  I gave a 3 star review because the product was not as advertised and it had a lot of texture flickering. In a word, it looked like a piece of crap and since it was not possible to see it inworld before buying it, i had to contact the seller afterwards and asked if its possible to fix at least all the flickering. He just said the item is modifiable so i can fix it myself.

And this made me give 3 stars.Well this kind of customer service usually deserves 1 star. But im always trying to be fair. And 3stars is not that bad. But after that i contacted this seller again and asked for the cash back because i left a review. I got Nothing!

This is my experience with bribes for reviews and im sure most of them act the same way. The product got flagged by me because i knew about this rule in the tos. But nothing happened!

Instead, Two days later my review was gone. Seems it was flagged by the seller and the dense LL trainee deleted the review finally. I feel ripped off all along. From the seller and from the LINDEN LAB !!

To sum up i can say, everybody is ignoring everything here and the LL lost the control. So the question is not if its unethical or ethical, its rather the question if this rating system makes sense at all. Im a customer and when i see that someone offers rewards for reviews , i would never trust the given reviews cause the reason for these reviews is mostly the reward and rarely the satisfaction.