Vendor rating forum

[EmilyB]

Why has the vendor rating forum been taken offline? :confused:

[Willow]

looks like it's locked.

[muck]

yeah i was wondering that as well.. :confused:

[Aquattro]

I think at this point, all we can say is it may be a conflict of interest in the future. With recent changes to the board, we have to re-evalute some of our features and forums, with Vendor Ratings being a questionable item.

[Willow]

what does that mean it's pretty vauge?

[Aquattro]

it's pretty vauge?

yup..

I suspect Titus will have an official explanation coming, but until then, vague is all I have. Sorry.

[Cap'n]

I think it's a good call. That forum never generated anything but animosity and argumentative threads anyway.

[Gujustud]

maybe the vendor rating can be changed from actual stores, to rather product ratings instead.

[Aquattro]

to rather product ratings instead.

Hmm. I thought we had a product review forum somewhere. Where did it go?

[Aquattro]

Found it!

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=36

[Gujustud]

My Mistake. I guess this one gets confused with the manufactures listed in the subject line.

[titus]

Hello,

The Vendor Rating forum had always been the one that generated questionable and grey area discussions. The Staff spent more time discussing about issues related to the forum than anywhere else.

Since we are under a rather big change (at least on our end on server changes, traffic charges for our server, and web page layouts), I have decided to streamline the board also by removing this forum for better resource utilization on our part.

Titus

[michika]

Will we ever be getting it back?

I personally found it to be a valuable resource in deciding where my business should be directed. I know it was contraversial at times (most of the time), but I still hope you consider returning it as a unlocked forum.

Snarky comments aside regarding particular vendors. What about doing a new format for vendor rating. E.g.

Vendor name; a click box to rate them under different catagories from 1-10. Catagories being things like; shipping speed, customer service, product range, quality of products. Then have all the answers averaged and displayed for board users to see. Even if there is no comment option available I still think it would help canreef users in a small way to decided how they want to spend their money and in the best possible way.

I still think being able to comment about vendors and our experiences with them is very beneficial to the board in more then one way. Other reefers learn about vendors, as well as some of us get the chance to vent our issue with them. How many people in everyday life are going to understand why you are upset that ordered 100 crabs and they all died, most people think your crazy.

So please guys I know moderating the vendor rating board sucks the proverbial big one, so why not pick 3 separate mods aside from yourselves to JUST be responsible for the vendor rating. Just a thought. hopefully one you will consider.

~M

[Chad]

I like that idea, and have it an ongoing poll or something so everyone can give their rating and we get an average rating of the store..

[titus]

Hello,

I wish things can be as simple as that. We did request to have posts be within specific frame work, yet there are posts that ended up needing us to close it down. Maybe 1,000 members can observe the rules, but then there comes the 1,001st member who doesn't visit the site often and start a convtroversial subject, and on we go again....

Maybe in the future... but not now.

Titus

[michika]

What about an off-site vendor rating not related to canreef? Would that be somethingn that would be acceptable to you at canreef?

[Chad]

I like the idea without the comments..

Just - so an so company - with about 10 different criteria like stock availabilty, helpfulness etc etc.

and then a rating between 1 to 10 for those things.

----

so you have a poll that only the mods can make and no one else. If there is a new store, someone PM's a mod, tells them the name and location and the mod makes a new poll for that store. So there could be 20 ongoing polls. You can either just view the poll results and or enter your own rating for that store.

if you take out the comments and not allowing posting within the forum you can avoid the agruements

[michika]

I'm just tempted to come up with a page myself; since it doesn't seem to be something that Canreef itself is interested in I might just consider making my own vendor rating forum offsite from Canreef.

I still think the vendor rating forum had merit and value and I do want to make sure that others are able to have access to the information contained within it.

[Willow]

the thing i liked about the forum was hearing what diffrent people though of the shop and what issues they had with it. the vendors could have really benifited from this if they would listen to what customers were saying.

[michika]

I definatly agree with you there. For me I found it useful because I knew when I was shopping with a particular vendor what to expect or not expect e.g. quick shipping, or bad service.

I am toying with the idea of having my own mini forum to rate and discuss our vendor experiences.

[Willow]

I definatly agree with you there. For me I found it useful because I knew when I was shopping with a particular vendor what to expect or not expect e.g. quick shipping, or bad service.

I am toying with the idea of having my own mini forum to rate and discuss our vendor experiences.

hmm sorta like rate-your-vendor ala ratemypoo hehe.

[michika]

I think we as consumers should be able to communicate to each other our experiences regarding vendors in the hobby. I will see how much work/time/space it requires and then I will look into implementing my idea.

[Aquattro]

What about an off-site vendor rating not related to canreef? Would that be somethingn that would be acceptable to you at canreef?

no, Canreef is not going to affiliate itself with or endorse any type of Vendor Ratings page.

[Aquattro]

I think we as consumers should be able to communicate to each other our experiences regarding vendors in the hobby. I will see how much work/time/space it requires and then I will look into implementing my idea.

I agree this is something consumers should have, and wish you luck with it. Unfortunately it doens't fit with our goals at this time.

[Zerandise]

a vendor rating forum would also work as a form of advertisement for stores that dont sponcer the forum. it, like the no selling of reef related items, would use system resources and not bring in a profit. as a person who runs a number of dedicated servers i know the cost involved. I can only assume that canreef is not the only site on the server. if they dont pay then its fat that needs to be trimmed.

same would go with an off site rating forum. I would think if you payed the monthly sponcer fee it would be ok. otherwise its not worth the time and headache that it would create for the staff.

I could be wrong on these points but i think i am prety close.

[michika]

I want to do something that isn't related or affilitaed with canreef at all. I think the "trimming of the fat" has taken away some of the sites muscle. But as you've pointed out you aren't interested in doing anything like that. Thats your choice.

I don't want to be affiliated with canreef if I did chose to do my own vendor rating site anyways.

[Zerandise]

I think we as consumers should be able to communicate to each other our experiences regarding vendors in the hobby. I will see how much work/time/space it requires and then I will look into implementing my idea.

setting up a forum takes roughly 10 minutes. the space and resources needed to run a site is minimal. Even a site with a 1000+ members takes very little resources. The server we ran 30+ sites on, some with over 100,000 members, cost us less than $120 US a month to run. you should be able to find a shared host that would fit your bill for under $15.

making the site look like your own takes a bit more time. you would need to find and import a theme as well as make a logo. all of it is free if you search the net a bit.

anyway i have rambled on. im sure you already know most of this anyway :)

if you have any questions please feel free to send me a pm so we dont have to highjack a thread.

[michika]

I'll pm you in a bit!