EXCELLENT POST Bumfie.... so many members appreciate this board yet i suspect alot take it for granted as well........ again EXCELLENT POST!
More reviews from new members: is there a reason to worry about shills?
- Thread starter MtlNewbie
- Start date
"Is there a reason to worry about shills?" In a word, NO
MERB reviews work like any other community reputation engine
If we were reading reviews of the Helen Rochester of Whores, there would be a single review, by a connoisseur, an expert in the field.
That paradigm seems to have been replaced these days by community reputational engines. See, for instance eBay, with seller and buyer ratings, so you know who you can trust.
Or Yelp.com - a single review isn't likely to be very helpful, but if a critical mass of people rate something highly, or poorly, it is likely to be great, or bad as the case may be.
A shill post may cause a brief run on a given girl, but if she can't fuck worth a damn, or isn't as hot as the review claims, that will be played out in due course, on the board, with contradictory information. In essence, an overly enthusiastic review can only serve to hurt a girl's business in the long run.
As to the moderators posting reviews; I did ask this question some time ago, and don't recall seeing an answer. 'do moderators suspend doing reviews during their tenure as a Mod on this board'?
Not that I see anything wrong with a Mod posting a review; or even the dread 'shill review' in a community forum, the edge cases of reviews that run contrary to everyone else' experience can easily be spotted, and discounted.
A friend of mine has done some paid work posting shill reviews of some agency girls to this and other boards. The agency gave up on doing it, they found it easier to just hire hot girls who know how to fuck, and let real reviews, from long-time members do the advertising for them. It provided, bottom line, better ROI.
MERB reviews work like any other community reputation engine
If we were reading reviews of the Helen Rochester of Whores, there would be a single review, by a connoisseur, an expert in the field.
That paradigm seems to have been replaced these days by community reputational engines. See, for instance eBay, with seller and buyer ratings, so you know who you can trust.
Or Yelp.com - a single review isn't likely to be very helpful, but if a critical mass of people rate something highly, or poorly, it is likely to be great, or bad as the case may be.
A shill post may cause a brief run on a given girl, but if she can't fuck worth a damn, or isn't as hot as the review claims, that will be played out in due course, on the board, with contradictory information. In essence, an overly enthusiastic review can only serve to hurt a girl's business in the long run.
As to the moderators posting reviews; I did ask this question some time ago, and don't recall seeing an answer. 'do moderators suspend doing reviews during their tenure as a Mod on this board'?
Not that I see anything wrong with a Mod posting a review; or even the dread 'shill review' in a community forum, the edge cases of reviews that run contrary to everyone else' experience can easily be spotted, and discounted.
A friend of mine has done some paid work posting shill reviews of some agency girls to this and other boards. The agency gave up on doing it, they found it easier to just hire hot girls who know how to fuck, and let real reviews, from long-time members do the advertising for them. It provided, bottom line, better ROI.
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Hilarious Analogy
Hilarious analogy. eBay is a public company with actual paid employees that has strict policies against shill bidding or manipulations that impact on the integrity of the site. They offer, via Paypal, a buyer protection program.
As for reviews of any type - restaurant, car, book, etc most consumers have a level of sophistication that tends to caution,preferring pleasant surprises to negative ones.
Bottom line. Regardless of the source, the nature, the quality or the venue the shill review has a long history - dating back to simple word of mouth, of being counter productive.
Hilarious analogy. eBay is a public company with actual paid employees that has strict policies against shill bidding or manipulations that impact on the integrity of the site. They offer, via Paypal, a buyer protection program.
As for reviews of any type - restaurant, car, book, etc most consumers have a level of sophistication that tends to caution,preferring pleasant surprises to negative ones.
Bottom line. Regardless of the source, the nature, the quality or the venue the shill review has a long history - dating back to simple word of mouth, of being counter productive.
Not to get too off topic here, but since you carry a needledick hardon that compels you to contradict everything I post here, I'd be delighted to hear how, in actual practice, posting a couple of glowing shill reviews of a hooker here differs significantly from the same kind of skew with regard to a buyer or seller evaluation on eBay. The point is, that with enough reviews of any given subject of said review, the evaluation normalizes to an agreed qualitative assessment. That eBay has structure to deal with financial fraud is irrelevant to this discussion, and indeed, there are checks and balances in place on MERB. That is what we are discussing, duh.
One more caveat. There are a number of loudmouths here who are so lame, the only place they participate is in The Lounge (instead of having the balls to participate in actual Internet forums where they would have to do so less anonymously), never bothering to actually contribute to the essence and quality of this board. Thus, taking into account the number of posts someone makes is a false indicator of the quality of a given review. For example, were this fine fellow to post a review, I personally would ignore it in terms of decision making, although it might be suitable for framing as his first sexual experience.
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I'm not reporting anything new. I know a guy who definitely was paid to shill by an agency. he isn't a mod, or even a board participant here, as far as I know. I do know he shilled on a number of review boards, and eventually the agency decided it wasn't worth the bother.
Not to be a dick, but the guy who started this thread had two or three total posts when he started it. Does that mean we are supposed to think he was a shill? Everyone has a first post. And often that post is a rave review, especially when it is someone, as mentioned above, who hasn't seen scores or hundreds of SPs yet, may have been desperately horny and is a little over the top (so to speak) due to factors like that.
I trust the mods to sniff out phonies. Seems the truth will out on this board, as they say.
I trust the mods to sniff out phonies. Seems the truth will out on this board, as they say.
Just read most of the thread, quickly, except the back and forth with Benson. Regarding this comment, my original post was referring to the join date, not the number of posts, since the join date I guess can't be faked. Number of posts can be quickly inflated. PS. thanks for actually not being a dick about your comment and wording it in a non-offensive way, seriously.
Anyways, i was saying I trust the older members. In my original post I was also purposefully vague as to not make any personal attacks but it seems some of the posters who led me to my initial post actually took part in this thread!
One other thing, having read the Mod's posts, I'm under the impression they do a lot of work to sniff out shills and I'm more appreciative of that now.
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