New members, lurkers, fake engagement, reviews.

[Valentina]

This message goes out to all users & mods. I hope you’re all doing great!

I will be inviting new people to sign up to MERB (just as I’ve coached many SPs / help build their profiles here).

Expect to see reviews from “new members” soon - be it for myself or other wonderful SPs ♥

I’m trying to get people off of the fast food sites (like LL) and comelol participate on this forum.
There’s wayyyyyy too many people who don’t know about MERB, TERB, PERB. This creates many missed opportunities for reviews that don’t end up being documented!

I don’t know if some members are aware, but we SPs pay to be here. Not to mention the add-ons we want as features. Many of us are passionate and take pride in our job!

To the lurkers out there, I really do love you all but please help us SPs out by leaving reviews & interacting from time to time. There’s a lot of fake engagement out there, it would help ALL OF US SPs. Especially in times of a “contest” lol. Which should be authentic and not coerced.

Thank you, and wishing you all the breast!

-Val ♥

 

[urquell]

I honestly don't even know where to begin. I find this post to be utterly tone deaf considering the recent posting on here.

 

[Fradi]

I find it refreshing that we have an SP who is authentic and honest in her posts and wants to make things better.
I doubt she has missed many of the negative tones lately and complaints about deterioration of service and escalation of prices.

It is still however a place for SP to advertise and clients to get a better picture of who to see as long as they are capable of sifting through all the bullshit and self promotion of many reviews.

 

[Sylar]

There’s a lot of fake engagement out there

What do you mean by this?

 

[Valentina]

I honestly don't even know where to begin. I find this post to be utterly tone deaf considering the recent posting on here.

Many don’t know about MERB or how to leave reviews / even search.

I understand that everyone gets suspicious about new reviews and accounts.

So you may see an influx of newcummers.

I want fair game for all SPs and a fresh set of MERB users that can help us all.

Can’t really say more at the risk of sounding tone deaf lol. But. Yup.

 

[PSEfreak]

Any new member reviews are automatically taken with a grain of salt (trying to be kind here TBH)

Many cases of shilling still happen to this day.
Nothing but a decent and lengthy track record puts doubts to rest.

 

[Valentina]

Any new member reviews are automatically taken with a grain of salt (trying to be kind here TBH)

Many cases of shilling still happen to this day.
Nothing but a decent and lengthy track record puts doubts to rest.

Yes exactly, and it’s totally understandable!

But yes .. I’m trying to educate people to get off the leolist macdonallll sites and use this more.

MERB is a great tool for everyone!

 

[Valentina]

Any new member reviews are automatically taken with a grain of salt (trying to be kind here TBH)

Many cases of shilling still happen to this day.
Nothing but a decent and lengthy track record puts doubts to rest.

Also. I just couldn’t help but make this.

 

[urquell]

I find it refreshing that we have an SP who is authentic and honest in her posts and wants to make things better.
I doubt she has missed many of the negative tones lately and complaints about deterioration of service and escalation of prices.

It is still however a place for SP to advertise and clients to get a better picture of who to see as long as they are capable of sifting through all the bullshit and self promotion of many reviews.

You and I are reading two different things. We have all been reading and discussing the lack of reliable information, the bias and lack of candor in reviews, the limitations, bias and lack of relevance of some of the award threads, the relative merits of different types of business models and board formats, strengths and weaknesses etc.

So here comes the OP, and what I'm reading is: "I will be inviting new people to sign up to MERB, and since the people I know to invite are my clients, that's who I'll be inviting. I'm also coaching other SPs to do the same". So, the clients in question are of course going to be positive supporters of the SP who invites them. I actually don't see an inherent problem in this. If it were just an invite to MERB then sure, why not? However, the obvious subtext here, quote: "This creates many missed opportunities for reviews" unquote, to me is reading as if these people will be pushed/encouraged (let's call it that) to provide reviews. Well, who would then be reviewed? Of course the SP with whom they already have a positive relationship. Guess what kind of review we're going to read?

Now, as for the SPs pay to be here thing, yes of course we all know that. Are they entitled to privileges for paying to be here? Sure. If there wasn't a benefit then why would anyone pay to be here? However, if the "add-ons we want as features" comment doesn't scare you, well.....

This one is a particularly fun quote: "please help us SPs out by leaving reviews & interacting from time to time. There’s a lot of fake engagement out there, it would help ALL OF US SPs. Especially in times of a “contest”". This reads "hey, please leave us a bunch of positive reviews, especially in contest times, because, well, better scoring in these awards threads translates into dollars for us. Please though, only genuine positive reviews, none of those fake positive reviews that other SPs get. We're not twisting your arms at all, you, our favorite regular customers who we have steered to MERB. Also, I'd like to thank God and the Academy of for this award."

Look, I have nothing against Valentina or any of the other SPs here, but the way this reads to me and what I infer is not that we're bringing a bunch of new, fresh faces into MERB to help energize and diversify the site, which I would quite frankly love. What I'm reading is that the SPs are being encouraged en masse to each bring in their personal cheerleading squads. It's like Youtube saying "would you like to see more ads?" and you go "no, not really", and the Youtube says "great! We're going to give a whole new whack of ads, personalized just for you!". The people that newly come into to put in reviews are not going to be a random sampling of people providing objective reviews. They're going to be loyal customers already. There's going to be such a large inherent selection bias as to make all of those reviews completely worthless. They're effectively just going to be extra ads for the SPs. On top of that, because we won't won't know which of the "new" people coming into the site are going to be direct SP referrals any new person's reviews for the supporting members need to be essentilaly ignored because we won't be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. And what is fake engagement exactly?

So, TLDR, SPs do many things that are interesting and helpful on this site, but this isn't one of them. It's helpful to the board, and to the SPs, but not to the general membership, to the contrary in fact. The SPs pay to be here and are entitled to a benefit for that payment, but there has to be a balance otherwise the relentless self-promotion escalates and becomes not just an inconvenience but an active impediment to contributing here.

Yes, I know I'm making few friends on this and am also prepared for the backlash. And yes, it's tone deaf. Still, I suspect that the cheeleaders will be louder despite being outnumbered and I will be chastised accordingly. Again, Valentina, despite my obvious disagreement with your post and its aims I have absolutely no personal animus against you or any of the other SPs here. I'm totally against site creep though.

 

[Toto beefcake]

You and I are reading two different things. We have all been reading and discussing the lack of reliable information, the bias and lack of candor in reviews, the limitations, bias and lack of relevance of some of the award threads, the relative merits of different types of business models and board formats, strengths and weaknesses etc.

So here comes the OP, and what I'm reading is: "I'm will be inviting new people to sign up to MERB, and since the people I know to invite are my clients, that's who I'll be inviting. I'm also coaching other SPs to do the same". So, the clients in question are of course going to be positive supporters of the SP who invites them. I actually don't see an inherent problem in this. If it were just an invite to MERB then sure, why not? However, the obvious subtext here, quote: "This creates many missed opportunities for reviews" unquote, to me is reading as if these people will be pushed/encouraged (let's call it that) to provide reviews. Well, who would then be reviewed? Of course the SP with whom they already have a positive relationship. Guess what kind of review we're going to read?

Now, as for the SPs pay to be here thing, yes of course we all know that. Are they entitled to privileges for paying to be here? Sure. If there wasn't a benefit then why would anyone pay to be here? However, if the "add-ons we want as features" comment doesn't scare you, well.....

This one is a particularly fun quote: "please help us SPs out by leaving reviews & interacting from time to time. There’s a lot of fake engagement out there, it would help ALL OF US SPs. Especially in times of a “contest”". This reads "hey, please leave us a bunch of positive reviews, especially in contest times, because, well, better scoring in these awards threads translates into dollars for us. Please though, only genuine positive reviews, none of those fake positive reviews that other SPs get. We're not twisting your arms at all, you, our favorite regular customers who we have steered to MERB. Also, I'd like to thank God and the Academy of for this award."

Look, I have nothing against Valentina or any of the other SPs here, but the way this reads to me and what I infer is not that we're bringing a bunch of new, fresh faces into MERB to help energize and diversify the site, which I would quite frankly love. What I'm reading is that the SPs are being encouraged en masse to each bring in their personal cheerleading squads. It's like Youtube saying "would you like to see more ads?" and you go "no, not really", and the Youtube says "great! We're going to give a whole new whack of ads, personalized just for you!". The people that newly come into to put in reviews are not going to be a random sampling of people providing objective reviews. They're going to be loyal customers already. There's going to be such a large inherent selection bias as to make all of those reviews completely worthless. They're effectively just going to be extra ads for the SPs. On top of that, because we won't won't know which of the "new" people coming into the site are going to be direct SP referrals any new person's reviews for the supporting members need to be essentilaly ignored because we won't be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. And what is fake engagement exactly?

So, TLDR, SPs do many things that are interesting and helpful on this site, but this isn't one of them. It's helpful to the board, and to the SPs, but not to the general membership, to the contrary in fact. The SPs pay to be here and are entitled to a benefit for that payment, but there has to be a balance otherwise the relentless self-promotion escalates and becomes not just an inconvenience but an active impediment to contributing here.

Yes, I know I'm making few friends on this and am also prepared for the backlash. And yes, it's tone deaf. Still, I suspect that the cheeleaders will be louder despite being outnumbered and I will be chastised accordingly. Again, Valentina, despite my obvious disagreement with your post and its aims I have absolutely no personal animus against you or any of the other SPs here. I'm totally against site creep though.

Well written post. Honestly . Great points. All im gonna say is though is even without the inviting, there already is alot of shilling . Its in the open. Its clear as day . You see it with certain independents and certain agencies all kinds. Its an evening ( not sure if thats how its spelled) of the playfield i guess .

 

[Johnny test]

To be honest i always took reviews more as general guidelines and, of course, personal opinions.
Some may be biased, idk but most of the time i realized we often don't have the sames definitions or expectations, so i take ALL reviews with a grain of salt.
Also since there are no particular rules or some basic template, there are no reviews written the same way and it's hard to compare.

Anyway back to the topic at hand, don't have any problem with having new people, new reviews, i will consider them the same way as other reviews, the fact that they come from older reviewers or newer doesn't really change anything for me.
On a personal note i'm not sure what is expected from this message, obviously the ones reading it are already on MERB and since i have no idea how many active reviewers are in here, i probably won't notice if there's an amount of new dudes since the ranking is based on the number of posts not the moment the account was created.

 

[Valentina]

You and I are reading two different things. We have all been reading and discussing the lack of reliable information, the bias and lack of candor in reviews, the limitations, bias and lack of relevance of some of the award threads, the relative merits of different types of business models and board formats, strengths and weaknesses etc.

So here comes the OP, and what I'm reading is: "I will be inviting new people to sign up to MERB, and since the people I know to invite are my clients, that's who I'll be inviting. I'm also coaching other SPs to do the same". So, the clients in question are of course going to be positive supporters of the SP who invites them. I actually don't see an inherent problem in this. If it were just an invite to MERB then sure, why not? However, the obvious subtext here, quote: "This creates many missed opportunities for reviews" unquote, to me is reading as if these people will be pushed/encouraged (let's call it that) to provide reviews. Well, who would then be reviewed? Of course the SP with whom they already have a positive relationship. Guess what kind of review we're going to read?

Now, as for the SPs pay to be here thing, yes of course we all know that. Are they entitled to privileges for paying to be here? Sure. If there wasn't a benefit then why would anyone pay to be here? However, if the "add-ons we want as features" comment doesn't scare you, well.....

This one is a particularly fun quote: "please help us SPs out by leaving reviews & interacting from time to time. There’s a lot of fake engagement out there, it would help ALL OF US SPs. Especially in times of a “contest”". This reads "hey, please leave us a bunch of positive reviews, especially in contest times, because, well, better scoring in these awards threads translates into dollars for us. Please though, only genuine positive reviews, none of those fake positive reviews that other SPs get. We're not twisting your arms at all, you, our favorite regular customers who we have steered to MERB. Also, I'd like to thank God and the Academy of for this award."

Look, I have nothing against Valentina or any of the other SPs here, but the way this reads to me and what I infer is not that we're bringing a bunch of new, fresh faces into MERB to help energize and diversify the site, which I would quite frankly love. What I'm reading is that the SPs are being encouraged en masse to each bring in their personal cheerleading squads. It's like Youtube saying "would you like to see more ads?" and you go "no, not really", and the Youtube says "great! We're going to give a whole new whack of ads, personalized just for you!". The people that newly come into to put in reviews are not going to be a random sampling of people providing objective reviews. They're going to be loyal customers already. There's going to be such a large inherent selection bias as to make all of those reviews completely worthless. They're effectively just going to be extra ads for the SPs. On top of that, because we won't won't know which of the "new" people coming into the site are going to be direct SP referrals any new person's reviews for the supporting members need to be essentilaly ignored because we won't be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. And what is fake engagement exactly?

So, TLDR, SPs do many things that are interesting and helpful on this site, but this isn't one of them. It's helpful to the board, and to the SPs, but not to the general membership, to the contrary in fact. The SPs pay to be here and are entitled to a benefit for that payment, but there has to be a balance otherwise the relentless self-promotion escalates and becomes not just an inconvenience but an active impediment to contributing here.

Yes, I know I'm making few friends on this and am also prepared for the backlash. And yes, it's tone deaf. Still, I suspect that the cheeleaders will be louder despite being outnumbered and I will be chastised accordingly. Again, Valentina, despite my obvious disagreement with your post and its aims I have absolutely no personal animus against you or any of the other SPs here. I'm totally against site creep though.

I appreciate all feedback tbh. I don’t wanna beef or quibble with anyone unless it’s about my crazy coocoo consipracy posts HAHA.

Let me just add this. It might’ve sounded tone deaf or vague but it’s an issue for us SPs. And to just switch POVs for a second.

It’s meant to highlight how;

- I wanna introduce MERB to new members. However, new members are often discredited / their reviews aren’t valued because of their status

- there’s favouritism

- the lurkers can lurk sure, but some can take a moment and actually pitch in for us sometimes. If they can give us a review to our face IRL - it takes two seconds to say something positive about an SP without ✨romanticizing✨ and milking the thing into erotic stories so people can jack off to.

In regard to the contest, I couldn’t give a flying fig if I don’t win, heck take me out of it for all I care!

Point is, whether it’s a hotdog eating competition, disk golf or basket weaving contest - fair is fair. And there’s lots of unfairness IMO. (See precedent winners of X contest) and also see how many wanna sneak in recent and new reviews for their favs. Lmao.

There’s many SPs that don’t get a smidgen of recognition when they should. This is why the reviews and new members are mentioned. This is why I ask for people who lurk to get on board from time to time! Their accounts are the only trusted accounts because they’re older? The lurkers see them but do nothing to help them.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalks.
Again, this isn’t to shit on anyone’s parade but. Someone needs to say something. And well. I guess that always falls on my shoulders. Lmao.
(It’s okay I’m built like a fridge I can take it)

 

[Valentina]

To be honest i always took reviews more as general guidelines and, of course, personal opinions.
Some may be biased, idk but most of the time i realized we often don't have the sames definitions or expectations, so i take ALL reviews with a grain of salt.
Also since there are no particular rules or some basic template, there are no reviews written the same way and it's hard to compare.

Anyway back to the topic at hand, don't have any problem with having new people, new reviews, i will consider them the same way as other reviews, the fact that they come from older reviewers or newer doesn't really change anything for me.

Thank you for your common sense thinking!
Many guys don’t work that way. Lots of people have this “one size fits all” vision or don’t create their personal opinion by booking a lady. So, I appreciate reading this ♥️ truly … and it kinda hits home when you bring this up.

2 years ago when I first started out, I was bullied on my review thread at first. (Comments deleted and member got banned). One guy judged me and made fun of me without even meeting me? He said really mean things about my appearance which then incited others to continue.

I had started off as an Indy on LL and had no idea MERB even existed! Let me tell you, finding out about this review thread on me and reading these things about myself was extremely disheartening. It became discouraging and un motivating to work.

I was new, so no one could’ve vouched for me!!! I’m now paying it forward and really wish the best for all SPs.

Special S/O to @DJ big daddy for having reviewed me and told me about MERB in the first place 2 years ago.

 

[Enjoying life]

Thank you for your common sense thinking!
Many guys don’t work that way. Lots of people have this “one size fits all” vision or don’t create their personal opinion by booking a lady. So, I appreciate reading this ♥️ truly … and it kinda hits home when you bring this up.

I’ve been a bullied on my thread at first. (Comments and member got banned). One guy judged me and made fun of me without even meeting me? He said really fkn mean things about my appearance which then invited others to continue on.

I had started off as a Indy on LL and had no idea MERB even existed! Let me tell you, finding out about this review thread on me and reading these things about myself was extremely disheartening. It became extremely discouraging and un motivating to work.

I was new, so no one could’ve vouched for me!!! I’m now paying it forward and really wish the best for all SPs.

Special S/O to @DJ big daddy for having reviewed me and told me about MERB in the first place 2 years ago.

Love your attitude

 

[Valentina]

Love your attitude

Hey! Some say it’s shitty hahaha. But it’s just because I care! I’m all about being fair. Thank you sir!

 

[Fradi]

You and I are reading two different things. We have all been reading and discussing the lack of reliable information, the bias and lack of candor in reviews, the limitations, bias and lack of relevance of some of the award threads, the relative merits of different types of business models and board formats, strengths and weaknesses etc.

So here comes the OP, and what I'm reading is: "I will be inviting new people to sign up to MERB, and since the people I know to invite are my clients, that's who I'll be inviting. I'm also coaching other SPs to do the same". So, the clients in question are of course going to be positive supporters of the SP who invites them. I actually don't see an inherent problem in this. If it were just an invite to MERB then sure, why not? However, the obvious subtext here, quote: "This creates many missed opportunities for reviews" unquote, to me is reading as if these people will be pushed/encouraged (let's call it that) to provide reviews. Well, who would then be reviewed? Of course the SP with whom they already have a positive relationship. Guess what kind of review we're going to read?

Now, as for the SPs pay to be here thing, yes of course we all know that. Are they entitled to privileges for paying to be here? Sure. If there wasn't a benefit then why would anyone pay to be here? However, if the "add-ons we want as features" comment doesn't scare you, well.....

This one is a particularly fun quote: "please help us SPs out by leaving reviews & interacting from time to time. There’s a lot of fake engagement out there, it would help ALL OF US SPs. Especially in times of a “contest”". This reads "hey, please leave us a bunch of positive reviews, especially in contest times, because, well, better scoring in these awards threads translates into dollars for us. Please though, only genuine positive reviews, none of those fake positive reviews that other SPs get. We're not twisting your arms at all, you, our favorite regular customers who we have steered to MERB. Also, I'd like to thank God and the Academy of for this award."

Look, I have nothing against Valentina or any of the other SPs here, but the way this reads to me and what I infer is not that we're bringing a bunch of new, fresh faces into MERB to help energize and diversify the site, which I would quite frankly love. What I'm reading is that the SPs are being encouraged en masse to each bring in their personal cheerleading squads. It's like Youtube saying "would you like to see more ads?" and you go "no, not really", and the Youtube says "great! We're going to give a whole new whack of ads, personalized just for you!". The people that newly come into to put in reviews are not going to be a random sampling of people providing objective reviews. They're going to be loyal customers already. There's going to be such a large inherent selection bias as to make all of those reviews completely worthless. They're effectively just going to be extra ads for the SPs. On top of that, because we won't won't know which of the "new" people coming into the site are going to be direct SP referrals any new person's reviews for the supporting members need to be essentilaly ignored because we won't be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. And what is fake engagement exactly?

So, TLDR, SPs do many things that are interesting and helpful on this site, but this isn't one of them. It's helpful to the board, and to the SPs, but not to the general membership, to the contrary in fact. The SPs pay to be here and are entitled to a benefit for that payment, but there has to be a balance otherwise the relentless self-promotion escalates and becomes not just an inconvenience but an active impediment to contributing here.

Yes, I know I'm making few friends on this and am also prepared for the backlash. And yes, it's tone deaf. Still, I suspect that the cheeleaders will be louder despite being outnumbered and I will be chastised accordingly. Again, Valentina, despite my obvious disagreement with your post and its aims I have absolutely no personal animus against you or any of the other SPs here. I'm totally against site creep though.

I understand what you are saying but again all reviews are just an opinion and you take it for what you think it is worth.
I really don’t care if it is from someone new or an older reviewer. Older reviewers have been known to be shills or just plain braggarts also.
I can have an amazing time with someone and you can have a horrible time or vice versa.
Everybody needs to use their own judgement.

As far as Valentina, I don’t know her and have never seen her, but she has always been honest and blunt with her posts and I welcome any input she has. It may just be refreshing to have a different point of view than some of the few that constantly post.

Normally I don’t go overboard with SP posts because while it is always interesting to have their view points you need to take it with a grain of salt as posts from SP are always a way to promote themselves and advertise, they are not here purely to shoot the shit with us, just like they don’t offer their services for free either.

 

[urquell]

I appreciate all feedback tbh. I don’t wanna beef or quibble with anyone unless it’s about my crazy coocoo consipracy posts HAHA.

Let me just add this. It might’ve sounded tone deaf or vague but it’s an issue for us SPs. And to just switch POVs for a second.

It’s meant to highlight how;

- I wanna introduce MERB to new members. However, new members are often discredited / their reviews aren’t valued because of their status

- there’s favouritism

- the lurkers can lurk sure, but some can take a moment and actually pitch in for us sometimes. If they can give us a review to our face IRL - it takes two seconds to say something positive about an SP without ✨romanticizing✨ and milking the thing into erotic stories so people can jack off to.

In regard to the contest, I couldn’t give a flying fig if I don’t win, heck take me out of it for all I care!

Point is, whether it’s a hotdog eating competition, disk golf or basket weaving contest - fair is fair. And there’s lots of unfairness IMO. (See precedent winners of X contest) and also see how many wanna sneak in recent and new reviews for their favs. Lmao.

There’s many SPs that don’t get a smidgen of recognition when they should. This is why the reviews and new members are mentioned. This is why I ask for people who lurk to get on board from time to time! Their accounts are the only trusted accounts because they’re older? The lurkers see them but do nothing to help them.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalks.
Again, this isn’t to shit on anyone’s parade but. Someone needs to say something. And well. I guess that always falls on my shoulders. Lmao.
(It’s okay I’m built like a fridge I can take it)

New members are of course always welcome. Productive ones even more so. Having said that, cherry picked glad handers are less of a benefit than they are distracting background noise. If we had a good way to simply bring in a bunch of representative new members, or engage the lurkers, then I'm absolutely all for that. The new people you're talking about won't be valued either, for the reasons we've just discussed in the other posts. In fact, I had linked a review from a "new person" for Chanel as an absolutely fucking perfect example of what I was describing, but the review I linked was axed almost immediately. I hope some people got to see it. Again though, I'm going to point out something that you're saying. You didn't ask for the lurkers to come and pitch in. You asked for the lurkers to come and pitch in "for us". Yes, there's favoritism, but you're asking for more favoritism that benefits you instead. That's my beef with this stuff. I want people to come in and speak their mind, free of anybody's influence, and give good and bad reviews as they want, free of influence from anyone. What you're asking for is to take a select group of people and have them come in positively on your side. I totally understand that, and why you would want it from your point of view, and how it would benefit SPs as a whole. If you couch it that way and say that "hey, this is good for us" then I'm on board, because it's frank, honest and up front. Presenting this as saying "hey, let's do this because it's going to benefit the board" doesn't get my buy-in, because there's no tangible benefit for the board members, only for the SPs.

As an aside, and not because it's really important, most people don't do reviews most of the time because they don't feel strongly enough about the encounter one way or another to be bothered to post about it. Most encounters are simply average, and perhaps that reflects the amount of reviews that are forthcoming for certain providers. Not everyone is a rock star or a villain, and most people can't be bothered to just come out and say "meh". The people that are getting the extra attention (one way or the other) probably deserve that attention for better or for worse.

 

[EagerBeaver]

I had linked a review from a "new person" for Chanel as an absolutely fucking perfect example of what I was describing, but the review I linked was axed almost immediately.

Urquell I have been a MERB member since its inception and that review you linked to had to be the biggest fucking joke of a review I have ever read, and it almost seemed like it was posted intentionally to prove your point. I noticed that 2 senior posters had posted laughing icons on it. I can only assume one of them reported it to the Mods. It was deleted by the Mods almost immediately, and then my post commenting on it.

Although it's now gone, it was an excellent exemplar for the argument you are making. The truth is, however, that there have been shill reviews throughout MERB's history, if not as ridiculously blatant as the deleted one you had linked to. Many of them are posted in exchange for financial discounts, although such arrangements are rarely disclosed. The thirst for new reviews promotes requests for such arrangements from bargain hunting clients. I wonder what the SPs do with the "what's in it for me?????" clients who will offer a Shakespearean review provided they get free sex, or at least seriously cheap sex in return. These quid pro quo type arrangements are as old as the history of escort review boards. And basically, that's the likely end result of a campaign for reviews- to draw out the bargain hunters like a corpse draws out the maggots.

 

[talkinghead]

@urquell makes a number of important points in his very well reasoned and well written posts. Of course it would be great to have more contributors and reviews. If the OP brings people to MERB, maybe they'll stick around and participate. What I find odd is that at times it feels like we've lost sight of the fact that this is an escort review board. It's not a joint-stock company in which our collective goal is to support SPs by writing good reviews. I commend the OP for her energetic commitment to the SP community, but she seems to assume that new members will only write positive reviews that will help SP's. That's worrisome. I also find it odd that SPs repeatedly point out that they pay to be out here; they pay to advertise. I find the SPs who post out here to be consistently intelligent, candid, and often super cool; and I appreciate that sometimes it can feel fun that we're all mixing it up. But ... clients and SPs don't always share the same priorities ... and this is not a general forum for all things escort; it's first function is to be a review board and resource for clients.

 

[Johnny test]

This may bring some new reviewers ( i say maybe because i'm sure some clients sometimes promise reviews and don't deliver )
Some will be good reviewers others won't
First review will, most likely, be a good review of the provider who encourage them to come, which makes sense if you think about it.
Maybe they'll stick around and write interesting / relevant reviews
Maybe they'll be assholes and exchange favors against reviews but that's nothing new here or anywhere else on the web these days so we will just have more assholes than before
At the end of the day, i don't see any issue in bringing new people, statistically speaking it should even be something good
We seem to assume these new reviewers, because they were brought here by SP, will be biased and i don't see the connection.