Review inflation

[Workingman]

Members value add to the board by writing reviews or engage in discussion. This increases traffic to the website which generates views on paid ads. It’s an ecosystem after all. If the page was purely funded by ads with no reviews or board component it would be no different than Tyrst or other pages. So while clients don’t contribute through monetization they are still generating views and thus allowing Merb to charge a relatively high fee for ad placements.

EDIT: I am actually not sure if SPs have to pay to participate on the board? I thought it’s only for advertising. If you just want to be a contributing member without placing ads are you allowed to do so? Can someone confirm?

For a lot of forums advertising is insanely expensive because they control the narrative and they have the ability to delete bad reviews and give a false image to a very naive audience.

I've heard of people paying like 50k and more for annual advertising on boards like this. It's kinda insane.

 

[Johnny test]

There's a conflict of interest between having an open board and paying advertisers clearly but there's also a cost involved.
Another business model would be to have some kind of subscription, not really sure we want to go there.
Also there's a need to have some kind of balance, if you delete too many bad reviews you'll lose your audience

 

[Giselle Montreal]

SP's do NOT have to be Supporting Members to comment in the threads. There are multiple examples that support this in other threads.

But you can't reply in your own review thread if you are not a supporting member.

 

[Lunaseraphim]

Members value add to the board by writing reviews or engage in discussion. This increases traffic to the website which generates views on paid ads. It’s an ecosystem after all. If the page was purely funded by ads with no reviews or board component it would be no different than Tyrst or other pages. So while clients don’t contribute through monetization they are still generating views and thus allowing Merb to charge a relatively high fee for ad placements.

EDIT: I am actually not sure if SPs have to pay to participate on the board? I thought it’s only for advertising. If you just want to be a contributing member without placing ads are you allowed to do so? Can someone confirm?

That's true and you are right SPs who aren't supporting members don't have to pay, my point wasn't that MERB is an advertising platform solely tho. I know it's a forum and reviews are a huge part of it, and gaining positive reviews is a goal of many SP's, or at least making sure that certain type of information or slander isn't included in the reviews.

For a lot of forums advertising is insanely expensive because they control the narrative and they have the ability to delete bad reviews and give a false image to a very naive audience.

I've heard of people paying like 50k and more for annual advertising on boards like this. It's kinda insane.

That's not the case with MERB tho, nobody can get bad reviews deleted except in certain special cases.

I never said that bad reviews should be deleted too, unless the SP has a no review policy.. I think many times bad reviews can be warranted, particularly scams and dangerous situations. I just think sometimes reviews are written in an unusually cruel way. I don't see those get deleted unless there was false information. I also agree that overly flowery language in a review could potentially be annoying for a client to read, but I think sometimes certain clients just want to write a love letter to a SP they actually really enjoy seeing... I think that's kinda sweet. And like I've said before, the vast majority of clients I see don't feel compelled to write reviews and don't want to participate in the forum so much.

The difference for me when I started advertising and posting here isn't that I feel like I'm controlling the narrative, it's more a safety issue. Clients can research me here and know I'm a real person.

But you can't reply in your own review thread if you are not a supporting member.

Exactly and I think there are cases when this is necessary, specially when people are being very disrespectful (which is different from writing a bad review about someone using fake photos and having their boyfriend waiting in the living room)

 

[Fradi]

There's a conflict of interest between having an open board and paying advertisers clearly but there's also a cost involved.
Another business model would be to have some kind of subscription, not really sure we want to go there.
Also there's a need to have some kind of balance, if you delete too many bad reviews you'll lose your audience

Pretty sure almost all users would disappear if there was a paid membership requirement just look at how people react to a rate hike by SP.
Personally it would make little sense for me to pay membership just to see reviews or even SP adds, I am perfectly capable of selecting SP I want to see without looking at reviews.

 

[Workingman]

@Lunaseraphim I didn't say they do that here. I'm saying this style of forum the owner/mods have the ability to. My main point is $1200 a year is really cheap for annual advertising.

 

[urquell]

There's a conflict of interest between having an open board and paying advertisers clearly but there's also a cost involved.
Another business model would be to have some kind of subscription, not really sure we want to go there.
Also there's a need to have some kind of balance, if you delete too many bad reviews you'll lose your audience

I would, and have, paid to use sites like this. The cost is usually pretty nominal, maybe $20/yr, and if the board gives you value then it's cheap at the price. On top of that, it puts a lot of the control back in the members hands and significantly reduces the amount of lurkers, timewasters and trolls.People are also more likely to contribute more actively, because they have skin in the game, so to speak. Most of these sites also do have a public area, usually some kind of general discussion forum, that people can use for free.

 

[Johnny test]

Pretty sure almost all users would disappear

I would, and have, paid to use sites like this

i guess it's 50/50 , i guess there are pros and cons to both options.
I try not to take my personal example too much but considering i'm not that active i would also probably not use a subscription based board.
Also having a monthly subscriptions to "blowjobsbros" on your credit card may lead to awkward family discussions

 

[urquell]

i guess it's 50/50 , i guess there are pros and cons to both options.
I try not to take my personal example too much but considering i'm not that active i would also probably not use a subscription based board.
Also having a monthly subscriptions to "blowjobsbros" on your credit card may lead to awkward family discussions

They're mutually exclusive business models so you really have to consider the target audience. If half the members here disappeared tomorrow you wouldn't even notice, because three quarters of the people here don't post anyway, so for people who participate in the forum the absence would be invisible. In a member paid forum they'd never notice either, and the site wouldn't care, because non paying members bring them nothing so who cares if they're missing? There is no point at which the regular forum users would notice or care about the absent lurkers.

That changes significantly on a forum like this one though..Lurkers are extremely important here not because they contribute to the forum but because they represent eyeballs on ads, even if we can't see them. We might not care if half the people disappeared overnight but the paid advertisers would have fits. That's why it would be difficult if not impossible to superimpose the formats, juat because they monetize differently.

 

[Sylar]

i guess it's 50/50 , i guess there are pros and cons to both options.
I try not to take my personal example too much but considering i'm not that active i would also probably not use a subscription based board.
Also having a monthly subscriptions to "blowjobsbros" on your credit card may lead to awkward family discussions

Sir, it’s even more weird when there is two subscriptions.

 

[Johnny test]

They're mutually exclusive business models

Exactly and since we don't have access to the numbers (not that we want to ) the board works perfectly as it is.
My point was more about the complain about lurkers, they're part of the ecosystem

 

[urquell]

Exactly and since we don't have access to the numbers (not that we want to ) the board works perfectly as it is.

No, it doesn't, not by a long shot, in large part because it has this business model, and there is non alignment in the board value system vs. the member values..Having said that, as long as we understand what the warts are we can make the conscious decision of whether to accept them or not, active use of the board representing implicit acceptance, if not agreement.

 

[Johnny test]

The glory days of self-sustained boards are long gone, so "works perfectly" may be too much but it does the job, as long as, as you said, we know how that works.
At the end of the day it's not that important a topic we discuss here, we don't really use the infos we get there to build a retirement plan and we're clearly not curing cancer.

 

[urquell]

The glory days of self-sustained boards are long gone, so "works perfectly" may be too much but it does the job, as long as, as you said, we know how that works.
At the end of the day it's not that important a topic we discuss here, we don't really use the infos we get there to build a retirement plan and we're clearly not curing cancer.

If it's important enough to invest any of your time to post or read what's here then it's important enough to consider the topic and its implications. Future investment of time depends on you.

 

[DouMan]

But you can't reply in your own review thread if you are not a supporting member.

I appreciate your update and find it unfortunate if this is the case, but maybe this limitation has been lifted since I see non-Supporting members (SP's) answering in their own threads in other sections of the board.

 

[Rebaynia]

I appreciate your update and find it unfortunate if this is the case, but maybe this limitation has been lifted since I see non-Supporting members (SP's) answering in their own threads in other sections of the board.

I think that counts as the legal loophole. They can't comment on their own thread, but reference to their review on another so long as it falls under the topic of the thread, is part of the natural flow of conversation. But if someone is looking directly for that review, they won't see the rebuttal.

 

[MichelleMontreal]

A few experiences in the last couple months have been ridiculous. Reviews glowing with descriptions like "gorgeous", "stunning" and so on to describe the looks of a SP who ends up being objectively average or below average. Literally below average... as in out of 10 random females age 20-35 walking down the street at least 5 would poll as more attractive. Words like "incredible" to describe someone who you would not give a second look in the real world. Body descriptions are even more misleading. "Curvy" turns out to be - objectively - just plainly out of shape. Reviews rave about a SP's butt and it ends up being junky and shapeless, the before picture in a before-and-after fitness transformation.

Forgive me for this, but I can't get it out of my mind, what exactly is a "junky" butt?

 

[Sylar]

Forgive me for this, but I can't get it out of my mind, what exactly is a "junky" butt?

I can’t speak for the poster but I assume this:

 

[Workingman]

I think the dictionary definition of junky covers it

mod: thread locked - it has served its purpose. Last posts were either off-topic or (deleted) attempts at starting fights between members.