Ooops, be careful with your GB comments !!!!!

Unbelievable...I have just had an E-mail from Ciao saying that they have removed a comment I left in someone's GB. Basically all I said in my comment was "It is nice to see a deserving winner and that Ciao should abolish the POW comp"...now forgive me but I would not consider that to be abuse, however according to Ciao although they weren't in fact telling me off , they had had complaints from other entrants saying that it was undermining the whole comp and felt that it was better if they removed it.

This is the actual E-mail with the member of the GB name removed :

Hello Avril,
>
> We are writing to let you know that we have removed a guestbook comment left
> by you, which feels insulting to our Product of the Week winners. The
> comment was posted on 10.12.2007 on (name removed) guestbook as follows:
>
> "Congratulations on your win Hun, for once there is a winner in that list
> that actually deserves to be there.....that's a rarity these days, about
> time Ciao abolished the whole thing really...but good on you !!! Av xx"
>
> Your fellow members have complained stating that this comment takes merit
> from all of our weekly winners which put much effort and clearly deserve
> their respective positions on this competition. Please keep in mind these
> winners are personally selected by our Ciao UK staff according to how
> precise, informative and presentable their reviews are, as well as the
> ratings received from their fellow members. We apologise for the
> inconvenience and hope that you continue to enjoy your membership at Ciao.
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
>
> Ciao UK
>

I do think it's hilarious actually

Lol. People actually went through the effort to file a complaint against that. People have far too much time on their hands these days.

Jesus wept. The site gets worse.

I didn't think that was possible.

But I would take offence at their claims that the reviews are personally selected by Ciao staff "according to how precise, informative and presentable" the reviews are. What utter tosh. The Ciao Team haven't spotted a good review in years (generally speaking... they get lucky sometimes).

Count yourself lucky though... that was lengthy and well written. Here's the last email I got from Ciao:

Ciao wrote:

Hello TheDuke,

We have removed your picture because as it was offensive and didn't show your face.

You can read more in http://www.ciao.co.uk/help.php

Kind regards,

Ciao UK

Yeah and to make matters worse I had to make at least a dozen complaints before they even sent that e-mail, I expected a sterner e-mail and I'm very disappointed.

Well if they are going to bow to petty things like that I am sure I can probably find hundreds of GB comments that could be reported......that is if I was sad enough to go hunting !!!

And you are sooo right (favourite member) about their comment that they personally select the reviews alongside the ratings....rubbish, if you look thre three winners are ALWAYS and without fail the ones rated the most helpful by members..if Ciao do have any input they are obviously either swayed by the ratings or completely incompetent !!

And I still say the competition should be abolished :-)

If you were writing back, I'd point out that the random nature of the PF/Diamond winners takes merit away from the people who are skilled (and mature?) enough to ignore the community and write genuinely helpful reviews rather than lists of technical specifications as seems to be the case.

Your comment about Ciao's ability to choose suitable winners in their competitions (with reference to their own quoted writing standards) is completely valid.

Well I've sent my reply, it will be interesting to see the response...that's if they bother to respond at all.

Dear Ciao



Thank you for notifying me of the removal of my comment, however, if I may, I would like to voice my own opinion on this to you.



I do not feel that removing the comment was justified. My comment was sent to another like minded member who did not take any offence whatsoever. I feel that if the comment had been left by anybody else then it would have gone unreported.Can you honestly consider this to be a matter for the abuse team in any way, if so then I can probably trawl other people's guestbooks and find many comments of similar content that I could report to you, however I do not think that would be appropriate or adult behaviour !



The subject of the Product of the week competition has been much debated amongst members in guestbooks recently and it has become obvious that there are many clicking cartels in place, surely the abuse team should be concentrating more on this.



I find it interesting that you say "Winners are personally selected by Ciao staff according to how
precise, informative and presentable their reviews are, as well as the ratings received from their fellow members", when it is obvious that this is not the case, each week the 3 winners are the most helpful rated by members on the site, however, they are not always presented in an ideal manner, they are full of far too much information (such as reams of history) and are rarely precise and to the point.If, as you say, you consider information, precision and presentation alongside these ratings then I fail to see how the reviews rated most helpful can always be the winners. I have noticed (as others have) there are select groups that will give certain members exceptional rates and others unfair low ratesin order to influence the outcome.......it is precisely for this reason that conversations such as the one you removed are being had on this site. I do stand by my comment that this competition should be abolished,either that or maybe a fairer way of deciding on the winner could be considered.



In addition I would like to touch on the matter of monthly Diamonds. It appears that the 'randomness' of Diamond allocations can be deemed to take merit from those who have written excellent reviews without the unnecessary addition of lists of technical information or involvement in the community.



If you look at reviews on other sites, such as Amazon, they are to the point, no irrelevant information, no list of specs, simply straightforward reviews on the product concerned. So why should a review that lists all specifications/ingredients and gives a long 2-3 paragraph history of the makers of the product be considered more helpful that a product that omits these things but gives a simple opinion of the product itself. I know that when I am reading a review on something I will skip everything but the product information.



I would very much appreciate you thoughts on these points and look forward to your reply.



Averilla

Just a thought..... and it is in no way a criticism, but do you think ciao are likely to write back knowing that their response will likely be posted on here and optors......?

At the very least, if they do respond it may not be in as much detail as they might have done.

Ciao's Favourite Member wrote:

Jesus wept. The site gets worse.

I didn't think that was possible.

But I would take offence at their claims that the reviews are personally selected by Ciao staff "according to how precise, informative and presentable" the reviews are. What utter tosh. The Ciao Team haven't spotted a good review in years (generally speaking... they get lucky sometimes).

Count yourself lucky though... that was lengthy and well written. Here's the last email I got from Ciao:

Ciao wrote:

Hello TheDuke,

We have removed your picture because as it was offensive and didn't show your face.

You can read more in http://www.ciao.co.uk/help.php

Kind regards,

Ciao UK

as opposed to the one on Facebook which was considered offence because it shows you in tights!

drewboy wrote:

Just a thought..... and it is in no way a criticism, but do you think ciao are likely to write back knowing that their response will likely be posted on here and optors......?

At the very least, if they do respond it may not be in as much detail as they might have done.

Good point Drew, however maybe they won't even see this post, not sure just how much attention they are paying to these forums lately..on the other hand if they have taken note of this then surely they will have to reply to save face, although they will be very cagey in their response...personally I don't really care either way, I have put up with so much c**p lately that any response is good enough for me. Obviously Ciao must be aware that these forums are here to debate issues such as these but clearly are not paying attention to the issues raised, maybe an E-mail such as this coupled with posts on these forums might make them take due note.....and then again maybe not ..we shall see!

I'm voting for not

Averilla wrote:

Well I've sent my reply, it will be interesting to see the response...that's if they bother to respond at all.

Dear Ciao



Thank you for notifying me of the removal of my comment, however, if I may, I would like to voice my own opinion on this to you.



I do not feel that removing the comment was justified. My comment was sent to another like minded member who did not take any offence whatsoever. I feel that if the comment had been left by anybody else then it would have gone unreported. Can you honestly consider this to be a matter for the abuse team in any way, if so then I can probably trawl other people's guestbooks and find many comments of similar content that I could report to you, however I do not think that would be appropriate or adult behaviour !



The subject of the Product of the week competition has been much debated amongst members in guestbooks recently and it has become obvious that there are many clicking cartels in place, surely the abuse team should be concentrating more on this.



I find it interesting that you say "Winners are personally selected by Ciao staff according to how
precise, informative and presentable their reviews are, as well as the ratings received from their fellow members", when it is obvious that this is not the case, each week the 3 winners are the most helpful rated by members on the site, however, they are not always presented in an ideal manner, they are full of far too much information (such as reams of history) and are rarely precise and to the point.If, as you say, you consider information, precision and presentation alongside these ratings then I fail to see how the reviews rated most helpful can always be the winners. I have noticed (as others have) there are select groups that will give certain members exceptional rates and others unfair low ratesin order to influence the outcome.......it is precisely for this reason that conversations such as the one you removed are being had on this site. I do stand by my comment that this competition should be abolished,either that or maybe a fairer way of deciding on the winner could be considered.



In addition I would like to touch on the matter of monthly Diamonds. It appears that the 'randomness' of Diamond allocations can be deemed to take merit from those who have written excellent reviews without the unnecessary addition of lists of technical information or involvement in the community.



If you look at reviews on other sites, such as Amazon, they are to the point, no irrelevant information, no list of specs, simply straightforward reviews on the product concerned. So why should a review that lists all specifications/ingredients and gives a long 2-3 paragraph history of the makers of the product be considered more helpful that a product that omits these things but gives a simple opinion of the product itself. I know that when I am reading a review on something I will skip everything but the product information.



I would very much appreciate you thoughts on these points and look forward to your reply.



Averilla

see this is why I no longer write on Ciao.
All taken way too seriously...we are talking tins of beans and tubes of toothpaste here...is all this Really necessary?
Lighten up...or get a life.

And is that comment directed to Avril or the person that saw fit to report her comment or the Ciao team for their actions?

Jekka, I appreciate that you felt aggrieved enough with my post to comment but I notice that you have actually edited my post.......2nd paragraph

"I do not feel that removing the comment was justified. My comment was sent to another like minded member who did not take any offence whatsoever. I feel that if the comment had been left by anybody else then it would have gone unreported........"winge whine, self important drivelI know everything, I am always right, my opinion is the only one that counts"
I did NOT write that and am not too sure why you felt the need to add that bit, as far as I can see that is actually quite offensive AND not really in keeping with the topic concerned. I am all for freedom of speech, indeed that is what this whole post is all about but can we please keep personal insults out of this.

Thanks[b][u]