MS Community Center - Suggestions. Review on Mouthshut

Hi Folks

Its nice to know that Jasmine has requested today opinions regarding MS , specifically on the Community Center and Members Flagged .

Regarding the community center it definitely is a good idea; to give people an Overview on the events taking place on the site . But I have one comment on one of the pre-conditions for being a Star Writer – that The person should not be active on any similar site , or wordings to that effect .

I feel that this is kinda shackling people to be only with MS. In fact many TOP members of MS would be affected by this . I suggest that this could be appropriately modified to consider only ‘any violations of other sites’ contents’ .

Regarding Flagged Members , this is a good concept to clean up content on the site and keep things in perspective. But it needs to be fine tuned and made more transparent .

As one who got flagged recently for “ Writing Junk reviews and Member Harassment “ as per the email sent to me by MS , I would like to suggest the following

1. Kindly make it explicit to the concerned member , which of his reviews is Junk and what exactly you percieve is Junk in his review . This would put things in perspective and help avoid further infarctions by the member.

Like in my case ALL my reviews have “Highly Recommended” as the highest percentage of feedback , so how can MS rate any one of them as junk ? That too Highly Recommended by some of the great reviewers on MS , not by fake Ids and the like.

1. Before flagging a member , he should be informed specifically of his mistakes and be given a chance to edit or modify the offending parts .

TILL THEN THE REVIEW SHOULD NOT REFLECT ON THE SITE, AND ONLY THE CONCERNED MEMBER SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO IT . If he/she still persists (say after a period of 3 days to take care of email transit etc ) , then appropriate action can be taken and the person can be flagged .

1. Similar is the case with ‘Member Harassment “ Make it transparent and explicit to all concerned that so and so comment or action is wrong . Till these are deleted or edited , YANK THE REVIEW OFF . DON’T LEAVE IT FOR EVERYBODY TO SEE AND FORM AN IMPRESSION ABOUT WHAT GOES ON AT MS !

In my case , I have seen several really nasty exchanges on several members reviews and presumed that MS is blasé about these ; maybe they encourage a sort of ‘Anything Goes ‘ culture to tell it like it is.

So when, on one my reviews , people who havn’t written a single review , made personal and nasty communal comments , I thought “ What the Hell ? , If these probably fake IDS can write this for all the world to see , I am gonna give it right back “

It did cross my mind to complain to MS , but the previous experience of seeing several nasty exchanges as well as reviews with explicit 4 letter words , made me feel that probably all this accepted here , Free Speech and all that .

1. I put forth here a real-case situation which is pertinent to all of us .

Say someone called 'John-Doe' writes a review , which is rated by someone called say 'U-erred' .

Now U-erred writes a comment highlighting what's wrong with the review, what needs to be added , what are the spelling mistakes etc.

John-Doe takes steps , corrects the review and requests U-erred to Now modify the Comments as all points have been addressed and corrected .

But U-erred doesnt respond. The comments continue to remain even though they are no longer relevant .

The current Flagged scenario is exactly similar to the above .

In my case , as suggested by several of my well wishers , I have edited and deleted all content that is probably offensive .

The very fact that I am writing this shows that I am concerned about the content and I hope that my explanation and suggestions are found useful .

In any case , I leave it upto the members , or rather the genuine ones to decide and comment whether these are correct and whether I should continue to be part of the flag-hoisting ceremony !

Chao

Jasbir

The Sage’ s Take :-> Don’t give a dog a bad name and hang him .