Aloha Orchid Nursery??

[Marty]

I knew this would come up sooner or later. I have to agree with Sue, I don't like Orchid Board to become a platform for vendor bashing. I'd suggest for anyone not to say anything negative publically... saying something like I didn't have a good experience with the vendor, "PM me for details" is OK I guess. Remember that your experience, although negative, might not be typical.

There have been forums shutdown in the past and legal actions have been taken by companies that were bashed. I'd hate for OB to be shut down because of negative feedback. Although I get your point that in theory OB should be the venue for good and bad orchid info...unfortunately the bad info can possibly shut us down and there will be zero information flow.

so, we should collectively make a decision, we can either remove this section completely and not bother with vendor feedback at all, or we can do "descriptive positive feedback & private PM negative feedback" or just do positive feedback.

I really don't want to get into this whole discussion about public forum being a place to vent, etc... Although OB is a public forum, it still will trickle down to me in case of legal action. I'd suggest that if you really must vent and post negative feedback you can do so at the Usenet orchid forum which is not really owned by anyone.

any feedback will be appreciated

[justatypn]

The OB is loyal to its members and vendors. The OB has a multitude of vendors listed as members as well as OS judges along with the commoner and I feel this board will be misrepresented if the bash wars begin . We have all had our differences with buyers and sellers and there is always two sides of a story and the OB's public forum is not the place to express the single side. The option of private PM is a personal area in which your experiences of this caliber can partake. I want to see the OB around for a long time and disrespecting the Administrators wishes is absurd. We are here to share in our orchid growing experiences and I feel the bashing will mislead members with valuable information on their growing cultures.

I feel we should remove this section completely and not bother with vendor feedback unless the threaded section is monitored 24/7 editing away. There is a difference between presenting the facts verses opinions, but when one gets the facts out the bash wars begin. So nip it in the bud before it gets off the ground.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[justintimedc]

OK, this makes more sense to me. We live in a letiganous society, and we don't want to get shut down by legal action. I can appreciate that. I think it sucks, but I can appreciate that. I don't want OB to be shut down either, and I can see that vendors would come after us for certain postings. This isn't about whether something is appropriate for this section or not, because obviously vendor feedback, good, bad or ugly belongs in this section. This is about the fact that it's not worth the possible legal battles and losing the board entirely. That being the case, I am not sure what should be done with this section. People will, of course, eventually post negative feedback here, it's just logical. Perhaps a different name, something denoting positive experiences with vendors, so that we can share with each other where the good spots to buy are. I think it would be a shame not to at least have that! And then make it clear that negative feedback should be shared privately, as to avoid legal ramifications. I just think we should call a spade a spade, saying that one person's experience may not be other people's experience is very true, but that is equally true for good experiences. I appreciate the well thought out responses. I do think if there are negative consequences to negative vendor feedback postings, this section, left as it is anyway, is a risk for the OB.

[cb977]

Good morning Justin
Thanks for understanding why I made my original comment. I personally feel that this section should stay because we do need a venue in which to make our members aware of others experiences. The stipulation being that if a question such as yours is asked, the appropriate response would be the one Maba gave...an invitation to PM for details.
We wouldn't want to lose access to this forum as it's such a wonderful tool to all of us interested in learning and sharing, we just need to play the game of CYA
Hope to see you in chat again

Hi Cheryl...the board is constantly monitored for anything that could possibly cause a problem for the board, our members, our vendors...and Marty We need to have feedback, we just have to keep a watchful eye on it, and that's what the moderators are here for.
It's great to see how strongly you feel about this place because I feel the same way!
See ya later

[justatypn]

Good morning: I can respect the watchful eye of the board and to date a job well done, constant monitoring duely noted. Maybe a verbage change in the sub-section is in order, possibly making a pop-up disclaimer "agree " and "disagree ". Society is cruel and like Susanne stated CYA. Personally I do not frequent this section, as I take others "facts/opinions" as a mere place to vent/gossip, but as an outspoken world we reside in unfortunately we have to dot our 'i's" and cross our "t's".

Originally Posted by Marty

"descriptive positive feedback & private PM negative feedback"

Keeping the sub-heading descriptively should be workable. I came across this posting last night "new posts" just in case anyone is wondering.

Keep up the good work Marty/moderators and appreciate you allowing your members to present their feedback.

[Tindomul]

Just to let everyone know my .02¢, renaming the section to positive vendor feedback is a good idea, and having folks post replies such as "I disagree , PM me for more" would be appropriate. Loosing the vendor feedback section would be a great lose to us all as we can still share who is a good vendor and who isn't without bashing any vendors.
Thanks

[Marty]

No problems, I don't think that any of the mods have actually moderated any legit user posts. Job of a mod on OB is pretty easy We had few porn posts here and there that needed to be removed

Typically on other forums, mods/admins freak out when links to other sites get posted. Idea here is to give free range to our users to post anything they want in the proper category

exception I guess being the vendor feedback. Agree with Tindo

[Oscarman]

Legality aside - Vendor Feedback should present both the positive and negative.

Is it possible to have the feedback require approval by the OB admin/mods before it is allowed to go public. That way it can be pruned to eliminate bashing.

There is a gardening site, which coincidentally is called Dave's Garden (no that is not a cheap plug for my site!) where one of their features is the Garden Watchdog. There members can provide + and - feedback about their own experiences. This feedback is also sent to the vendor and they are provided with the opportunity to post their own comments. An interesting feature that helps to sefl censor the poster!

A vendor can also be added to the list through a member request. I have used both features on several occassions.

More information can be found at http://davesgarden.com/gwd/

[justatypn]

Wow Dave I forgot about "watchdog", a concept to consider.

[Marty]

As long as it's legal and won't be abused I'm down for whatever you guys decide...although I am here, Orchid Board is really for you guys. Let me think a bit how we could implement this here...

hm... what about a section like "product reviews", we could review various products with a scale/feedback and we could also have a section to review vendors with scale and feedback. We could see if we could somehow include the vendor themselves, so they would have a chance to respond... also, dendroboard (frog forum) has the vendors sign an agreement stating that if they agree to be rated on dendroboard and agree not to hold the site accountable if someone posts a negative review about them - it would be a bit of a pain in the ass though. Let me see what I can come up