Update And Expand A Pin?

[Miss Wiggle]

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...84522&st=32

this topic about mail order fish places i think could maybe do with some updating, there's some other info I'd like to see which I think could be combined with the info in this thread and better organised. i'd want to cover other online stores and ebay, plants, equipment and accessories as well as just fish, then perhaps combine all the recommendations throughout the post onto one page, sorted into groups like oddballs, cichlids, betta's etc

it's a good post but i think a little work could make it into a much more comprehensive and excellent resource

i can definately think of a few more stores i'd recommend to people and i'm sure forum members can come up with a lot too

 

[Miss Wiggle]

no one care? not even enough to say it's a useless pointless idea! lol

 

[William]

It sounds good to me Miss Wiggle, is this something you'd be willing to do? If so, we'd have no problem unpinning the original topic and pinning up a new update to date and more sophisticated topic.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

thanks William, I'll certainly have a look at it if you like.

got a busy week in work next week so may take a week or so to even start it properly. however i can stick a post up in chit chat now asking for reviews and suggestions for inclusion then work on combining it all and sorting it out afterwards.

is there anything in addition to the things i mentioned above that you'd like to see covered?



oh also - do you want to include negative reviews or places people should avoid, i can see how this could cause a lot of problems/arguments so maybe it'd be best to just stick to the positive?

 

[Bloo]

oh also - do you want to include negative reviews or places people should avoid, i can see how this could cause a lot of problems/arguments so maybe it'd be best to just stick to the positive?

Personally - I think you need to include negatives as well.
Positive only is just one-sided and completely unhelpful.
Negative doesn't have to slate into nasty details. Just the basics of why one should go elsewhere.
That's my 2p

 

[Miss Wiggle]

I can see both sides of it Bloo, I was more thinking of the legal implications for William if he not only has negative reviews of someone on his site, but is seen to activley support that by pinning the topic. Not sure if he could get in trouble for it??

 

[Bloo]

In the UK there seems to be review sites left right and centre for just about anything under the sun. Just look at any of the restaurant review sites. Or anything for that matter. They've been doing it for years and publish all reviews - good or bad. So can't quite imagine what the problem would be expressing a personal view

 

[Miss Wiggle]

fair enough, i won't pretend I know the ins and outs of it. think i just worry too much!!

 

[William]

There was a lawsuit by an american company a couple of years ago who sued a mailing list I believe as one of the people criticized a product they had recently bought and as a result the company. http/dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/20...ants/index.html

Therefore, whilst I think criticisms can be allowed, within limits - such as I do not recommend this store because of x, y and z. I also think it should be more a merit based system - perhaps with marks out of 10.

 

[seffieuk]

Yet again I find my views agreeing with Bloo But a rating system could be used rather than negative comments. Miss Wiggle, it would be very useful to update the pin or even completely re-write - I for one would use it

 

[Birdie]

Recent successful court case against a newspaper's restaurant review. A jury has upheld the owner's claim that the review was defamatory, and awarded the restauranteur £25K in damages ( not sure who is paying which costs).

So I don't think that Miss Wiggle is necessarily worrying over nothing. Even though the newspaper is lodging an appeal.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

There was a lawsuit by an american company a couple of years ago who sued a mailing list I believe as one of the people criticized a product they had recently bought and as a result the company. http/dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/20...ants/index.html

Therefore, whilst I think criticisms can be allowed, within limits - such as I do not recommend this store because of x, y and z. I also think it should be more a merit based system - perhaps with marks out of 10.

OK I'll have a look at something like that.

 

[nmonks]

I think William makes a very good point. That Aquatic Plants law suit was horrible. On the other hand, I don't think that sort of case would get very far in the UK because of the differences in how civil law suits are handled in the two countries. Specifically, in England at least, the loser pays. (Though, on the other hand, this does make access to the law more expensive here than in America, so as ever its swings and roundabouts as to which is best.)

Having said all this, I'm not wild about making unsubstantiated negative comments about retailers. For one thing, the retailers aren't here to defend themselves, so it's intrinsically unfair.

So rather than making broad negative comments like "XYZ Fish Shop has really unhealthy stock" it is much better (I suggest) to make specific claims. In other words, you might say " When I visited on April 18th I noticed that at least three tanks had fish with whitespot and there was a dead gourami in one of those tanks". Leave it to the reader to read between the lines and make their own judgement about whether or not that store is worth patronising.

All stores have their plusses and minuses, and I think we need to be objective about that. I know stores that are superb in one angle, say marines, but mediocre in others, say community tropicals. Any objective review needs to try and balance the two sides to at least some degree.

One of the things I do professionally is review software and hardware for computer magazines. Reviewing is a bit of an art, but one of the very best things you can do is *talk to the subject* before publishing. If you want to write a bad review, it is good to talk to the store owner first, by e-mail perhaps, and say that when you visited you saw A, B, C things wrong. Retailers are the lifeblood of the hobby, and without them, the hobby would collapse. Unfortunately, not all retailers have kept up with the times (see how many crummy web sites there are!). But until someone tells them that (say) stocking painted glassfish is detrimental to their image, they might not know that. Sure, they should know, but a lot aren't aware of how much the Internet matters to them. At the end of the day, the point of writing reviews isn't to slam a retailer (however therapeutic that might seem) but to *encourage better practise*.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Miss Wiggle]

very good points Neale, thankyou for your contribution.

like i've said on the topics asking for recomendations, try and keep it factual please, think i'll run the finished topic past William before I post it so he can have the final say as it's his site