Yeah, I just posted that exact same thing on that back pain website which I am sure you have seen as well. Almost humorous how many times they posted in a single day.

Chris, I've read through a number of your reviews this morning... not all 551 of them, but enough to have gotten the impression that you are a thoughtful, and truthful, reviewer. I had never heard of SiteJabber before being asked by the owner of a site (that Todd is referring to here) to provide my own review. I would not ordinarily provide an unsolicited review of *any* site unless I had a bad experience with it, so it stands to reason that "reviews in general" would skew toward the negative, unless a conscious attempt was made to counter bad PR with reviews of satisfied customers.

I don't know if my review helped the PR problem or not, but I did not feel "imposed upon" when asked to provide it, and the fact that several of the site's "best customers" responded in a very short time implies that I'm not alone in that regard; I don't think that their intent was to "spam", and I know mine was not. At Amazon, I always read the 1- and 2-star reviews, and look askance at offerings that only have 5-star reviews, so I understand your analysis here, but I regarded the web site owner's request as valid, though perhaps naive by not expecting your (and Todd's) reservations.

Thanks. Firstly I'd note that my comment above was accurate, and no more than cautionary. In my experience here and elsewhere a sudden flurry of positive postings means someone is trying to interfere with the normal flow of events. Soliciting reviews from customers who otherwise would not have provided them, is one such way to destabilize a site's value to its members.

The purpose of this site is to offer as reliable a balance of opinion as possible. An unusual degree of reliability would be the ideal goal, in fact, whether that's achievable or not. Deliberately subverting the purpose of the site by soliciting a large number of reviews is also damaging the reliability of every single other review here. If you can't trust one, which can you trust?

A reasonable compromise between what's desirable and what's achievable, would be for an honest business owner to solicit at best no more than one positive review from a genuinely positive customer, to balance an existing negative one. To solicit two, is deliberately devaluing all. To solicit a dozen, is ruining the reliability of all. To solicit 30? That's a scam. And it's unnecessary, and the business may well find that the overall balance of opinion becomes so distorted that it's shot itself in the foot, because nobody believes anything positive about it any more.

I fully understand the worry of a business owner, seeing that the only review about his business is a negative and unfair one. I understand the desire to balance that, with a positive review, and then let readers decide. I can't support anyone who won't leave it at that, but decides to deliberately outnumber the negative reviews by swamping the column out with solicitations. That negative review may be true. In which case, justice is not being served by trying to marginalize it. You are making the assumption that the person asking for your solicitation does not deserve a bad review - in other words, the other reviewer is lying. Can you be so sure? Why don't they deserve the same degree of exposure as anyone else?

We're not stupid, I hope, we're customers ourselves, and we won't be surprised if there are a few bad and a few good reviews for the same business, and we're not obliged to believe any of them, anyway. Let us make our own minds up, please. And I'd say to a business owner, by all means if you're honest and certain that your business is being unfairly represented, come and say so. Unlike some other sites, there is a place here for you to pitch in. Nobody wants self-promotion, as such, but if you're genuinely being misrepresented, nobody here is going stop you from saying so. Several business owners have commented on reviews already, they've not been chucked out because they own the business and don't have a right of reply.

Lastly I'd like to add that this is not a "complaints site" as you'll know if you've looked at reviews in any depth. A high proportion are positive reviews and speaking for myself, that's how I like it. You are very welcome, as is anyone, to come and write about sites that have given you good experiences and which you'd like to recommend to others. But without external solicitation. In fact I'd positively encourage it, because if enough people do eventually contribute on both their honest likes and dislikes, one day there might be no temptation to pass off solicited reviews at all. I think to be frank, it's sad that it doesn't occur to people to write good reviews but only to complain. Maybe we can change that?

Incidentally I am not an employee or manager of the site and have no connection with it other than as a voluntary reviewer. I have not been solicited to defend the site, it's a project I believe in.