Cycling UK Forum

Hi Guys can anyone tell me as a new member how to get an inaccurate posting removed ? Any help will be greatly appreciated .

Thankyou in advance

You could try posting your disagreement about the post you disagree with on the relevant thread, with appropriate supporting material. I think you would get a lot more support on here for that approach than trying to have somebody censored.

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Is it one of your own......

If so, look at the right hand side and you will see"Edit", simply remove the text, and annotate.

If it is not one of your own and you have grounds to object, then use the "exclamation mark" as this will bring it to the attention of the mods.

I think it's a very welcome post, and I'm sure the mods won't complain. What's inaccurate about it?

Inaccurate posts are the lifeline of this forum, as we all love poking and picking at inaccuracies. Such fun we have!

Any road up, the post has been replied to.

I run a shop and someone has put a completely inaccurate complaint on this forum which i strongly disagree with i was just going to see if i could get it taken down that's all . I have 12 years of industry experience and prode myself on having a huge wealth of knowlege to anything bike related . This person [ derogatory noun replaced by Graham * ] that has posted obviously has a bee in his bonnet about us opening a shop and putting the squeeze on the competitors in the town . He thought he could blame us for something which was not our fault . Thanks for the info though guys

[ * Please don't do this. It reflects badly on YOU. Graham ]

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As a personal comment because I can't think of anywhere else to stick it, it's obviously and understandably inevitable that if a trader takes umbrage at a critical post it will be removed and fair enough. OTOH, that's inevitably going to skew comment because no trader will complain about something favourable.

How about a rule that if there is a complaint from a trader about a negative review, then all further comment / recommendation of that organisation should be banned?

I dont know if that is needed. The posts content has been deleted but the company name remains along with the fact that the contents have been censored.
I reckon that stifling the argument in that way would put me off dealing with the company.
I looked into the complainant's posts and he had complained about other dealers too.
So he probably isnt easily pleased.

I dont normally like the service that I get from bike shops and tend to avoid them all.
If I was looking to go to a dealer, I would take a balanced view of the comments about them, if it is just one comment and it had a rebuttal from the owner I would not give it much credence.

There is already a MAJOR cycle company well known to all on this website that I boycott because they tried to suppress criticism with financial levers.

Would agree with this. We're all customers, and we all know that everyone who trades get complaints. What we look for is how a company responds. Suppressing criticism tells the potential customer something, but not, in general, what the company intended...

Often you'll get other customers posting that the company is good. It's harder to motivate someone to post good comments than bad, so the good can outweigh the bad quite easily.

There is already a MAJOR cycle company well known to all on this website that I boycott because they tried to suppress criticism with financial levers.

Indeed, not to mention a cafe that recently chucked its toys out o the pram.

I fear that coming the old: "I advertise with the CTC and give the members a discount so remove the criticism or I'm off" probably does more harm than the original post about poor service. I think that forum users are much more likely to be impressed by a business that engages with the criticiser in a positive and calm way in reply, than someone who wants any possible criticism removed.

I know that from the bike shop's point of view that it is very difficult to see criticism on a public forum, especially if they feel it is unjust, because this is their livelihood that we are talking about. But sometimes I guess it's better to try to contain the very human knee-jerk reaction, and think about how you can turn the criticism into a positive by showing that you go out of your way to deliver customer service excellence even with the most trouble-some of customers.

But ATEOTD, we get two (or more) conflicting accounts of what has gone on and no way of verifying either, so have to err on the side of caution.

Si wrote:.... But ATEOTD, we get two (or more) conflicting accounts of what has gone on and no way of verifying either, so have to err on the side of caution.

I tried to recognise that situation in my post which started this line of discussion. All I'm saying is that one answer is when the offending post has - almost inevitably - been removed, then the thread should display something along the lines that the company in question has objected to comment. Any future comment - good or bad - about the firm should then be taboo. The alternative could only be a distortion. (As an aside, it seems to me in any case that we are pretty tolerant of cheesy product placement.)

To take a current example, unless it has recently disappeared, there is a long and detailed thread containing some truly contrasting posts about Spa Cycles. While it's hard to imagine that they are all about the same place, taken as a whole they paint a candid picture. AFAIK, this has not been challenged. With hindsight, it would have been intolerable if all the critical stuff had been surpressed, l;eaving only the well-justified praise. OTOH, neither the CTC nor the board admin could have dealt with protests except by removing the offending material. That's why I'm suggesting 'warts and all' or nothing.

thirdcrank wrote: That's why I'm suggesting 'warts and all' or nothing.

+1 from me.

Mick F wrote:

thirdcrank wrote: That's why I'm suggesting 'warts and all' or nothing.

+1 from me.

+2.

If I was choosing a shop based on comments I'd go for one with open mixed reviews (up to a point anyway) rather than one where the comments have been censored.