My reply to a user's review does not appear for other users

[Rob H]

Hi,

As shown in the attached screenshots, my reply to a user's review of my extension does not appear for other users.

What can I do to remedy this?

The extension's item ID is fohlpjahcdbkpcckapphhpahbiajccmj, linked here.

Thanks in advance,

Rob

[Stefan Van Damme]

Hi Rob,

Have you tried to remove the comment, and add it again?

Also, for support questions, you can enable the User Support tab. See this Chrome Web Store page:

https://developer.chrome.com/docs/webstore/manage/#user-support-tab

Thanks,

Stefan vd

[Simeon Vincent]

Hm, at first I was thinking that maybe it was being held back because it wasn't reviewed yet, but based on your screenshots it looks like it's been a few days. If Stefan's suggestion doesn't work, I'd suggest using the One Stop Support form to request assistance. 

Simeon - @dotproto

[Robbi]

@ Rob H : You should have asked that user why they didn't give you 5 stars when the extension worked.

[Rob H]

Thank you Simeon and Stefan for your suggestions. I am now trying to get help through One Stop Support.

I had written a more detailed response here in this group, quoting one of the emails I received from Support, and for some reason that isn't showing up either.

[ilyaigpetrov]

I think a product in the webstore may have several feedback threads for different languages. Look in the url address of your product on the webstore and try to find query parameter named `hl` and try setting it to some other language.

[ilyaigpetrov]

Have just played with your product in the webstore -- I doubt it's a language issue as I proposed.

[Simeon Vincent]

Rob, your message was flagged as spam & required review. I thought I approved it, but since I don't see it here I may have accidentally rejected it. You're welcome to post it again.

Simeon - @dotproto

[Rob H]

Thank you, Simeon. I understand about the mixup. I appreciate that I can discover the removal of my messages in this group while logged in. I can't say the same for the Chrome Web Store's interface.

To summarize what I previously wrote, I received a response from One Stop Support that said "To avoid similar issues in the future, we recommend avoiding bulk replies and personalizing the content of your replies." My comment was clearly not spam, so I did not find that response particularly helpful. FWIW I would be willing to pay an annual fee to publish extensions and be able to reach a thoughtful human upon first contact for issues like this. To resolve the current issue, I simply replied again with less words, and it appears that that response has been allowed to remain.

Unfortunately that does not resolve Chrome Web Store's use of shadow removal to hide the removal of my own replies from me. Anyone familiar with my work knows, I have tracked this practice happening on Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Truth Social, etc. It is not rare, despite claims made by well-regarded groups such as the Center for Democracy & Technology who say they follow this.

The pervasiveness of shadow moderation across so many digital communication tools tells me that much of the tech world has lost its moral compass. It's easy to demonstrate. You would not want your own content to be secretly removed, and so there is no moral justification for doing it to others. The notion that this is somehow useful in combatting bots or trolls is false. Bot authors will easily adjust their code to detect removal status, and subjecting trolls to this means they receive no mediation and have no chance to learn the rules. The other defense, that "the algorithm" did it, is not sufficient. Humans came up with this moderation strategy. Someone is responsible. Maybe it's all of us, but that's still someone.

Regarding opening up a CWS-based support tab, it says "this feature does not provide notifications" whereas my current setup does, so I don't need that.

Thank you to everyone who helps maintain this forum.