Request for Opinion

[Pete B]

Opinions requested please:

 

Melissa Johnson recently posted the following on "World Hair" (https://www.rocwiki.org/world_hair)

 

The comment was: "Recently five stylists from world hair left, they are now at Gel Salon on Park Ave. Heather DeMars, Melissa Johnson, Amanda Mack, Amanda Mercado and Tasha Bell. Haircuts are still 17, call 585-350-9913 to schedule an appointment"

 

I removed it and notified her that it is basically advertising for another business which is inappropriate. She disagrees.

 

Opinions please?

 

Thank you

Pete B

RocWiki Contributor and Admin Team Member

[Damian Kumor]

I'd leave it since it's just a comment.

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[Pete B]

Isn't it advertising to tell people to call another company??

[Damian Kumor]

Yeah but we have people say 'go here instead' all the time

Sent from my iPhone, typos are numerous and hilarious

[Pete B]

Damian (and all),

 

Can't remember specifics but I seem to remember an issue a few years back when a chef left a Japanese restaurant for another and posted for people to come see him at the new place. That was removed--I believe--as advertising for the other business.

 

This is fairly identical in terms of situation.

Pete

[Pete B]

But that's customers and clients, not former staff.

[Ryan Tucker]

Only objection that I have is that Gel Salon isn't an internal wiki link to the Gel Salon page.  -rt

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Ryan Tucker <rtu...@gmail.com>

[Pete B]

Ok 2-1 I guess none else is going to chime in so I'll restore it

[Damian Kumor]

Maybe we need more and less admins?

Sent from my iPhone, typos are numerous and hilarious

[kym reed]

Hi, I am the owner of world hair.  I have to say that i am astonished that you could deem this former employees actions acceptable to your format.  I thought rocwiki was a review site, and i don't think redirecting customers from my page to another business by a former employee qualifies as a review.

[Damian Kumor]

I thought it was a wiki, hence the name.  It's not a review site.  It is not Yelp or TripAdvisor or UrbanSpoon.

[Damian Kumor]

As long as it's in that person's comment then it's just that person's opinion.  As a matter of wiki policy, the community has decided that comments are to be left alone for most cases. 

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 3:07 PM, kym reed <kym...@gmail.com> wrote:

ok, point taken, but i still don't think that redirecting customers from my page is a legit use of it.

[James Sweet]

FWIW, this is definitely not an easy call.  As you can see, Pete B was explicitly opposed to leaving the comment.  I followed this thread but didn't weigh in because, well, I'm completely on-the-fence.  My assumption is that RocWiki's role is to serve the community.  On the one hand, customers are perhaps best served by keeping the comment, as it provides information that customers may be legitimately seeking (e.g. "where did my stylist go?").  On the other hand, business owners (as a whole) are best served when unbiased information about local businesses is provided, without anything that might unduly sabotage a particular business.  I'm torn, so that's why I didn't say anything earlier.  But I am now, just to say, I feel for where Kym is coming from.  It's a tough call -- and historically, RocWiki seems to have erred on the side of letting comments stand, as long as it's not egregious.

[Pete B]

Kym-thank you for your concern.

 

James--yes my opinion is firm-the comment is specifically and obviously intended to take away business and I don't believe it is fair to Kym. I have, however, been outvoted in consensus and I will respect others opinions despite my strong stand this comment should not be allowed.

[James Sweet]

It would be nice if we could somehow get more input here... I feel like a 2-1 majority is not a very strong vote of confidence for what is such a different dodgy judgment call.

[Pete B]

Actually it's 2-2 with Kym expressing her concern so we need someone to break the tie.

[BadFishROC]

It is factual that people have left and gone to another place where people who would like to business with them can go. That is factual and I say it should stand. People follow batenders, servers and even mechanics. However giving the phone number and price of haircuts of the other place is spammy. We wouldn't allow that on its own in another page or in another situation. This is an unusal situation where the comment should be edited to leave the factual part but remove the advertising.

Also, I hardly think the owner of the business (Kym) in question can be counted in the vote. That is hardly a neutral party. If we invite the owner of Gel to comment, I am sure they would say it should stay.

[Pete B]

Badfish--Thank you for coming into the discussion.

I'm inviting Melissa Johnson-the original poster-into the discussion.

Maybe we can compromise on this in a way that both Kym & Melissa can agree too.

PROPOSAL: Redact the comment so it says only the facts that the stylists left and where they went--we remove the reference to the phone # and the prices.

Would that be reasonable?

Pete

[James Sweet]

That sounds reasonable to me, and might even get me off the fence and voting for a "keep".  Now that Ryan has wikilinked Gel Salon, anybody looking for the phone number and pricing info can easily find it if they are looking for it.  But it doesn't shove that in the face of people who just want reviews of World Hair.

[Pete B]

I linked it but you get the idea :)

[Rottenchester]

Is the phone number in the comment correct? It is not the same as the Gel Salon phone number in the Wiki page. Now that it is linked, the smart thing to do is to remove the number from the comment and update the one on Gel's page. Same thing for pricing - put it on the Gel page, so everyone who is looking at Gel can see what a haircut costs there. The rest of the comment is a fact about World Hair - they just lost 5 stylists, who went to Gel. 

If Melissa and Kym want to spend some constructive time on their respective businesses, they should beef up their pages. Template:

[Salon] offers the following services: color, cut, [whatever else they offer].

Haircuts start at [price].  Prices for other services [service, price]

Current stylists at the salon are [names].

[Damian Kumor]

I think this got blow way out of proportion, this was a small comment at the bottom of a page that nobody was likely to read very seriously.  I think Pete and the owner made too much of a deal of this.  

[Rottenchester]

I agree with this. Total nothingburger. 

[Pete B]

Since Melissa agreed to the changes recommended, I am going to simply remove the price from it-that is advertising. Otherwise I consider this settled.

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Chris Olin <ch...@chrisolin.com> wrote:

What Damian said.

Sent from my phone

[kym reed]

Thank you for all the feedback and removing the pricing info from the post.  I just don't think advertising your business on another businesses page is appropriate, but obviously others think differently.