Why do member reviews take so long to appear?

[junglejane]

Just wondering why member reviews take so long to appear on Cruisecritic? We returned from the Infinity on 8/13/06. My husband (junglejim) submitted a member review a few days later. We had a great experience and his review was quite positive. However, it still hasn't appeared and the latest reviews are from 7/06. The Infinity has been hammered in the most recently posted reviews primarily because of its pod problems. It's a little frustrating that his positive review seems lost in cyber space. Anyone know why the reviews seem so backlogged?

[BaltiGator]

I too have been waiting a long time for a review I submitted to show up. In the past I don't think it took this long. But be patient - our hosts/mods are very busy and probably have a long list of reviews to...er...review. Keep a copy for yourself in case it really does get lost in cyberspace, and keep checking. This is a great site, and the reviews are a big part of that.

[judyjbest]

That's always been my experience in submitting a review at this site, so that's why we also post the reviews within the cruise line threads immediately. Gives that great positive information to people who will be cruising soon!

[DeltaOne]

Just wondering why member reviews take so long to appear on Cruisecritic?

Just begin a new thread and post it here. It'll be available immediately.

[Host Anne]

Junglejane (and everyone else) ... I'm going to ask Laura, our Community Manager, to post in this thread regarding the process reviews go through before making it to our REVIEWS section here on Cruise Critic. I know there are a tremendous amount of reviews that come in from members and each and every one is read before being released. Laura is on vacation but I'm sure she will check in here when she gets a moment.

 

Thanks for your patience.....

[tom_uk]

Junglejane (and everyone else) ... I'm going to ask Laura, our Community Manager, to post in this thread regarding the process reviews go through before making it to our REVIEWS section here on Cruise Critic. I know there are a tremendous amount of reviews that come in from members and each and every one is read before being released. Laura is on vacation but I'm sure she will check in here when she gets a moment.

 

Thank you, Host Anne. This is helpful.

 

One problem is that because the (official) reviews are taking so long to appear, 'Reviews' are being published as discussion threads (as judyjbest and Paul mentioned), and as such are not subject to any checking.

[thomasale]

great post and I am looking forward to hearing an answer

[LauraS]

Host Anne is correct; we do review all reviews submitted for publication on our website before they are released. They take about 10 to 15 minutes each, give or take. We do run spellcheck (so our member's aren't embarassed, and so that we don't receive e-mail after e-mail with requests to correct spelling :) ) and we also browse for advertising and "nasties" (yes, it does happen).

 

We are also checking for validity of the review. While I will not divulge how we do this, I'm 99.9% sure the reviews in our Member Review database are from legitimate sources. The quality of our published reviews is second to NONE on the web. We consider them an extremely valuable asset, and treat the process accordingly.

 

During prime season -- USUALLY Jan through May - we receive over 250 per week, maybe more. Another usual is that we can catch up a bit over the summer months -- not so this year! We've had our biggest month EVER in all aspects for July!

 

There is a bit of backlog now -- about one month's worth. We are trying to get them published as fast as we can -- we now have two people working on this at any given time!

 

I want to encourage everyone to continue to submit their reviews for publication. Those that have know that during the process you will be given the opportunity to "rate" your cruise experience from soup to nuts -- and your rating is then included in our "Member's Choice Poll" results - (view them here: http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberpoll_index.cfm )

This is the only way your rating is included -- through the submitted review process.

 

I'd also like to encourage everyone to continue to post their reviews on the respective cruise line forums -- as someone mentioned the resulting discussion is invaluable. I myself posted on the board from my cruise and submitted an expanded review for my recent Zenith sailing.

 

Laura

[junglejane]

Thanks for all the feedback, especially the "official" explanations from Host Anne and Laura. From now on we'll be sure to post reviews in these forums, too. However, many people probably only read the Cruisecritic reviews and don't check these boards. It's just unfortunate for the Infinity that the backlog seems to have peaked right at the same time that the Infinity got lots of negative reviews.