You know those bars and restaurants...

[giggirl]

How come, Bob and Dave, you don't have this kind of insight when you really need it. Let's discuss. Over lunch. Do you know anywhere good to go in East Dulwich?

[Mick Mac]

I had a bad experience at Le Chandelier. I have always kept it to myself though.

[maxxi]

Surprised at XXXL Zorba throwing a (belly) wobbler as there were positive as well as adverse comments re them

- as for the Acorn Antiques Tea Rooms - it makes you want to plonk yourself on a beautifully embroidered seat in there and declaim: "We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now!"

[Gidget]

Humungous Anthony Quinn posted their own false reviews. They got caught out. Thread taken down first.

[maxxi]

ah, hence the phrase "Beware Greeks bearing gifts telling fibs"

[Jeremy]

silverfox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> My first is in salon de th? but not in caf?

> My second is in tisane but not in rosy lee

> My third is in gateaux but not in cakes

> My last is in gag but not in feedback

>

> Who am I?

Is the answer "LNUG"?

[MrBen]

Taking a business owners perspective though...you can half kill yourself to build a great business, in a recession and work damn hard for years only to have your carefully built reputation destroyed in minutes because of potentially unsubstantiated, malicious attacks on the web forums. The law has yet to catch up. Flip it the other way and it's a genuine threat.

Not justifying their stance but there's another point of view here.

[Gidget]

MrBen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Taking a business owners perspective though...you

> can half kill yourself to build a great business,

> in a recession and work damn hard for years only

> to have your carefully built reputation destroyed

> in minutes because of potentially unsubstantiated,

> malicious attacks on the web forums. The law has

> yet to catch up. Flip it the other way and it's a

> genuine threat.

>

> Not justifying their stance but there's another

> point of view here.

Or you could be like Green and Blue and engage with your customers? Not just waffle and obfuscate.

[Guest]

I've always liked the business in question but I'm sad to see them gag their supporters as well as detractors. Unfortunately I think it's likely to undermine their business as 'friends' like me will feel a little alienated by not being able to give them the occasional recommendation and others will think they must have something to hide. Rather heavy-handed.

[AlexC]

I understand that some businesses are not so 'au fait' with social media...and even your basic internet forum. I also understand that posts with libelious accusations about the inner workings of a company from possibly disgruntled ex-employees, should probably be removed unless they can be backed up with hard evidence.

....however, I don't agree with businesses banning all mentions of a company from the past and future. I'm slightly dissapointed if the Administrator has fully complied with these sort of requests. Feels a little like this forum is being hosted in China.

The way to deal with negative PR is not to just try and censor it, or withdraw from new forms of customer feedback. It's to engage.

It sounds like some companies really need to wake up and realise that it's something you need to deal with in the modern age.

[StraferJack]

Mr Ben

It's a point that's already been made but really

"your carefully built reputation destroyed in minutes because of potentially unsubstantiated, malicious attacks on the web forums. "

I think when the ex-employee posted their side of the story, it raised eyebrows but I doubt many people would have made up their mind based on that alone. Even given the fact that the poster has a longish history on this forum and has A Decent Forum Credit Rating in my eyes, it was clearly one side of the story. Chandelier's reputation was unchanged to me at that point

However, when LC came back with their draconian "orders", the owners who built up a business over years, in a recession, destroyed their own reputation in minutes. Not a cat's chance of me setting foot in the place again - and that has nothing to do with the original negative posts

[civilservant]

What SJ said

I originally wrote in support of LC against what I thought was some rather silly criticism. But of course the gag means that you can't check that out any more... And I won't be going out of my way to sample their wares any time soon.

[MrBen]

Strafer - I'm not actually talking about everyones favourite SE22 tea shop here. Just making the general point.

Which is...there is atill no *robust* legal protection for genuine, hard working businesses who are unfairly targeted by some tw@t with a grudge when it comes to social media. Free speech and opinions? Of course. But in the cases where it's genuinely malicious then what? You "engage" and give it back? Damage is already done.

It would be nice to think everyone could apply sensible, discerning criteria and context before making up their own mind but when it comes to Twitter etc millions won't.

[StraferJack]

I hear you. TripAdvisor has been the focus for much of this type of discussion for years - I've seen a few docs on TV even, not that they have advanced the matter significantly

You could have the cleanest, most luxurious, reasonably priced, best situated (etc etc) hotel in the world, but you are still going to get a few people 1 starring it. And that's after discounting the posts from "rival" operators

But any transparent business can take those posts and demonstrate they are untrue. Or just factor them in as cost of doing business. I'm sure it's not pleasant for hard-working businesses to read some failry rancid opinions on line but does it need legal intervention? Seems a bit hammer to crack a nut to me

Look at the amount of negative posts "a local butcher" gets on here. Some of them bordering on libellous on occassion. Has it harmed their business? Or do they just shrug and do what we all do when we see a post in metaphorical green biro and call the person a "c**k"

[El Pibe]

This is a much wider issue than a couple of idiots badmouthing businesses, it's more of a pandora's box/lunatics taking over the asylum scenario.

Those who shout loudest and most often get heard most as social media and citizen 'journalism' increasingly becomes the primary source of information for m(b?)illions.

Your New Nexus types may be this taken to it's absurd logical conclusions, but it has a more insidious effect on the rest of us as it becomes increasingly difficult to tease unsubstantiated information from the real thing.

Likewise the knee-jerk trip to wikipedia as the de-facto arbiter of truth is even worse as critical faculties seem to have gone right out the window, especially given how much of that information is dubious at best.

Back on topic I must say I sympathise the businesses in question, their representatives clearly aren't as web savvy as they need to be and it must be both exaspertating and intimidating for them.

This is where I reiterate that banal point made a spliggion times by others about how positive engagement will pay dividends.....

[????]

MrB that's a complete sidetrack, red herring (and arguabally not really true anyway many forums and even commercial sites are policed by the wisdom of crowds, but that's another debate).

ED is a pretty small area, the EDF is a raesonable representation of reasonable number of pub/bar/restaurant users. Businesses that don't engage with their customers and potential customers and don't use an mazing resource such as a localised forum like this for feedback/marketing whatever or just to to get a feel are quite frankly darn right mad, stupid, etc. Could a 'fake review' on the EDF put a retailer out of business? behave! Seriously, this is policed by admin, by its many contributors and all the local retailers can , and many do, comment etc.

Stupid behaviour by businesses that apparently don'twant to hear what customers think...thoughts that many proper businesses pay ?0000s for. Not a clue

I'm not going to any business that isn't willing to take reviews/comments from regular local punters and actually tries to gag them...luckily there's plenty of competition locally that do want to listen to their customers.

[????]

El pibe - I admire your faith in traditional sources of information and the media's quality of info. The point is, when you get enough and wide input and take out the outlier nutters (which the vast majority of us are more than capable of doing) the Internet has vastly improved my understanding of products, companies, services, websites, etc via my peers not company literature/PR/Magazine reviews etc Vastly. Yu'#ve got the word of mouth of 1000s rather than just a few friends in some areas and, aggregated it's pretty darn good in most areas - trvel, hotels, bars, restaurants, Techie products, games, etc etc etc. Give me the wisdom of crowds in most areas I buy in now oover reviews in the press or companies marketing gumf.

[Guest]

Completely agree re engagement. Trying to suppress freedom of speech is just silly: I don't see how they can possibly expect EVERY reference to them, even supportive or random mentions, to be removed; surely there's no provision for that within our legal system. It's a completely different matter from removing illegal or libellous posts.

But not as silly as issuing a 'press release' about the problem. I'm sure they're right to be afraid that local media might pick up on negative comments (look at the number of posts from journalists on the forum), but issuing a statement like that is just going to make people think there's some truth in it.

That said, it doesn't look like a professional press statement in terms of format, function, language or even spelling, so maybe they just got a bit worked up and over-reacted? Easily done when it's your own business at stake, but if so it would be great if they'd reconsider. Personally I think it should be enough for Admin to enforce the no libel/illegal activity rule.

[StraferJack]

"Back on topic I must say I sympathise the businesses in question [] their representatives clearly aren't as web savvy as they need to be"

Before we sympathise too much let's bear in mind at least one of those business was web savvy enough to pepper the forum with announcements and adverts long before they opened for trading. They were also web savvy enough to post fake recommendations

I don't see them as "not web savvy" - I see them as "not savvy". Which is entirely up to them - but when they then forbid the local forum from even praising them they lose any and all sympathy

When they close down, I'm certain they will blame some of the nagative reviews that were posted briefly. Easier for them to do that than admit it was their lack of savvy and their hostile attitude to potential customers

If they had a good product, the corwdsourced verdict on here would be bringing customers to them. Their decision

[????]

Well said SJ - was going to check that one out, won't bother now if they think they can traet punters like idiots.

[Mick Mac]

I can't believe my post about a certain tea shop has been deleted. Who grassed me up. I have a fair idea who it was.

[El Pibe]

????

:)

[giggirl]

Mick Mac Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I can't believe my post about a certain tea shop

> has been deleted. Who grassed me up. I have a fair

> idea who it was.

HA

[StraferJack]

Yep ? same here quids. I have various family members ?up to London? and that was a potential night out. Not any more

But I?m sure they are all web-savvy enough to still be reading this thread. If I was a businessperson, in a recession, working hard to build up my reputation and business I would read the various posts and have a word with myself. I would then contact admin and retract any embargo and I would then start a thread advertising some deal or other and some kind of ?oops, might have overreacted there. And our cakes are LOVELY ? type statement.

Lord knows most of us on this thread have done that at various points. No shame in it. Everyone kisses and makes up. A happy ending

If the business WAS subject to anything libellous, those messages get removed anyway by Admin and the team.

As for the recession itself ? the customers of these businesess are suffering just as much. If they ARE going to spend any disposable income it would be nice to know if a local restaurant was falseley advertising anything.

Conversely if anyone falsely accused a local business of such bad practice, it would be a 2 minute job to deny that and laugh it off

[AlexC]

If they were web saavy, they'd also realise that posts never die. Easily come across while google'ing, looking for reviews of the places...

http://dulwich.mywakefield.co.uk/news/re-my-big-fat-greek-on-melbourne-grove-45

http://dulwich.mywakefield.co.uk/news/ed-businesses-restaurants-and-trades-re-le-chandelier-1