CRSW deleting reviews?

Read this on a CRSW supportive forum after a member questioned the review system on their site.

"Unfortunately our Customer Service Dept has decided to delete your review as it failed to to offer anything useful to a potential buyer looking to make a informed purchase based on customer feedback".

Any review positive or negative is useful to a potential buyer. If a review system publishes only the positive ones, then it really offers nothing to us.

Things were more "honest and transparent" in the past...

This guy has made so many mistakes the last couple of years. He has changed the containers, names and formulas about 3-4 times. And still has not learned from this.

“Any review positive or negative is useful to a potential buyer.”

It certainly helps. I read over and over again how Glide was the finest soap made today, even better than soap bases coming out of southern New Jersey and Northern California. It wasn’t. A good soap, sure, but nothing resembling the adorations I read.

DFS is mostly free of that thank goodness.

I agree that posted reviews should be left alone, if not just to avoid questions about whether other customer’s opinions been removed or will they be in the future. I don’t know any details about this particular situation, but I feel like once it comes out that a review was deleted, how can customers know a producer/vendor isn’t just deleting any reviews they view as negative and potentially harmful to their business? My opinion is if a review is so blatantly dumb or useless in terms of not providing feedback that’s helpful to potential buyers, the person reading it is just going to skip past it (since they’re most likely reading reviews to find info that’s useful to them).

I believe another well-known vendor got caught red-handed removing most reviews that weren’t positive, and the public feedback was definitely not good.

My opinion is if a review is so blatantly dumb or useless in terms of not providing feedback that’s helpful to potential buyers, the person reading it is just going to skip past it (since they’re most likely reading reviews to find info that’s useful to them).

These type of reviews need to be removed. Just the same as 5 star reviews (i.e. on Amazon) that are published before the product is even released.

Reviews have their value but I think they are YMMV. I think of Yelp - people will post a negative review for anything these days. Business owners need to protect themselves just as much as people need to know the quality of the product. Just my $0.02.

A similar thing happened over at TSN.  A member posted a negative review of a TSN artisan product.  In less than a minute after posting, that member was summarily banned and their review deleted. That's the one that I know about.
It's simple marketing. Vendors only want glowing golden 5-star reviews. Anything less than perfect and the review is a detriment.
If feedback isn't honest and truthful, then it's worthless. Marketing has supplanted integrity.
Sad but true.

A similar thing happened here at TSN.  A member posted a negative review of a TSN artisan product.  In less than a minute after posting, that member was summarily banned and their review deleted.  That's the one that I know about.
It's simple marketing.  Vendors only want glowing golden 5-star reviews.  Anything less than perfect and the review is a detriment.
If feedback isn't honest and truthful, then it's worthless.  Marketing has supplanted integrity.
Sad but true.

That's ridiculous - zero integrity or morals.

This guy has made so many mistakes the last couple of years. He has changed the containers, names and formulas about 3-4 times. And still has not learned from this.

I remember some of these things being unpopular for some, maybe many. But is calling them mistakes your opinion or do those things become automatically mistakes?

I don't use much of Larry's products anymore but I have always had lots of positive interactions with him. I exchanged lots of messages with him giving him constructive feedback and my honest experiences with his products. I really appreciated the fact that he allowed me to be upfront and didn't take it as a hit on him.

Maybe this thread is more about the fact that someone doesn't like vendors over editing reviews on their website but some of the other comments in the OP seem to be conflating other issues.

Read this on a CRSW supportive forum after a member questioned the review system on their site.

"Unfortunately our Customer Service Dept has decided to delete your review as it failed to to offer anything useful to a potential buyer looking to make a informed purchase based on customer feedback".

Any review positive or negative is useful to a potential buyer. If a review system publishes only the positive ones, then it really offers nothing to us.

Reviews on vendor websites are intended to sell product, not to provide balance or accuracy. That is true regardless of the products being sold, so www.coldriversoapworks.com would be expected to have cherry-picked reviews. If you are referring to this post on The Shave Nook, bear in mind that TSN is also a commercial website, and advertising for the owner's retail business. It is therefore expected that discourse will be curated to maximize profit. Even so, I think that the CRSW response in that thread is not terribly bright. Caveat emptor.

I am not defending advertising websites masquerading as hobbyist discussion forums, and think such practices are deceptive and dishonest. I also do not believe that censorship is effective at suppressing dissent, especially on the Internet.

I read over and over again how Glide was the finest soap made today, even better than soap bases coming out of southern New Jersey and Northern California.

Which Joizy and NorCal soaps are those?

I believe vtmax was referring to Wholly Kaw and Grooming Dept, Tbone.

I believe vtmax was referring to Wholly Kaw and Grooming Dept, Tbone.

Thanks for that! I have heard of Holy Kaw before, but not Grooming Dept. It looks like they have some interesting soaps, although Grooming Dept seems to be mostly out of stock at the moment. Some new soaps to try!