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We are in the process of cleaning this kind of stuff up. Expecting another couple days of work before it's nice and clean.
Will the clean up consist of removing providers who engage in this sort of fake review farming, as it would if this occurred on LET?
How did those reviews even come to be? Sorry if I missed it.
Any thoughts on linking to the LET or LEB source of reviews if they're scraped from your other web properties? Would be a good way to cross-promote these sites and show the active discussion(s) related to the source of the review.
I am not sure how to handle providers who promote their users to leave reviews. I have to think through the best approach there. I want the data to be as useful as possible but also not create too much friction to submit (ie, requiring invoices or other validation). All user-submitted reviews are manually reviewed by the admin team of ServerVerify right now for quality before being published.
Initially upon sharing ServerVerify on LowEndTalk the reviews were taken from all sources linked inside the LEB/LET platform with a big back log of unapproved reviews. The problem is we used AI to test quality on the anonymized or refined reviews and went with it, but the quality was bad. Since then we've removed about 45,000 of the 70,000 reviews. The number of those reviews will be cut down further in the next 24-48 hours as we further scrutinize them.
At the same time we are nearly finished with the code to import direct text reviews from LowEndTalk with source linking. That feature will appear on ServerVerify in the next few days once its tested.
If we revisit the status of reviews on Friday this week I think it'll look much more promising. Plus, by end of week, most hosts who are prominent on LowEndTalk will see they have legitimate user reviews on ServerVerify.
User created reviews will be imported to serververify and monetized? This should be clearly stated in rules.
Wait so jbiloh really shares mails from LET to serververify automatically?
I'm no lawyer but I think this really is against (EU) GDPR (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679 purpose limitation), as serververify kinda is promoted as it's own entity. Heck, just offer the option to opt in if someone wants to link it to LET, not the other way around like you do it now!
Not a cool move how you handle LETs userdata, since this is literally just one step closer to you selling out personal data to the highest bidder.
EDIT: Written with the LET community in mind
Its the same holder.
Correct, LowEndBox, LowEndTalk, and ServerVerify are all owned and operated by WNY IT Services Inc., and data is shared across the three platforms as part of an integrated ecosystem.
For users who wish to exercise the “right to be forgotten,” we follow the same process we’ve had in place for years on LowEndTalk: upon request, we anonymize user IDs and email addresses. This policy now applies consistently across LowEndBox, LowEndTalk, and ServerVerify.
Where is this stated that data would be shared across all three? Can't find it in the ToS when signing up for an account on LET. How can anyone agree or know when it's not there?
You also don't allow anyone to not subscribe to marketing emails just for signing up with a LET account. Nor can you turn them off post sign up.
Oh and how does one get their data completely scrubbed from ServerVerify? I'm asking
and I've asked enough times.
🤦♀️
The full Privacy Policy & TOS is linked in the footer (https://lowendbox.com/privacy-policy/). It is also linked on LowEndBox and ServerVerify in numerous locations.
I have confirmed you are fully unsubscribed, apologies for the discomfort caused by receiving our email.
Please contact the helpdesk (https://services.lowendtalk.com)
Okay so next few questions.
Just license your review with CC-BY-ND. This effectively forbids copy and modification of your text. This will allow to Dmca your reviews in case of blatant copy and shameless profiteering.
I trust @MaxTakeba with the ToS, but I also believe this is the data protection problem in the EU I would assume you could get trouble with, regardless of what the TOS states in anyway. This default implicit inclusion is non compliant imho, and also not very user friendly either. This might be problematic with LEB/LET already (but I guess this could be considered the same context, a forum where you can post stuff). I'd rather suggest to offer a default opt-out with the possibility to opt-in (similar as it is and has been with e.g. newsletters and mailing lists for a long time already)
Serververify has also another purpose, since host ranking != forum posts, single-sided review communication != discussions, I would argue.
This, and the whole drama about how it got kinda only AI generated (but sluggish) content, weird cpu rankings, many many bugs (no problem for beta software but still it add's up a little) and the general direction about how to earn as much money as possible (200 bilohbucks, non-sinking threads again and again, humans only please) just doesn't sit right with the bigger picture.
I don't think anyone should have to do that.
I also think users should have been asked.
It's pretty ridiculous.
Nor does testing oranges with apples.
If you don't yabs with iperf, the result has no business going into the review with different test criteria/methodology.
Someone needs to write a plugin so people can run and submit yabs from WHMCS panel or other panels.
Generally, not required as most sites' terms say they can do whatever they want with the content you posted, some even claiming ownership.
But signing up email/users without their permission and sending them spam is a major, MAJOR faux pas that he should get more than just complaints, he should be penalized. Not just bad form, but likely broke laws.
Marketing emails MUST be opt-in, not opt-out by default.
These rules have been there for about a decade. If you still opt-in customers automatically, you should be fined as per the anti spam laws.
@jbiloh what anti-spam guidelines are you following as I can't figure out what your argument is for thinking this was OK.
000webhost was a free hosting service and they got hacked in 2015 and that began their demise. The host shut down last year.
implement a un/subscribe button to every platform let hosts, shouldnt be that tricky with ai.
reboot the website from 0, and start again with real manually added benchmarks and reviews.
or else, it will be the worst review ranking of vps/providers.
end
It would be great to not having to go through Geekbench; my machines are dead slow in that regard and they are not meant for that purpose either
I see old reviews from LowEndTalk now on ServerVerfiy. Are these being imported manually now? How do you decide what number metrics to apply towards the provider since the reviews you're importing don't use the same metrics for judgement:
These are the review metrics for ServerVerify, not the metrics for LowEndTalk. So when a review is added to a ServerVerify profile, someone has to add a value to these fields. If not the original reviewer, then who decides the numerical value to assign each metric? Curious how an old review complaining about our support response times (which was real bad, but steadily improving) in 2024 would also reduce our scoring for Ease of Use, Features, etc. Those weren't part of their complaint, were ranked 5's before, but now are lesser.
With many reviews of many providers on LowEndTalk, I worry about the quality of those reviews being imported and how they're ranked manually, by the non-reviewer, on these metrics.
I'd assume the user submitted it to ServerVerfiy themselves, but they hadn't logged into LET since January and only created an account there to make 2 threads / 8 comments. Unlikely they reappeared for the sole purpose of copying a review manually, word for word, to a new site.
Still think you need to link to the thread or comments you're scraping reviews from, so people who may read it can read the content and discussion related to it.
ChatGPT decides ans evaluate and scores each review. You know how good LLMs are with math!
Why is our company link https://serververify.com/hosting-providers/hosteroid1 instead of https://serververify.com/hosting-providers/hosteroid?
Also abour reviews did you check with @jsg what score he gives to us in his reviews?
Would honestly likely be more fair that way, with less potential for bias.
I think only real, user-submitted and written reviews to the platform should impact the numerial scoring, as reviews submitted anywhere else that are being copied did not include these scores. Makes it too easy for, say, a provider based in Buffalo to get a metric scored as a "4" instead of a "5" from whoever is copying the review to the ServerVerify site, whereas if another provider with the same review may get a "5" for any particular metric if they're using a particular datacenter.
Honestly, the entire idea is a decent one, but it's been launched in such a way that there can never be any actual trust. Could have easily generated real, worthwhile, and trust worthy reviews by letting some providers donate services / prizes for a launch party where users were encouraged to write reviews for any provider for a chance to win some swag, money, or whatever else. But instead it launched with a bunch of fake AI reviews, manually imported scraped reviews with the potential for manipulating the scoring system, "Similar Hosting Providers" recommendations that are nothing like the provider on the page, etc.
Not a bad idea, just launched in a very untrustworthy manner.
Zagato review was more outrages than jsg
Also: Why provider profiles should include options for listing their ASN, link to bgp.info or similar (bgp.he.net), Payment types (PayPal, Stripe, Crypto, etc, etc), link to their TOS/AUP/Privacy Policy, and other useful links as well.
Genuine suggestions. Off to a rocky start with the lack of trust thing but can still be turned around and made into a useful tool / site.
And where are other 3 reviews it says 6 in total?
hi @jbiloh
I noticed my recent LET review I did for skhron was imported to serververify.
I didn't consent to it but whatever, I don't mind my review next to 17 colocrossing advertisements on a site I never registered to.
My problem is - for some reason it only has 4 stars while I would want personally give them 5.
I created a serververify account but there doesn't seem to be a way to change the rating.
Not sure were does the 4 star come from but i have slight suspicion
Is there any way I can change how many stars I would like to give a provider in my own review?
It's kinda under my name so i would prefer it to reflect my real opinion you know
The math can slightly change, no?