What's the proper etiquette for giving Honest reviews on WSO's?

I think if you buy a WSO, you're doing other Warriors (and actually the WSO seller) a service by writing an honest review.

With that said, one man's trash is another man's treasure - what you consider basic information might be the aimed at right level that a newbie needs.

If you were to leave negative comments, I wouldn't get personal or attack the seller.

Just my thoughts anyway.

By giving your honest opinion. If you've purchased the WSO you have the right to leave an honest review.

The only thing you have to avoid is any personal attacks on the seller (or anyone else). As long as you stick to the product, say what you think.

Stephen,

Stay calm. You won't get banned. Make sure the products you buy have a money back guarantee.

If the product is trash, you can get your money back.

Since we are all Warriors, I would recommend that you privately message the product creator with your complaints so that he can improve his guide.

And then we are all happy. ;-)

Paul

Ken and Paul, I know you're repected warriors, maybe even mods, but if i just pm the guy and ask for a refund, I look like a "serial refunder"

I guess if I keep my review specific and don't make any comments about the individual, I'm ok?

Steve

Sorry Mick, didn't mean to skip you.

This always amazes me and I don't know what you are looking for when buying a WSO, but I've recently been on somewhat of a WSO buying spree and ALL of them have been amazing. Very high quality and I've learned a lot about something I wanted to learn about.

Are you chasing magic bullets and buying WSOs with wild promises? Do you buy from people that you know have a great reputation? I think you need to change the way that you buy if you are constantly "getting burned," because there's a lot of high quality stuff out there.

That doesn't answer your question ... I'll let others deal with that.

And you can't always get your money back. I saw a thread just a couple days ago where the wso info was completely untrue and several people emailed for a refund. The author just split.. no refunds and no more comments on his wso. So yes... most definitely leave honest feedback.

Personally, I hate that the author can delete any comments they want. That happens all too often too. Crappy product? Bad reviews? Just delete them and keep the product looking perfect. Bwah...

Avoid personal attacks first off, but that is obvious. You might want to list the pros and cons of the product. There must be some pros to even the most crappy WSO, and then if the cons are more than the cons, everyone can figure it out for themselves I would think.

Great question and happy to read these responses. Not too long ago I purchased a WSO and followed it all to a T but didn't get the results everyone else was raving about.

I was asked by the WSO owner to remove my comment because it was negative and everyone else was positive. But what would the point be if only positive reviews were kept? I hardly ever buy anything but when I do, I do every detail of it step-by-step as soon as I purchase it, so I think my review was valid. I hope people don't remove negative reviews when asked, unless there is a legit reason.

Nothing is ever going to work for every single person in every single market every single time, so I think a bad review or two isn't the end of the world, if it's the truth about it.

I think all reviews should be confined to the product reviews forum, and the WSO thread should be restricted to Q&A about the product.

This is largely because I think most reviews are stupid. When Joe Moron with a 65 IQ leaves his "HURR DURR THIS WSO WAS AWESOME DERP" review on the WSO thread, nobody will say anything, but when Bob Jerkwad with his 215 IQ leaves "This WSO is teh suck, you will be a dork and not make any money" review it will probably get reported and is likely to be removed from the thread.

This is usually because of the rule against damaging someone else's WSO thread. Furthermore, I'm told some people have had posts removed over "not buying the WSO" because they requested and received a refund... leaving it less than clear whether someone can get their money back AND tell fellow Warriors that this product is a piece of crap. Plus, it feels very much like the WSO forum itself can't be used to criticise or condemn WSOs, because there's money mixed up in it.

Move it all to the reviews forum, and these problems disappear. Anyone can start a review thread about anything and post whatever review they want, subject to rule #1. And if the WSO's owner wants to link to that thread from their main post or "reserved for FAQ" entry, they can. In all likelihood, a lot of WSO owners will just make that part of the process: pay for WSO, reserve first post for Q&A, start new review thread.

My two cents, anyway.

I don't invest or buy anything if all I see are positive reviews so you'd be helping everyone. I'm really glad to see this site is open to honest reviews. It's posts (and responses) like this that keep people coming back.

Chuckle - don't know why but I find this thread amusing - whether stated or not there appears to be a strong culture of not writing bad reviews - geez and to read some of those overhyped reviews - I now ignore them all - and only look for what the WSO actually offers.
In my opinion the biggest problem is the rule/policy/practise that you can't reveal details of the wso in your post.
I once purchased a wso on "how to use PLR" - boasting unique methods - it was crap - nothing unique - in my review I stated so and stated the info was nothing that I could not find on many PLR products sales pages ie use it as an ebook etc - without much effort I found a PLR product sales page and quoted the methods...
I was asked to remove the post and did not - that got me a one week ban ...
so, do bad reviewers get banned - yes,at times they do
does this stop them posting bad reviews in the future
in my case it has, I simply ask for a refund(sometimes) and move on
I have purchased some excellent WSO's - value I could not get anywhere else
but now I am verycareful toignore the reviews - in myopinion there is just too much hype.
There is often critism of the poor quality of some WSO's - I think if warriors could post highly critical reviews then they would not last long and we would all be better off for it - whatever the mods say there is a culture here that negative reviews are not acceptable - to me, that's verified by the comment above that OP's feal justified in asking for negative reviews to be removed.....
any how , just my 2c worth

[QUOTE=Ouroboros;4229225]Will I get banned if I tell what I think about some of the crappy WSO's that are coming out lately?

It's your right to tell them anything that you want to say about them. Being Honest is better than telling lies and that's a fact. Your question about getting banned is not really for me to answer. How about trying it and let's see if you'll get banned. If you get banned, this will only determine how incompetent they are. Constructive criticisms should always be welcomed to achieve the development we are looking for.

What i hate about WSO reviews is that people review not the product itself, but how fast it was delivered)

I gave ONE "review", as a result of that Fiverr, that I later shut-down, on my own account, before any mention in this thread.

Inundated with requests review in my inbox here, I actually got the idea from this gig:
http://fiverr.com/users/diariles/gig...ref=glst-g-ttl

With almost 400 purchases, THIS is the kind of thing we don't want here, right? ...or, is this OK?

"I will create a video up to 3 minutes in length describing how awesome my experience with your site, product, or business was....Reviews are all fabricated! Message me details prior to ordering for a genuine review."

For some to say that they can't trust ANY of my WSO reviews....I gave one as a result of that Fiverr gig, and unless I gave a review a long long time ago, I really don't recall reviewing any other WSOs.

Rest assured, the WSO section isn't bombarded by a plethora of 'skewed' reviews from myself, as some here have made it sound.

Again....I'm not evading this thread or anything....After 1 review, I suspended the gig BEFORE anyone said anything here.

As far as you don't personally attack the seller , it is fine to leave your honest review , good or bad .

Like most other members have stated, an honest review is an honest review but it must be reviewed from the correct perspective and not just whether it suits your ideal requirements?
Is it crappy because you believe it won't work or because it is poorly put together. personally I've bought some WSO's that looked real crappy (visually) but contained a few nuggets of gold. Just be careful and diplomatic with your wording and everything will be fine.

Interesting exchange...

Ken Strong said...

"By giving your honest opinion. If you've purchased the WSO you have the right to leave an honest review.

The only thing you have to avoid is any personal attacks on the seller (or anyone else). As long as you stick to the product, say what you think."

Tina Golden said...

"I disagree with this, Paul.[in response to Paul Coleman] Reviews should be posted in the thread so others don't waste money or time on a garbage product."

Paul Myers said...

"What Ken said. Exactly that. Stick to the product, tell the truth, don't bash the seller as a person, and you'll be fine.

We encourage reviews, positive and negative, as long as they follow those guidelines and only come from people who've actually paid for the products or were given a review copy by the seller."

Suzanne said this...

"Are you chasing magic bullets and buying WSOs with wild promises? Do you buy from people that you know have a great reputation? I think you need to change the way that you buy if you are constantly "getting burned," because there's a lot of high quality stuff out there."

That kind of ticked me off, because she automatically assumed something, I'm not sure what..."magic bullets"? I'm not looking for the next shiny thing, I just expect a little bit of value for my money. I'm not a noob and I don't buy "magic bullets".

Coby said, and I'm selecting points...

"I wish more people would speak their mind. There have been several times I bought a WSO that have great reviews and was quite disappointed...

Then after purchase you find out the creator is offering a bonus for posting in their thread or something similar..."

So the guy(s) that offered me a bribe to leave a "glowing review", I should refund those guys and report them?

I could go on and on, quite a few replies to my original thread, but despite some people's universally good experience, I've been wading through a bunch of crap lately.

The part I hate is that if you buy a decent or even good WSO, you get bombarded with "affiliate" emails from that person, encouraging you to buy more and more WSO's that they recommend (via WSO Pro no doubt).

Sorry, but I'm getting a bit jaded to all this crap. I've said enough for now, just don't expect glowing testimonials from me. I'm going to tell it like it is (within limits).

Steve

My feeling is that WF definitely does not like negative reviews - there's a "if you've nothing good to say, say nothing" attitude, and when you read multiple posts above about getting bans from WSO, that shows it's a wider problem with the whole forum.

I do like a lot of the stuff I see here, and some of the information might be useful to *someone* just because it's not useful to me, but then again some of it really is just pure crap. There's a reason IM has a bad rep, why MMO, GRQ stuff gets PayPal and YouTube accounts locked. A certain percentage, sometimes a large percentage, just isn't very good.

I saw a free WSO in the War Room a month or so back. The content was so bad that not only was I disappointed that it wasn't great but I resented the 15 minutes of my life that was wasted looking at it, and shocked that any WF member could publish something so bad. No, I didn't leave a review - I don't think it would be appreciated by those concerned and I don't need the hassle.

Payment for honest reviews...

I have an issue with this one, in that I want to do it. It can be difficult to motivate any customer to give a review or testimonial and usually people incentivise it in some way (maybe a bonus, a discount voucher, a present, and sometimes even cash).

I will happily pay for someone to give me a "warts and all" review with loads of criticism - preferably that is constructive so I can take action on it. What better than to reply to a review listing 5 major problems with "we've fixed items 1-3 already, item 4 will be done tomorrow and item 5 is scheduled for Monday". Or even "we don't agree with you on point X, we do it this way because of Y and Z". That's the way to deal with criticism.

I've tried to get honest reviews before, but the stuff we got was gushy, over the top positive crap that showed they hadn't even used our product - useless to me and I'd never publish them. Positive reviews are great, but negative and partially negative reviews help you improve your product.

I think it's a problem with IM in general, and affiliate stuff specifically, that there's always a lot of positive reviews and very few detailing the negatives. I almost didn't buy some great products because there was too much positive gush. Maybe this is because I'm not from the US and I think there's a different attitude here in Ireland and the UK, but there's always a catch in almost anything, so it's nice to have it presented first and centre (sales training - raise and neutralise the objections, thanks Brian Tracy).

[/rant]

Why do I feel like I will be banned or the owner of the product/service may go ballistic with my experience? I would like to post it (with both positive and negative) but it seems I was not even allowed to post something regarding a statement from the person that contradicted themselves. Is that personally attacking as well? I have no intention to attack but felt the person set my online business back at least 6 months. Would that be personally attacking as well? I am little lost what is and what isn't personal.

Honesty is key in reviews, that should be obvious to everyone. The only thing I could suggest is to refrain from cursing and completely ripping on the product, just keep your points brief but make sure they are explained

We have the same problem about that. I hate it when I get kicked out from forums because of my reckless reviews about them. What happened to the saying, "Honesty is the best policy"?

@Harriet, it is the best policy, people just need to understand the line between constructive and non-constructive criticism

I have given negative reviews to a couple of things I bought on the Warrior Forum.

It would be extremely dumb to allow only positive reviews. If it has to be positive, then the fact that it IS positive has no informational value.

About the tone of the review... well, if some "reviewers" can go OMG ITS ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLE PLS DONT SELL THIS FOR $50 ITS WORTH AT LEAST $699 IT MADE ME CURE MY DOGS CANCEROUS TISSUES, which we often see there (I laugh at raving reviews 90% of the time! They are usually ridiculous!), then it's only fair that the seller of the WSO should experience the opposite end of the spectrum, which could be OMG THIS IS A TOTAL RIPOFF, I PRESSED THAT BUTTON BUT CAME NOWHERE CLOSE TO MAKING THAT $6,249.77 YOU MENTIONED IN YOUR SALES LETTER. THIS IS VERY CLOSE TO BEING A SCAM AND I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO BUY THIS PRODUCT.

For example.

I think if you give your opinion without resorting to being personally insulting, I think all even the warrior with the special will appreciate your honesty and will have pointers on what to improve

Just give your honest, constructive feedback. Don't use words like "crappy", etc

If you're being constructive, no one will be offended... because you're simply giving them your own personal take on it. It's when people get personal and can't resist passive aggressive or direct attacks that people get hurt or offended.

Remember, most of the people who do WSO's, even if their product sucks... just want to a) be successful and b) be accepted by their piers. Constructive advice goes a long way and as long as you're not letting your own emotions run the show, you can always say what's on your mind without annoying or aggravating the person.

Cheers!