This kinda disturbs me...

[releck97]

Who cares. They have had a total of three posts since September?

Joke...

I know, I guess I should just drop it. It gets under my skin...and, the site came up near the top on a simple google Cayman Islands scuba search. Breathe in, breathe out, move on...Done.

 

[nimoh]

Well, their forum doesn’t seem to be completely unbiased.

One poster wrote:

I know for an absolute fact that many of the rave reviews for dive companies on Trip Advisor and Scuba Board, plus a lot of others, are written by the same people that own the companies, their friends, family, all that, like that JJ Diver guy that got busted here. Scuba Board edits ALL of their posts because they are being sued for millions of dollars, for running a moderated board. I think that's the big difference here. The board is not moderated to they don't have the liability issues, and apparently no financial incentive to skew the reviews or ratings.

Bolding mine. Where would the manpower come from to edit all our posts?

Funny, I just posted in that forum and got the following message after clicking submit. This is an odd message for a board that is not moderated

 

[diversteve]

35 lifetime topics - most of which seem to be single promos for the shop mentioned in the post title.

We're worried....

 

[nimoh]

Funny, I just posted in that forum and got the following message after clicking submit. This is an odd message for a board that is not moderated

View attachment 179577

as it turns out my post was moderated and subsequently deleted....in a thread entitled "Free Speech is a Good Thing"

 

[releck97]

Hilarious!..., but disturbing at the same time.


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[dmoore19]

At least you made a post, even if it did get deleted. I have never been to the forum, didn't know it existed and when trying to open it I got the message that I had been permanently banned.

 

[drrich2]

On any public forum, there is the possibility of someone posting a bogus review hawking or dissing a business. My opinion:

1.) A very low post count from a relatively new poster with a very positive review and no negatives is questionable.

2.) Reviewers with a high post count on the forum are more credible.

3.) Reviewers who give positives and negatives in a balanced way, even if the overall interview is positive or negative, are more credible.

4.) Consistent themes in balanced reviews by different people with fairly high post counts are more credible.

5.) A large number of reviews are more credible. Like on a 4.5 star rating of a product on Amazon matters more if 500 people reviewed it vs. 5 people.

In at least one other thread on ScubaBoard, I have seen people allege that some TripAdvisor reviews may be bogus, and express a preference for reviews on ScubaBoard. The one advantage I see on ScubaBoard is that we post on a range of topics, and if you question my credibility, you can read several of my posts on the forum, get a sense of what sort of person I am, and draw your own conclusions. You're not limited to just reading my review posts.

I use Trip Advisor some, too.

Richard.

 

[Alex777]

Some of those threads are pretty amusing. I especially enjoyed the one about the main wall at Cobalt Coast being too "dangerous", even for "advanced" divers. I also noted a certain stylistic sameness in many of the posts from supposedly different posters.

 

[releck97]

I said I was done, but you know how that goes...I believe there are some unpleasant feelings between CAG ownership/advertisers and CITA. Everything posted in CAG forums is moderated and edited, if necessary, to remove mention of non-advertisers in reviews. I understand and accept this practice because these businesses are paying good money to be featured. What bugs me is that (seemingly) the same guys are trying to present themselves as the unedited and only truthful website regarding Cayman diving with the intent to discredit, blatantly lie and plant false "reviews" about their non-advertisers. Potentially libelous statements such as those found on the website in question might be of interest to CITA and others in the Caymans.

What does this mean to most of us? Very little because we "get it". I do not understand Cayman law, but in the U.S., this practice would be scrutinized closely at the very least.

...end rant


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[scoobydrew]

It certainly does read like propaganda, certain themes continue to crop up which I have never noticed on other forums. As a resident on the island having dived many of the sites that are mentioned it does not ring true at all.