Leaderboard

The World-Wide Web (and the Internet as a whole) is very given to populist collaboration and connection; I think this is by-and-large laudable, but we can certainly see many dark aspects. The online, non-expert review is one of those areas that I feel is highly subject to abuse, whether intentional or not. Skim the user-reviews from an online magazine or newspaper for a restaurant and you will see some thoughtful, reasoned critiques and praises, but often you will find a glut of knee-jerk reviews that were written without the benefit of thought or time. Put these elements into the context of service providers and their clients, and you have a recipe for disaster. It is tempting to view and review our encounters the same way we might review a piece of electronics for Newegg; we have to remember that there are multiple layers of human interaction at work in this hobby that don't lend themselves to simplistic thumbs up/thumbs down reviews, and can lead to serious abuses. Not all hobbyists carefully read the rules/etiquette for service providers, or even consider that there are any at all. I don't believe we can trust the majority of the hobbyist public to thoughtfully consider how their appearance/actions/attitude are implicated in our transactions. In this context, I feel CERB has made a wise decision to exclude all but scam- or saftey-related negative reviews.