Why call it mouthshut?? . Review on Writing Reviews on MouthShut

To begin with, I never understood why the forum is called MOUTHSHUTwhen actually it purports to inviting opinions or reviews to be more specific.

Recommended to the forum by a trusted friend, (not like how it happens in mouthshut) I took pledge in reading the peoples opinion about anything under the sun. Seemingly interesting though, there is more to the reality. The forum is being reduced to the platform for honing the verbal swords and pointing them at each other.

Nevertheless I am writing on mouthshut, not because I wished to, but because I found something that I can’t let go amiss.

Please note that this is NOT something written by me. I dare to put it NOT in my name, with due respect to the writer, as this is a review site and not necessarily “Write in your own words only”

Find something that you want to write about, post your opinion, and let other users rate it. You get points for posting a review, plus extra points when somebody reads and/or rates this review. There are also nice bonuses, such as becoming the Star Writer or Featured Reviewer and thus having your profile posted on the start page for all the other users to see. This greatly improves hits to your profile and reviews, thus giving you more points. You can also refer other users, leave comments, and suggest new products and services for review. With all of that considered, it really isn't such a bad site.

The Web site itself isn't even that bad. It is very plain, with minimal graphics and advertising. Log-in screens and other important information are very easy to find, and the site as a whole loads rather quickly. Despite the fact that it is often down for upgrades or maintenance, I generally find that getting into MouthShut and finding my way around is fairly easy.

As with all other things, MouthShut has several aspects that annoy, irk, and even upset me to a degree - all of which are listed below:

1. Member-to-member e-mail. You are not given the option of posting your e-mail address in your user profile. When you decide to include it in the "About Me" or "Interest" sections of your profile, it is either kindly deleted, or you are e-mailed by the Webmasters with a request to remove it. "We would prefer you didn't share your e-mail address" is the common line that they use. Personally, I think that it is my right to share my address with anybody I please. It's a Yahoo! mail account, so there's not THAT much that can go wrong, correct? Right. It would be very hard for stalkers or other would-be criminals to track me down, and even if they could? I've got a large shotgun and a very big dog to protect me. I'm not worried

So, instead of allowing you to freely communicate with other MouthShut members OUTSIDE of the site's boundaries, you must use their "M2M" system. When somebody mails you through a link on your profile page, you are sent an e-mail referring you to the MouthShut Web site. You cannot simply click on "Reply" and send your message directly to the user: Instead, you must go through MouthShut.

This in itself would not be so horrible, but it seems to me that EVERY TIME I try to share my e-mail address in the messages I send to other users, the message never arrives in their in-box. However, when I am discussing something related directly to MouthShut, the messages arrive in a timely manner. I would call this simple paranoia on my part if it were not for the fact that several MouthShut users have gotten messages from the Webmasters requesting that they not share their e-mail addresses with other users.

Again, I state that it is every man or woman's right to share personal information with other Internet users. This censorship thing just plain irks me.

1. Censorship via content filters. When I am submitting a review to MouthShut, it is automatically checked by filtering software. It is strange how this software works:

I CAN use terms such as: As, crap, dmn, bl**dy, hell.

1. Poor customer service. Regardless of how many e-mails that are sent, these people seem to reply with the same tired old lines. "Your message has been delivered to the appropriate person, " and other similar notations. What does this do for me? Nothing! It seems that, regardless of what I try or who I send the message to, I can't get a straight answer out of anybody - if I get a reply at all! They won't tell me why I can't write about other similar sites. They won't mention anything about points redemptions. They won't even answer my queries regarding the censored e-mail problem! This doesn't make sense - and, of course, it annoys the hell out of me.

   
   




2. Points redemption problems. In order to redeem your points, you must 1. be a MouthShut member for at least 6 months and 2. have at least 600 points in your account. Several users(some here at Ciao) have been with MouthShut for something like a year, and have tens of thousands of points in their accounts(I know these are facts because all of the above information is available for public view via each user's profile page). There is nothing on the Mouthshut site that allows users to redeem points - the closest thing to it is a page that gives information about how many points you have accumulated versus how many you have redeemed.

   
   

Thus, members must e-mail MouthShut regarding points inquiries - and get no answer. They mail MouthShut again - with no answer. This goes on for several e-mails, until the Webmasters finally give the annoying "forwarded to the appropriate person" message. Lovely.

*All of the above make me very suspicious regarding MouthShut. I have known several users who have protested against the outrageous nature of the way things are done at MouthShut, only to find their reviews deleted and their accounts locked out so that they can no longer access the site as a member. This is, unfortunately, happening to some of the best writers - Star Writers, Featured Reviewers, et cetera. Users are what make sites like this - or break them, in some cases. Right now a very sizable portion of the members at Mouthshut are calling for an active rebellion, which I can obviously understand. People have tried e-mailing the site's owners(above the Webmaster) to no avail, and the points redemption matters are still up in the air for people who have been trying for MONTHS to cash in so that they can leave the site in search of greener pastures.