TUSCL's Idea of a Good Review

Excellent advice. I am a relatively new member -- just shy of one year. I have written a few reviews but I thought I was "too wordy" and perhaps my reviews were too long. But according to your comments, you like somewhat lengthy reviews.

Most reviews are relatively worthless. They are just three or four sentences that rarely convey the essence of the club. I think they are merely written to get an extension to the author's VIP membership. So why allow those meaningless, short reviews?

I always mention names when talking about laps. Never thought anyone would get in trouble. But then again I never have gotten "extras" so I guess what I describe is within the limits and generally, I just say whether the lap dance was good or not. I think its nice to have names so we know who to check out when we go to a club we dont know.

Also - I usually read the reviews of a club I will be reviewing so if a member has written about the clubs layout or appearance, for example, I wont repeat that unless it was wrong or something has changed.

OK to mention a dancer by name if it is to praise her personality, body, etc. -- things that will NOT get her in trouble, but may help her make a living. NOT OK to mention a dancer by name if she does stuff that could get her in trouble.

Also there should be some modest correlation between the rating number and the content of the review. Nothing worse than a review of "1" because a customer had a bad experience with one person, especially at the door. Second worse is a "10" without any interesting (believable) information about how the club earned that rating.

One thing I like a lot about TUSCL is the free format that Founder encourages. Some reviewers are very analytical and others very subjective. Both approaches are OK by me.

People who read these posts already know this, but discussing why you went to the strip club, how you were feeling that day, etc., is pretty pointless. Talk about the club, how you were treated, what attracted you or turned you off.

If Founder rejected short meaningless reviews, it would help the overall system. I see a lot of reviews that are pretty worthless. But it is his site and I sure do support him in how he manages it.

When reading a review that describes a dancer, I like to see serveral things. A good description of her looks (including body type, height, hair color/type/length), dancing style and personality. Something that is usually missing is the dancers name, which is very helpful to include. It's always frustrating when someone reviews a dancer and details everything about her, all of which sounds like I'd be interested in her, only to find no name. How can you look this dancer up when you visit the club without a name?

Also, when when reviewing a dancer's performance, if the review includes activity that is illegal of nature - or otherwise against the club rules, it's best to leave her name out of the review.

I believe the principle to bear in mind is that a dancer gives you a private dance with the understanding that what happens is confidential. To give her name and say she gave a great dance is okay, most likely appreciated. To say or imply much more could betray a trust, just the same as if she called your SO or co-workers and spilled the beans.

You can find fault with a lot of reviews that don't even begin to meet the standards Founder has laid out. However, I think something must be working, because TUSCL's reviews, taken as a whole, still give a pretty reliable picture of most clubs. I really don't mind the bad reviews being included. They can be more revealing than some that fit the proper template.

I loved one of Founder's suggestions......"describe the 'thug factor' at the club"

I know the comments at stripclublist.com cannot be compared to the reviews at tuscl, but someone writing on SCL has described the customers at Omar's in Lansing as "ghetto punks" -- so one reason I have avoided that place. (hint to chandler for a new review of Omar's)

I thought "thug factor" was referring to club ownership.

Founder,

Excellent advice that I sometimes forget. The perfect review for me would be of a South Florida club that says the ethnicity of all dancers is Asian, with little hustle factor. Haven't found that club after 40+ years of looking.

1. I'm glad these specifics are given here. I think that something similar should be linked to, at the "submit review" page, so that people can click to it easily when they're wondering what to write about. Just as with the "Brief History" information, I think "Good Review" information needs to be kept accessible permanently and not get lost when the discussion pages scroll on down the road.

2. Chandler wrote: "I believe the principle to bear in mind is that a dancer gives you a private dance with the understanding that what happens is confidential. To give her name and say she gave a great dance is okay, most likely appreciated. To say or imply much more could betray a trust, just the same as if she called your SO or co-workers and spilled the beans."

About this, I disagree. I have a lot of points about the explicitness of reviews -- whether names, places, services should be mentioned here at TUSCL or not -- but I won't go into them here. I don't know if Founder would approve of discussion regarding the level of specificity in this thread. It's just not the place. But I would appreciate a location where we customers can further discuss what we think the appropriate degree of explicitness should be.

Maybe someone would start a thread ...

Book Guy: Okay, I'll bite. Why do you disagree? I don't see how it would make any difference to Founder if we discuss it here. But start a new thread if you want.

Having guidelines is nice, but really meaningless unless they're enforced. I've seen several flaky reviews slip through the cracks, such as the "cmon in for a hot time with Hotsie" genre, plus some gems like the guy that wrote the same review for Brass Flamingo & Gold Club (Indy) Verbatim, a few mos. back, etc, etc,etc. Having said that, some reviews can be summed up in a few sentences- ie, a club is slow and has a bunch of fuglies around--- Who cares what the club layout is or drink cost, or quality of restroom? I doubt Founder has the time, or inclination to pore over every single review, still the shorties should be easy to screen at least some.

Founder has an excellent idea that I am going to start doing. I'm going to do a basic review on MS Word and save it. Then when I review a club, I'll use that and fill in the details, cut, and paste. Bravo!

Oh, and......... founder is very very very CORRECT in advising not using your ATF's name if going into SEXUAL details! Believe me... I learned the HARD WAY!

However, I will use dancer's names' in description, attitude, etc, with no specific details about the dance (if it involves EXTRAS).

Book Guy's idea of a hot link to review guidelines is a great idea. Way back when this site first opened, I remember writing reviews that had allot of enthusiasm, but not much to go on when it came to being a description of the club. Now I actually go into clubs and think about what you, my fellow "hobbyists" would like to know, while I am there. And after I post, I check out to see what you guys have to say.
I like to see who is the most accurate, and possibly some surprises that I may have overlooked.

Also had another thought before logging off- If you think a club is below potential, why not add a few suggestions that you thik would make it better? That way, if any Bar Manager's were smart enough to honestly check this list review (instead of stopping by to flood it with BS hype about their club!) there might be a chance that your local hole in the wall may get better...

Can't you get a VIP membership by simply posting a review? If that's true, I wonder what percentage of the membership is made of folks who just wanted in by submitting a simple, thoughtless review. Is this policy ruining the substance of the reviews, and is the site really gaining that much from them?

Disclaimer:
No...I don't think I'm the greatest reviewer ever, and I'm not slamming anyone who does the legwork to maintain their membership without paying. I'm lazy, I don't live in a town with a strip club, and $5 isn't a huge hardship for me. However, I don't think it's a stretch to think that a guy would type in a short blurb just to check the site out.

P22; Submitting a review will get you a VIP membership--- for 4 wks. I (and others) have maintained VIP status by submitting additional reviews. I surmise that you live in Western GA, and get your fix by going to Atlanta or B-ham. It seems to me that you could hit multiple Atlanta clubs 2-3 times/yr, and pad your membership time.

>I'm going to do a basic review on MS Word and save it. Then when I review a club, I'll use that and fill in the details, cut, and paste. Bravo!<

HappyLapper, I like that idea:

"I visited [CLUBNAME] on [DATE] from [ARRIVALTIME] to [DEPARTURETIME]. I paid the [$00] cover charge and ordered a [$00.00] [DRINKNAME]. I observed the [CLEANLINESS] and [THUGFACTOR] present, and heard the [LOUNDNESS] music and [ANNOYANCEFACTOR] DJ. Basically, I would say [CLUBNAME] has a [VIBEDESCRIPTION] vibe going on.

"I saw [QUANTITY] dancers working. They looked [LOOKSEVALUATION] and acted [ATTITUDE]." (And so on...)

Sparkz: I think addressing suggestions to managers online would be a waste of time. They never look, and if they did they wouldn't care. Your only chance is to do it in person while you're at their club spending money. That's the only thing they understand. They still might not care, but at least you'll feel better getting in your two cents, and you won't be wasting readers' time.

Why not give FOUNDER something to do? He could just make the "proper" form as a web page that contains cleanliness, costs (cover, dance, alcohol), thug factor, vibe, music level, dj annoyance factor, dancers looks, attitude, ethnicity, and hustle factor. We just fill in the blanks. Then have a small area for comments.

That said, I prefer the way it is now, but follow his guidelines.

"Talk to management" in some of these clubs = "beaten up in alleyway and left for dead." No thanks, I'll stick to my anonymous, pussified reviews.

Suit yourself. As long as you realize that it's utterly pointless to post something like, "In case management is reading this, I have a few suggestions to improve your club..."

chandler - That was a good sample "template" you wrote. That's exactly what I meant.

Being that I was required to write a lot of Reports of Investigations in the Army CID, I also learned to keep things in chronological order and keep straight with the facts. A special section in the "template" could be added to discuss opinions and recommendations. By doing these things, we can keep track of club changes, such as cover charges, alcohol prices, dance prices, etc.

HappyLapper: I posted that as a joke. I dread the thought of trying to read reviews based on a template. In my opinion, there's no substitute for considering what you write, and anything that relies on a formula anywhere nearly that rigid guarantees poor results.

chandler's right. There needs to be consensus on what we stripper hounds want and need to know, but the best way to deliver that information should be up to us. I don't want to be stuck filling in some template like this is Strip Club Mad-Libs. I have to write about my experience my way, and I think others want to write about theirs their way. I may be wordy, but I think I give TUSCL the 411 on clubs, as do most of you. And hey, if you don't like a person's review, you can always just ignore it.

When I write a review, I try to remember that we all go to clubs for different reasons and that we all like (and dislike) different things. So I try to give enough descriptive information so that someone reading it can decide whether or not it's a place that might appeal to them. I almost always list the things that I liked about the club and the things I didn't like. In fact most of my reviews have followed that format - a pararaph describing the things I liked and one describing major dislikes, followed by a brief summary. So my reviews are probably longer than Founder's outline would allow.

I just thought about something I do. Maybe many do not, but I tend to do this. If I am going to review a club, I read other reviews before me. Not to change my opinion, but rather to not repeat what has been said many times by others. A review might go, “I find the club just as many have described, however I liked..., or disliked… more or less than most.” Saves repeating the same old thing and makes a review shorter. Really, does anyone go to a clubs reviews and only read the last one?

I will post much more if few or no reviews for a club.

Clubber: Your point repeats (ironically enough) one that I've been trying to make and Lapaholic made way upthread. It's one reason I believe a wide open format that accommodates a variety of reviewing styles makes for richer content.

chandler,

I'm not sure if this was a "dig", "Clubber: Your point repeats (ironically enough)...", but this was not a club review, which IS, ironically, what we ARE discussing.

Nothing meant seriously by it, Clubber. Anyway, touché!(?)

Clubber, I agree, the format needs to be flexible. I will usually post a longer and more detailed review of a club that isn't reviewed very often (eg. the last review I wrote) than I will for one one that is. And I try not to repeat details that many others have previously provided. The other thing I have done frequently in the past, and which is probably a bad idea, is I often don't bother to review a club that was awful - I guess I'd rather not have to think about it again.

Clubber, I agree, the format needs to be flexible. I will usually post a longer and more detailed review of a club that isn't reviewed very often (eg. the last review I wrote) than I will for one one that is. And I try not to repeat details that many others have previously provided. The other thing I have done frequently in the past, and which is probably a bad idea, is I often don't bother to review a club that was awful - I guess I'd rather not have to think about it again.

If you have experienced many of the dancers and can share which ones are the best, it is helpful to other members if you share the good dancers' names. I might add that you will also be helping the dancers' incomes.

If you go into detail about exactly why their dances were better, well then you might want to give a general description of the girl rather than her name.

I love to review bad clubs, and to read other people's reviews of them. Come on, how can you not love the absurdities they foist on the public described in loving detail? What can I say, I'm a connoisseur of all things bad.

By the way, the mistake most reviewers of bad clubs make is focusing on what a physical dump the place is. Who cares? Everybody knows that many of the best clubs are shitholes. What we wanna hear about is how fat and ugly the strippers are, and how obnoxiously the customers are treated.

I guess it all depends on why you're reading reviews. When I used to read them regularly it was always for one of two purposes: either I was lookin for a new club in unfamiliar territory, or I was looking to see if there had been any recent major changes in a place I knew but hadn't visited in awhile. Obviously if you're reading reviews for entertainment value you're interests will be very different.

When I read a review of an unfamiliar club I want to know: what kind of a place is it (eg. how big, how fancy, how expensive, how friendly is the atmosphere, how loud is the music, what annoying festures are there, how safe is the area), what the deal is (what kind of dances are available, how much do they cost, how much privacy, how do you pay for them), and what are the girls mostly like (what type, how attractive, how friendly, how much hustle, how old.) Forget names, there's too much turnover and too much YMMV.

I read reviews to learn, and, as with anything in life, I see no reason that can't be entertaining at the same time. I don't learn anything from a dry, lifeless recitation of data. Like it says in the masthead, this is more than a list. As for bad clubs and sour experiences, the way I see it you've got two ways you can deal with them. Either shrink from your sorry luck and try to banish their reality from your memory, or laugh your ass off at the human comedy and learn from the truth it contains.

I agree with FONDL that there isn't much point in recommending particular dancers or trying to track them down by name. There are definitely two schools of thought around here on this, even aside from considerations of her privacy. There was a time when I would try to make a point of remembering names in reviews and seeking them out. Often, either her schedule had changed or she wasn't my type. Or, before I had a chance to track her down, I'd find some different girl who rocked my world. Eventually, I concluded that if a recommended girl really was so great, I would find her anyway. Which are you going to believe, what some guy wrote on the internet, or your own eyes (and other senses)? Besides, it's a lot more fun finding out on your own. The idea of going into a club feeling helpless without a cheat sheet misses the whole point, IMO. It should be an adventure, not an appointment.

I find there are two approaches to dealing with dancer-names in a review. On the one hand, if there are a variety of girls coming and going, and the club is higher-volume, and my visits might be intermittent, then there's no reason for me to find out if a given particular girl does or doesn't do what I might want her to do, especially if her services are within the norm of all the other girls in the club. So, at Mons Venus in Tampa, I'm not going to bother to take notes on whether Heather, Destiny, Cheyenne, and Bambi give good lappers.

On the other hand, at a club that I might visit quite regularly, I can imagine myself being quite interested in another local reviewer's specific recommendations of specific girls. At Ybor Strip (back in around 2000 when I lived in Tampa), I would have wanted to know which girls were good bets for lappers, since the levels of service varied widely at that club at that time.

So, there is useful girl-specific information and less useful. I'd say, when in doubt, let the reader decide, but don't "out" a girl (as we've agreed on another thread, about how explicit a review should be) who happens to be servicing above and beyond the accepted "legal" (whether by club rules or by real governmental rules) standards of her location.

Yeah, I can see that, Book Guy. Especially when the tipster and the tipped know something about each other's preferences. And it can be fun just to compare notes, and hear how another poster liked the same girl you got your kicks with.

Club Detail: I'll admit, I usually go into a long recitation about the location and decor of the club if it's the first time I've reviewed the club. I leave those out on follow-ups unless they underwent renovations. I want to see what I'm physically getting into when going to a club for the first time, and I feel I don't get the level of detail about its physical characteristics from previous reviews, generally. Bottom line, I thinks it's a good thing.

Girls: I write them down because it centers my experience. It's a shame to have a great time at an SC and want to tell everybody at TUSCL about this really cool chick who let me stick my cold hands under her armpits to warm them up but, damn, what's her name? Also, two of my favorites in the area supply girls through an agency, and that's created a stable roster of girls who've danced for years. It was easy to remember their names, and I continued that practice with other clubs. And when I vacation at a different city, I do write down the names of strippers given the thumbs-up here. Bottom line: I think reviewers should make a better effort to remember and list the names of girls that they'd recommend and not recommend, even if they could've flown off to another club.

Beating the dead horse, a dancer should never be "outted" for performing a [ahem] thorough dance for you. On the other side of the coin, I want to see names of the girls that gave a good dance.

Even though there is a high turnover in clubs, I might try to look up a certain dancer, based upon a review that I read. Not that I'm going to concentrate solely on looking for that girl, but it will definitely grab my attention if I by chance run into her.

I also like to "compare notes" with other posters, to see how our experiences with dancer X compares. On many occassions, I've emailed someone that mentioned a particular girl to get more details - details which shouldn't be mentioned on TUSCL for reasons being discussed here.

The other problem with mentioning girls by name is that we all have different tastes. I remember a couple of years ago I met a dancer in a tiny club in NJ who I thought was one of the 4 best looking dancers I'd ever seen (I called her a 10 in nearly every respect, which she was) and who also gave my idea of the best private dances I've ever had. Because she was so great I raved about her in a review, which is not my usual style. A few days later someone else reviewed the club, said they had visited specifically to meet the girl who I raved about, and was disappointed. So what's the point?

I know I’m coming in late on this discussion but a few of things jump out at me:

1. Somewhere on the tuscl site Founder says “Don’t believe anything you read here.” I guess that’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it is good advice to take everything with a grain of salt. Of course that goes for what you read in the newspapers and watch on TV as well.

2. I think the free four week membership for a review is part of a very good business model. I doubt that there would be nearly as many reviews on tuscl if there wasn’t some incentive for posting. While some bogus reviews get through, I think it adds to the site to have such a large volume of reviews. You can usually tell if a review is bogus and skip it.

3. When I first read Founder’s post I though, “Geez, am I back in 8th grade English class?” To wit: “Your review should be at least 2 solid paragraphs, with 7-10 sentences each. The first paragraph should describe the club, the second should describe the dancers. You should also summarize with one sentence saying whether or not you would return to the club.” If that were the standard I had to meet, I’d never bother to write. I think Founder has some good points but the creativity of the writing is what makes it fun to read the site. It’s a good thing he doesn’t hold us to that standard.

4. Names: I often mention a dancer by name if I get an especially good or bad experience. I’ve never had the opportunity for much outside the rules or the law, but if I did I would not mention a name. I might not even include that in the club review for fear of getting the club in trouble. I never run into girls mentioned by other reviewers so it probably is pretty pointless but I like to boost the reputations of the girls who are good and warn others low-mileage dancers.

I think we all have to keep in mind YMMV and No. 1 above. Tuscl is a great site. Founder, keep up the good work.

Now this is a good idea !