How to spot a "shill review, club ad"?

21 comments

• shadowcat

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  5 years ago

  It's like dog shit. I can't describe it but I know it when I see it. 3 out right give aways in a shill review are no mention of mileage and/or prices or anything bad about the club.
• codemonkey

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  5 years ago

  I agree with the first 2 but for the 3rd, what if it's a fucking awesome club?
• Cristobal

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  5 years ago

  A shill review reads like the reviewer was not there, information and details are missing or worse inaccurate, then there is no details of the experience (had a great time).
  
  A club ad reads like a glowing, nothing wrong with this club, everyone and everything is great.
• gSteph

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  5 years ago

  Seemed like a fairly good review to me.
  
  Agree w Cristobal above about definitions.
• Harderlap

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  5 years ago

  Whenever I read a review that is overly positive and contains no negatives, alarm bells go off in my head. Few, if any cubs I have been to have had no negatives. Also, if the review is written lastly from the second person imperative of, “You should go here”, rather than the first person declarative, “I went here”, that is almost always a red flag for a shill review or ad. Shill reviews often compare the clubs to others in the area, claiming that this club is the best. Shill reviews are usually short and don’t hit all of the review guidelines. Club ads usually contain no information on dancers offering high mileage or extras. Shill reviews use superlatives that one does not find in normal conversation or writing, but often in advertising. A review that focuses on a single dancer, heaping praise on her to the exclusion of other dancers, is often a shill for that dancer, either by her, one of her friends, or her significant other who thinks it will be a way to bring in more money.
  
  Some club ads or shill reviews are blatant and easy to spot. I usually reject these by checking the shill review/club ad box. If I suspect that one is a club ad, I usually reject it for not enough details and state what I think is missing. If I am uncertain that it is a club ad, but several indicators point to it being one, I usually don’t approve or reject it, but let others, who I hope are more familiar with the club take action.
  
  It is usually easy to spot an ad or shill review for a club or dancer you are familiar with. These often occur when a club changes management or owners, when a club is going downhill and losing business, or a club is losing business because a new club opened. New dancers sometimes post shill reviews or recruit shill reviewers. So do ROBs. If you spot an ad that mentions a dancer positively that you have had dances with that were mediocre or poor, that is often a shill ad.
  
  If you spot a review that sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and is probably a shill review or club ad.
  
  I hope this helps.
• Clubber

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  5 years ago

  In my 50 or so years clubbing, I have never visited the perfect club. That said, if a review is properly authored per founders guidelines, there is most ALWAYS going to be something amiss with any club.
  
  That would be my tipoff.
• twentyfive

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  5 years ago

  ^ Then how do you account for the members here that are credible, saying Desires is damn near perfect?
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  I think some approvers use the shill/club-ad thing for a review they don't like.
  
  For me a possible fake review is one that's full of generalities that can aplly to 3/4 of the clubs.
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  A couple of days ago there was a review for Show Palace in Long Island - it was a copy/paste of a August 2016 review - reason I noticed is bc the first line of the review had "Joined January 2011" and I thought it may have been a copy/paste where he also copied that line by mistake.
  
  Anyway I did a quick search for the first couple of words of the review and quickly found the 2016 review.
  
  I PMed Founder about it and Founder deleted his account.
• Clubber

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  5 years ago

  Chief Of Police, PAPI!!!
  
  Good work!
• Papi_Chulo

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  5 years ago

  ^ McGruff is on the csse:
  
  https://www.google.com/search?q=mcgruff+…
  
• TFP

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  5 years ago

  @Harderlap all reviews that focus on one dancer doesn't necessarily mean it's a shill/club ad/dancer ad. Take my review of Paradise Showgirls for example. I was accused by the first commenter (OIAV) of the review being a seven paragraph ad of a well known dancer there. But folks who go there know that if she's your type physically she does very good work in the VIP. https://www.tuscl.net/review.php?id=3394…. On another note, I notice that same member OIAV often downvotes plenty of good reviews claiming the same thing. Many times he's the only downvote, with four other approvals.
  
  I understand how a glowing review of a single dancer can raise some flags. But if the reviewer mentions other things about the club good and bad then I'm not as skeptical at that point.
• jackslash

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  5 years ago

  Someone once called one of my reviews a club ad. This was strange because my review was accurate and contained several criticisms of the club.
• Hank Moody

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  5 years ago

  Eh. Don’t get upset about it. Mistakes are made and the voting system catches most of them. Chances are if your review gets rejected it can be made better. If you get approved over a couple of no-votes, just respond in the comments if you want. It’s also often not even necessary if once it’s published, readers can see your bona fides and know how long you’ve been a member, past reviews, etc.
  
  In short (too late for that), the review approval system is greatly improved since it went to voting and while we strive for better, it won’t ever be perfect. Just roll with it and club on.
• Electronman

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  5 years ago

  I started this discussion thread so that we'd have a convenient reference to provide feedback and accountability to VIP members who are consistently "wrong" in flagging reviews as shill reviews. I suggest that we send the link to this discussion, either as a commentary on a published review that was falsely accused of being a shill review or directly to the over zealous reviewer.
  
  Lots of good commentary and guidance on how to spot a shill review.
  
  Some take home points for spotting shill reviews:
  
  1. Just because a review is generally positive, that does not make it a shill review. Look to see if the reviewer also cites some "weaknesses" of a strip club in the review.
  
  2. If you are familiar with the club under review and the reviewer is much more positive than your impression of the club, then it might be a shill review. But be cautious if you have not been to the club recently. Sometimes clubs improve over time.
  
  3. If the review is filled with glowing generalities and no specifics or contains inaccurate information, then it could be a shill review or just a person fishing for free access to TUSCL.
  
  4. If the review contains no mention of mileage or specifics about the private dance experience, it might be a shill review.
  
  5. If the review is written in second person (you should get private dances), rather than in first person (I had private dances ...), then it is very likely to be a shill review/advertisement.
  
  6. Of course any review that has the wrong date (e.g., a review of a visit from two years ago, or a reference watching the Super Bowl in a review published in August) is a good candidate for either a shill review or more likely a plagiarized review.
  
  7. And reviews from clubs that have been struggling and have recently changed management. These reviews deserve some scrutiny as a shill review candidates.
  
  Of course some shill reviews will be published. These are usually easy to detect when you see the author (often a new member who has only reviewed one club; or the reviewer is dumb enough to include the name of his club in his screen name). Then there is the option to add a commentary to the review (something like, "this review is so brand much more positive than my experience at this club that I suspect it is a shill review/club ad") and to also send a link to this discussion to all of the reviewers who approved publication of the shill review.
  
  Anyhow, thanks for all the excellent suggestions!!
• Harderlap

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  5 years ago

  TFP - You are right, hence my use of the qualifier “often”. I am talking about a review that mentions a dancer in nearly every sentence. I don’t mind reviews that enthusiastically mention a single dancer if it can be justified, but I start to think it is a shill when the review talks about a dancer incessantly, not only to the exclusion of other dancers, but also to obscuring the other aspects of the club.
  
  Electronman - good summary and glad we could help you understand the thinking.
  
  I think that some reviewers improperly use shill review/club ad to reject reviews that they don’t like, but don’t know why, and some seem to use shill/ad reject to reject reviews by reviewers they don’t like. I think the three out of five scoring has helped weed out club ads and shills. If your review gets rejected for this reason, but is not a shill or ad, it should be pretty easy to identify the problem, fix it, and resubmit. Electronman’s summary should help in that aspect.
  
  
• Liberty99

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  5 years ago

  I’ve been a lurker for years, finally decided to get off my ass and write a review, and desertscrub said it was a club ad...***SIGH***
  
  Have to do better next time...
• rl27

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  5 years ago

  The most blatant club ads, literally read like an ad. There was one I saw a while back, that mentioned stuff like the excellent selection of cigars, friendly wait staff, how helpful the VIP room attendant was, how professional the bathroom attendant was, and how great the DJ was.
  
  None of the above would in no way make me choose one club over the other. In fact I don't think I would want to be in the same zip code of whatever person would think any of those things would be a good reason to visit.
• codemonkey

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  5 years ago

  Liberty99: "and desertscrub said it was a club ad..."
  
  You'll know you're a real contributor when you have 10 reviews that desertscrub calls a club as!
• codemonkey

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  5 years ago

  Ad! Damn monkey thumbs!
• rickdugan

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  5 years ago

  Frankly I don't think that the purported problem is worth any effort to fix. For starters, 90% of the time i see a club ad label from a regular contributor I agree with the label. And if a review here and there occasionally gets the label from one overzealous reviewer, then so what? It still got published and readers can determine for themselves whether they agree or disagree. There are far more egregiously bad and prevalent issues on this site than a handful of overzealous review critics.