Why can't you just tell me what I did wrong?
By heathcliff
@heathcliff (1415)
United States
June 12, 2009 7:14pm CST
Two MAJOR problems with MyLot:
When your discussions or responses are deleted, they do not bother to tell you. The only way to tell is if you remember every thing you wrote (which I don't, unfortunately). I lost 3 overnight and I have no idea what I did wrong. How can I avoid it in the future if I don't know what I did?
Then there's the star system which works in a general sense (I know 1-4 are usually difficult people, but there are no promises), but without feedback we never know what we did wrong to be cut down here either. Many times it is just sour grapes from someone who didn't like our viewpoint. Shouldn't there be some quality control over this system? Perhaps any attempts to give someone a bad mark should be accompanied by reasons adjudicated by someone from MyLot.
Anyone else get frustrated by this stuff?
2 people like this
6 responses
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Jun 09
If you read the Guidelines thoroughly you should understand what are good discussions and what are not. MyLot expect all users to have read the Terms and the Guidelines (and you will have checked a box when you signed up to say that you had).
MyLot has only about 15 staff in total so you can imagine that it would be extremely time consuming to advise everyone of why their discussion was deleted, especially as, in most cases, it's quite obvious.
They assure us that the Discussion Rating System is very robust and that anyone trying to abuse it is very easily and efficiently tracked. Like the earnings algorithm, they do not reveal how it works (and it would probably be against the Guidelines to surmise) but they certainly have confidence that it is working satisfactorily, as Crash pointed out in this discussion: http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1402356.aspx
2 people like this
@heathcliff (1415)
• United States
13 Jun 09
Yeh, I thought I knew what constitutes appropriate discussions and it is most likely that what I'm missing are responses that I don't remember giving to conversations that turned nasty AFTER I left my responses.
I don't think MyLot can do everything I suggest, I know some of it would be very time consuming, I just wish there was an automated message that "discussion X" was deleted. I really don't need a reason, I'd just like to know sometimes WHAT discussion it was, 'cuz I'm terrible about remembering everything I've responded to.
The rating system seems to work, as I said, in overall good vs bad (a "2" vs a "9), but in the details (a "9" vs a "10" for instance) it does not seem to serve a purpose. If it so onerous to monitor it for abuse, they might as well just do away with it. I think we can tell for ourselves who we want to avoid, pretty quickly.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Jun 09
I agree that it's hard to judge how a discussion will turn out. MyLot can quite easily delete a response and won't delete a whole discussion unless there is good reason.
I find the best thing is not to worrit too much about deleted discussions; just go on with life and try to do better next time.
Another problem with advising people about reasons for deleting discussions is that it's not only the discussion 'owner' that's affected but everyone who responded. Advising everyone whose posts got deleted would get tedious in the extreme. It's much better (from MyLot's point of view) to just say 'no explanations - see the Guidelines' than to waste time (and money, which they share with us, after all) sending out pointless emails.
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
13 Jun 09
Bad responses can be deleted, leaving the discussion intact. It may be, however, that a discussion collects a number of bad responses, and Admin then considers the discussion as a whole and may decide to remove it.
My particular gripe is that they do not tend to remove old discussions which are clearly in violation of the rules. (This has something to do with the way the payment system works, I believe). The problem is that new users come along and see a discussion that is maybe three years old and has a blatant referral link or something in it and think that that is OK and they can do the same.
@heathcliff (1415)
• United States
13 Jun 09
It would be nice to know if one bad response can stop an entire discussion. I would think they would just remove that response.
1 person likes this
@sid556 (30960)
• United States
13 Jun 09
There seems to be a lot of discussions deleted lately with no apparent reason. I think that on many if a violation were committed that it was probably done unintentional. Many really don't seem to have any violations at all so who knows. I do agree with you that it would be friendlier and more beneficial if mylot would send a little message to the writer of the thread stating their reasons for deleting. It would be difficult to correct a situation if you don't know what you did. Sometimes good discussions get deleted because some fool comes in and starts making vulgar and rude comments all over it. It isn't always the fault of the person that started the discussion. As for the rating and stars....don't pay much attention to that. A low star # doesn't really mean anything at all. Could be that the person is new or any number of things. Don't assume that just because they have a low # that they are difficult people. 
@jellymonty (2352)
•
13 Jun 09
tell me about it! I got two of my discussions wiped off in an instant simply because some poss head did not like what I had to say and they went whining around their negative ratings and bam! I get deleted!
I really do think we should have a right to know why our discussions get deleted as we will never know what we're doing wrong and we'll keep repeating the same mistakes.. unless of course they take joy in pushing that delete button..
@coach742108 (1)
• United States
13 Jun 09
I am new to mylot but I am finding all of these post very helpful. Anyone got any tips on how to earn more.
@mythociate (21432)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
27 Oct 12
This is sorta like the reason I hate the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), except here it's not as harmful to pedestrians 
: the DMV 'qualifies' these people to operate dangerous machinery, but then DOES NOT CARE whether the drivers remain qualified as long as they continue to 'pay their dues.'
Thus, they ball up any possible responsibility and throw it into the garbage along with the lives of the victims of their licensed irresponsibility
(Sorry, had to vent there ... maybe I should go down to THE KEY ('Search the Web' for "the key, keyonline, oklahoma city" or some combo of those terms) to 'unleash my rage' on some old clunkers---but they'd probably only let me do that if I bought some 'insurance' from them ... or something ...)
Here, those 'dues' are just 'participating enough to earn the administrators some money.' After that, the admin only care about it if you complain (like I probably should to the DMV) using the contact-link at the bottom of the page.
And they DO give discussion-reporters an opportunity to SAY why they're reporting, so either nobody says why or the admin are too lazy/swamped to bother to pass it on.
But "full responsibility" is more than 'paying dues.' Here, it should include posting a response to tell the discussion-starter WHY you're reporting them (maybe a day before you report them).
And the star-rating? All you can do is continue to remind people that the "+ & -" are only there so you can say 'whether or not the response remains on the discussion's topic or whether or not the discussion is open to response.'
: the DMV 'qualifies' these people to operate dangerous machinery, but then DOES NOT CARE whether the drivers remain qualified as long as they continue to 'pay their dues.'
Thus, they ball up any possible responsibility and throw it into the garbage along with the lives of the victims of their licensed irresponsibility
(Sorry, had to vent there ... maybe I should go down to THE KEY ('Search the Web' for "the key, keyonline, oklahoma city" or some combo of those terms) to 'unleash my rage' on some old clunkers---but they'd probably only let me do that if I bought some 'insurance' from them ... or something ...)
Here, those 'dues' are just 'participating enough to earn the administrators some money.' After that, the admin only care about it if you complain (like I probably should to the DMV) using the contact-link at the bottom of the page.
And they DO give discussion-reporters an opportunity to SAY why they're reporting, so either nobody says why or the admin are too lazy/swamped to bother to pass it on.
But "full responsibility" is more than 'paying dues.' Here, it should include posting a response to tell the discussion-starter WHY you're reporting them (maybe a day before you report them).
And the star-rating? All you can do is continue to remind people that the "+ & -" are only there so you can say 'whether or not the response remains on the discussion's topic or whether or not the discussion is open to response.'