WeedMaps Controversy

[Dietblonde]

I was reading some posts on the Dispensary Reviews Thread and found that some of you were dissatisfied about WeedMaps and their policies. So I contacted them and got a reply. Below is the email exchange.

______________________________________

Hello WeedMaps, I have a question about your ad policy. I have read some remarks from people who've signed up with your website complaining that when they give an unfavorable review of a "featured" dispensary on WeedMaps, their review disappears shortly after. The concern is that WeedMaps insulate their paid clients from receiving criticism and a lower rating. I will be disclosing your answer (or lack-there-of) on a MMJ news website that I report on.

If you'd like to read some of these concerns, follow this link:
Cannabis Forums Message Boards - Medical Marijuana, Cannabis Club, Dispensary, News (http://boards.cannabis.com/search.php?searchid=2622982)

Thanks for your time!
Channing / Denver Chronicle

______________________________________


hey there Channing,

thanks for writing, and for passing on the concerns you have been hearing from your community. we actually do not moderate our featured listings any differently than our free listings. we do have clearly posted review guidelines, and both free and feature listing reviews are held to the same moderating standards. i have posted a copy of these basic review guidelines below for your website report.

our community is mostly self moderated. that is to say each of the reviews and comments on our site has a "report this to a moderator" link in it. you don't even need to be logged in to our website to report reviews or comments. so basically... anyone can moderate our site.

one reason it may seem to some as though our featured listings are more heavily moderated, is because our featured listings are paying attention to their listings and reporting anything that is outside the review guidelines on a regular basis. that said, there are also may clubs with free listings that participate on our site just as much, and are just as quick to report a negative review that is outside the posting guidelines. couple that with the concerned patients who report the negative reviews for their favorite club, and this generally how our moderating staff gets clue'd in to issues on our site.

here is a copy of our guidelines posted at the top of every review page on our site...

Your review may be moderated if...
it is blatantly negative and bashing
mentions another club by name or otherwise
addresses other reviewers or reviews
is not really a review

we do have a contact form and phone number posted on site so if patients ever have a question about why their reviews have been removed, they are able to contact us about it. we do keep copies of EVERY review ever left on our site, so feel free to have your members contact me personally through our site if they'd like (screen name Moderator420). i'd be glad to look into why their reviews may have been removed. we do realize our website is firmly entrenched in the real world, and that there are real patients behind our community's screen names. this is why we do our best to keep lines of communication open for members of our community if they would like to discuss issues they have on our site.

please let me know if this has helped.

thanks,

Hi I'm Gil!
WeedMaps.com
�¸ Medical Marijuana Dispensary & Cannabis Club Directory �¸ (http://www.weedmaps.com)

[lampost]

Ask him about B-goods dispensary! That place fuckin sucked and its got like 20 5-star reviews. I guess I did kinda break his rules by saying something like, "I think some of these reviews might be shillers!"

I don't think weedmaps does this on purpose, but I just don't think the arrangement they have allows them to stop it. So, for instance, the guy from B-Goods is basically writing up all these awesome reviews for himself and then deleting anything else that comes in. Pretty weak.

Anybody else been to that place yet?! C'mon! I want someone else's opinion, especially on the storefront window!

[lampost]

Also, do they try to prevent users from having more than one user acct? Like maybe one acct per IP address?

[Weekend]

Ask him about B-goods dispensary! That place fuckin sucked and its got like 20 5-star reviews. I guess I did kinda break his rules by saying something like, "I think some of these reviews might be shillers!"

I don't think weedmaps does this on purpose, but I just don't think the arrangement they have allows them to stop it. So, for instance, the guy from B-Goods is basically writing up all these awesome reviews for himself and then deleting anything else that comes in. Pretty weak.

Anybody else been to that place yet?! C'mon! I want someone else's opinion, especially on the storefront window!

secam does the same thing....& everytime i see a review below 4 stars its gone by the next day

[FarmerSteve]

Almost all of this "industry" is shady to one extent or another. But maybe every industry is.

[stuartambient]

Almost all of this "industry" is shady to one extent or another. But maybe every industry is.


except for the banking industry :D

[starter09]

. . . and I have a bridge for sale that you'd just love!

[WashougalWonder]

I have water to sell for under the bridge

[Cat5King]

Almost all of this "industry" is shady to one extent or another. But maybe every industry is.

I am often disappointed by the practices of these so-called clinics and pharmacies. I install IP camera systems and security for dispensaries and grow operations, so I stand to make money off of these businesses, but I do try to have an objective eye towards their operation. So many of them are simply going for a fast buck, and care nothing about their 'patients'. This is supposed to be a medical industry, but I go inside some places and they are dirty and seedy (not the product), nothing like any medical clinic I've been to in this country. No concern for quality or even the appearance of it. And the operators are sometimes one step above drug dealers. I have to say that as a general characterization, this industry is one of the shadiest I've seen, and I work in commercial construction, a bloody field littered with crooks, scammers, and frauds.

There are some owners striving to emulate a more professional model for their businesses, and to them I say, kudos, and keep at it! They will hopefully set a real standard for the state of Colorado. However, many, many of these clinics are nothing more than a joke, and their operators also.


TheCat5King
Boschen Technologies (http://www.boschen.org)
IP camera systems, Professional Audio-visual

[ColoradoCareMMJ]

I am often disappointed by the practices of these so-called clinics and pharmacies. I install IP camera systems and security for dispensaries and grow operations, so I stand to make money off of these businesses, but I do try to have an objective eye towards their operation. So many of them are simply going for a fast buck, and care nothing about their 'patients'. This is supposed to be a medical industry, but I go inside some places and they are dirty and seedy (not the product), nothing like any medical clinic I've been to in this country. No concern for quality or even the appearance of it. And the operators are sometimes one step above drug dealers. I have to say that as a general characterization, this industry is one of the shadiest I've seen.


You sure make alot of nasty accusations for someone who proably spent 1-2 hours setting up cameras....:cool:

[redtails]

Why so defensive? Was he talking about your place?

Now I'm not in CO, but from what I hear you guys have a LOT of dispensaries & with that many of course there's going to be some bad seeds. I took his statement as more of a wake up call to treat the dispensary more like the lab/pharmacy it's toutuing itself to be and not just another corner liquor store like he's suggesting it's turning into...

[Kartel]

Why so defensive? Was he talking about your place?

Now I'm not in CO, but from what I hear you guys have a LOT of dispensaries & with that many of course there's going to be some bad seeds. I took his statement as more of a wake up call to treat the dispensary more like the lab/pharmacy it's toutuing itself to be and not just another corner liquor store like he's suggesting it's turning into...

No, I'm sure the Cat5 wasn't talking about colorado care's shop...

Colorado Care was probably "defensive" cause he doesn't have such an ethnocentric (racist) view of professionalism. :rastasmoke:

[Kartel]

No, I'm sure the Cat5 wasn't talking about colorado care's shop...

Colorado Care was probably "defensive" cause he doesn't have such an ethnocentric (racist) view of professionalism. :rastasmoke:

For teh record, I was referring to cat5's view of professionalism, not redtails. :hippy:

[sittingone]

Sometimes words confuse me, and that is why I don't post much, but I don't see anything wrong with Cat5's comments. Quite honestly, I have not been in many dispensaries, but many are clearly shady folks ballsy enough to open up a business and try to call it legal while it clearly is not. And I did not see anything racist about the comments either. This MMJ scene could go in so many directions, but for now I believe patients and caregivers need to play by the rules and not get caught going beyond their legal bounds, and calling out the reality of some of the businesses seems reasonable to me.
Just my humble opinion.

[handeyman]

I have had many problems with weedmaps, I do not think they care about there patients, not spamming but I wrote a blog post about it I really hope you guys support switching co-ops and patients to a different directory Weedmaps doesnt care about the patients. | PB420 (http://weedblogs.com/pb420/2010/02/11/weedmaps-doesnt-care-about-the-patients/)

[TheReleafCenter]

The scoop on Weedmaps:

First, they're based in Cali, and we should all be doing everything we can to support COLORADO businesses. That being said, they're still the top listing site in the game and the drop off is considerable. They built everything on the backs of dispensaries and now want to charge $300 a month? Ouch. Considering a business card ad in Westword runs $500 a week, we're using WM. For now.

Second, he's being a little disingenuous when he says that everyone, free or premium, can moderate their comments. Free listings no longer get comment sections. From what I understand, they delete all your comments if you're not willing to shell out and then give you only a name and address.

Third, we've flagged one review because it just wasn't very good and we suspect it was from a competitor. It still hasn't been taken down,

prices were way too high,
staff was nice though.
i left with nothing. =[
You may argue it's a valid review, but we'd ask them to hold people to a slightly higher standard.

Lastly, there is a LOT of fake reviewing happening. They're launching WM2.0 right now, so I can't find the exact listing, but in North Denver there is a place with around 15 reviews that has a 5.0 rating. God, those guys must be GREAT... smh. IP tracking only does so much when an employee can review from home, their mobile phone, their second job... no way to track it all. We encourage PATIENTS, not EMPLOYEES to review.

[lampost]

^i totally hear what you're saying.

I stopped using weedmaps after a visit to a dispensary called B Goods. I was checking weedmaps out about 2 months ago and I came across this dispensary, B Goods, which had like 20+ 5-star ratings. Damn, I thought, I better check this place out.

I went there and they had like 5-6 strains, B-quality at best. I had been to 6-7 dispensaries at that point and this was my worst experience yet! The guy gave me "moldy" buds as a "gift". He had just told the people ahead of me that he wouldn't sell them the strain maple because he had a few complaints that it was moldy. Then when I was up he gave me a gram and said, "here's a freebie of some maple"! Are you shitting me! I'm not deaf!

On top of this, there was a huge picture window so people could watch you in the bud room as they walked by! Not a mention of this in 20+ reviews on weedmaps!

Anyway, I won't go on about how much I disliked B Goods (although I could). I wrote a less than stellar review on weedmaps and it was removed immediately. LOL.

After that incident I stopped using weedmaps entirely. I'm gonna have to go on there and check B Goods again. I think a few people have caught on to the bullshit!

And yeah, IP tracking is pointless when someone can just go to internet cafes, work, friends, phones, etc. There's 10 5-star reviews out of thin air!!

[TheReleafCenter]

Check out the giving tree: The Giving Tree of Denver - North Denver Cannabis Clubs - Medical Marijuana Dispensary (http://legalmarijuanadispensary.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=151:north-denver-cannabis-clubs&id=4296:the-giving-tree-of-denver&Itemid=118)

Only two top 500 reviewers, barely opened and already have tons of reviews. Most of them come from first time users who haven't reviewed anything else.

[TheStrainMan]

Good idea, but in most cases impossible to do. Take it from me as I've been a tech'y for over a decade: Most (99.9%) interent providers assign you a different IP Address with each session, So they'll always be different from day to day (or even hour to hour in many cases).

Yes all these folks are aware of incoming IP addresses and could catch fraudulent posts if they happen during the same session, but definitely NOT from one day to the next.

The Strain Man (http://www.thestrainman.com)


Also, do they try to prevent users from having more than one user acct? Like maybe one acct per IP address?

[TheStrainMan]

oh and another thing... in my humble opinion, opening up dispensaries to anonymous public reviews is not a good idea and Weedmaps is shooting themselves in the foot. What's happening is that due to FIERCE competition in MMJ, dispensary owners bash each other anonymously... I just spoke with a dispensary owner who faught with weedmaps for over a week to get a negative review pulled because the reviewer even admitted in the review he never even visited the place! Weedmaps is finding they're spending copious amounts of time in the 'delete bad reviews' monitoring business.