AsstModerator
FPA Forums and Reviews Admin
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Hey Dude, Where’s My Review?
NOVEMBER 2023 UPDATE - BIG CHANGES ARE BEGINNING
Some of you have already noticed that a handful of sites are only showing 1 page of reviews or else have a "Show More Reviews" option to show 1 or 2 more sets of reviews. Very few people ever click to see the 2nd page of reviews. Even fewer ever go to the 3rd page. Those 1-3 page review pages were part of an experiment to try different layouts.
Many reviews are only "I really like this company very much. You should try them." or "I hate this company very much. You should avoid them." Those reviews lack useful content and are not very helpful to readers. Under current rules, a review with that text would be deleted, but many reviews are just barely over the line and get approved. Under the new system, all approved reviews add or subtract from the overall rating, but not all reviews will be displayed.
What will be displayed? First, if a site has enough reviews containing helpful content, the reviews list will start with Helpful Reviews. Whether or not there is a block of Helpful Reviews, there will be a block for Recent Reviews. Under the new system, reviews with very little content can be approved, but won't be displayed. Reviews with very little content can be approved, but won't be displayed. Approved reviews that would require significant edits before display will probably not be displayed. The Helpful Reviews block will generally have higher standards than the Recent Reviews block. Like approval, display selections for both Recent and Helpful will be done by humans with assistance from automatic filters.
I really like about this new system. As a review page gets more reviews that are well-written and informative, the standards for review display on that page can slowly increase. Another benefit to this change is that by not showing 100% of newly approved reviews, it becomes much harder for review spammers to figure out ways around the filters. Once this system is set up on enough pages, I'll be removing the contact form from this page. Only a few legitimate reviewers have used it. A large percentage of those didn't read the whole page before filling out the form. All the others who wrote in look like paid review spammers trying to find exact instructions to get their fake reviews approved.
As of now, once a page has been modified this way, the FPA Review Moderation Team will no longer be answering questions about reviews not displayed. Reviewers should read this entire page to learn more about why their non-displayed review may have been either approved and not displayed or rejected. Those reviewers may then try to write a more informative review or correct any of the issues mentioned below that can lead to automatic rejection.
I hope to provide more information soon. My moderators and I have thousands of review pages to configure for the new settings. Each of those needs Helpful and Recent reviews to be selected. This will be a long process, but we will focus on pages that get the most new reviews and that are viewed the most.
I hope that by sometime in January, any page not yet set up that gets a new review will be configured immediately. By picking a time frame, I've probably just condemned myself and the whole review moderation team to get too bogged down to get even halfway to that point by January.
------------
First, the FPA does want honest reviews from real people. Many dishonest companies work very hard to manipulate their ratings. When I first took over the reviews, everything was manually done by humans. Later, as more filters to catch fakes were implemented, automatic systems were added. A review rejection is not a personal attack on you. If you carefully read the items below, you will learn how to avoid most rejections and also how to improve your review's chances of going on display.
Be patient. The review moderation queue can get backed up. Every time you post a review, there’s a note about reviews taking from 5-10 business days (2 business weeks) to be processed. The time spent answering this same question over and over again every day from people who don't wait for reviews to be processed adds at least 1 day to the moderation process. Once the new Helpful Reviews and Recent Reviews system is implemented on a review page, the FPA will cease discussing individual missing reviews on that page in order to make it harder for companies to try to manipulate the review system. Once again, if you take the time to read the information below, you will be able to avoid most automatic rejections and to have a better chance of having your review go on display.
Please don’t give incorrect information about your location. You don’t have to give your city or region, but if you give false information about what country you are in, your review will probably be deleted. The bulk of reviews with fake countries are fake reviews. There’s an idiot in Latvia who spent more than 6 months leaving hundreds of fake reviews claiming to be from all over the world. He thought he could rearrange the top rated brokers. He failed. If you are traveling outside your home country, select the country you are currently in from the country dropdown box and write “(home country), currently visiting” in the location box if you feel the need to say where you are originally from. The FPA’s reviews don’t require you to give your real name, so your privacy is protected. Relate to this, if you use any method to hide your real IP, the FPA can't tell what country your review is from. If you have an issue with a company that’s threatened you and are worried that they can identify you just from the country you live in, then please use the contact form HERE to send a message to the FPA.
Is your review really a review?
“I need contact info for the company or a reviewer.” Or “Hello person who left a review long ago, how’s it going?” aren’t reviews. People go to the reviews to read about experiences dealing with companies. If your review is mostly "Some other reviewer is completely wrong!", that's not a review. Reviewers need to focus on their own experiences, not reply to someone else's reviews. There is a system in place to allow registered company representatives to submit their own replies and comments on recent reviews.
If you want to talk about the best settings or chat with other users, please do that in the Financial Companies Comparisons and Discussions folder of the FPA's forums. "Has anyone else used this company?" won’t make users come to the review page and share their experiences. If you want to ask the FPA at large if anyone has used a company or product, the Financial Companies Comparisons and Discussions folder is the place to post.
Is your review a Waiter Review? "John Honcho answered all my questions. 5 Stars!" isn't helpful. This might as well say "My waiter answered all my questions so I'm rating the restaurant as 5 stars." You need to try to broker (or the food) before leaving the review if you want it to be approved. You can read more about Waiter Reviews HERE.
About bonuses. "Wow! My account number is 123456 and I got a no deposit bonus!" and similar will not be approved. Would you give a bank a good review because they gave you some free money before you actually used their services? If you are aware of any broker offering bonuses or other incentives in exchange for leaving reviews, use the form on this page to report the program immediately. Please make sure to include enough information so that the FPA can verify the accusation.
About demo usage. Demo performance can be very different from live performance. I've never seen a case of live performance being better than demo. I have seen many cases of demo performance being better than live. Demo performance can not be used to support a positive recommendation of broker or trading-related item.
Did you write your review? The amount of generic promotional review text written by AIs has reached the point that the FPA is checking reviews for AI-generated text. You may use an AI to give you ideas, but the review text needs to be written by a human.
Do you have a conflict of interest? IBs, other affiliates, or anyone having any financial relationship with a company other than as a client are no longer permitted to leave reviews for companies they are affiliated with or for competitors of those companies.
Our readers are worldwide. This website has chosen English as its primary language. Bilingual reviews are very welcome, as long as one of the languages is English. Reviews containing no English don't serve the majority of our readers and limit the ability of our moderators to check the content. The FPA does permit forums postings to come in a variety of languages, but the reviews are supposed to be available to as many of our regular readers as possible.
Please do not use profanity or offensive language in your review.
The FPA had been editing profanity to things like f*** or s***. Later, creative euphemisms were edited in to try to discourage the use profanity. This lead to another problem. Some reviews have large amounts of profanity, and editing those reviews takes up time needed for other tasks. Because of this, I am giving the FPA Review Moderation Team a large amount of discretion. Any review containing profanity or offensive language may be edited however the moderator sees fit or may be marked to never display or can be deleted at that moderator's discretion. If you don't want to risk your review getting dumped by a busy moderator and to have a chance to go on display, please write your review in a civilized fashion.
Please do not include emoji in your review.
A good review should explain how the reviewer feels as well as why. A bunch of smiling faces, frowning faces, or other emoji don't explain anything. Emoji can also gain additional meanings over time, making the original meaning of the review harder to understand. If there is enough text, the FPA has been deleting emoji. Otherwise, the reviews have been deleted.
One trader gets one vote. NO exceptions!
If you leave a second review under the same account for the same company, that is a followup review. Followup reviews are permitted to update a review. Maybe the situation has changed, or maybe you just want to let people know that things are just as good, or bad, as previously reported. When leaving a followup review, use the same account and location you used in the first review. If you are leaving a follow-up to an older review you left as a guest, make sure to mention the name and date on your original review.
What is never permitted is for one person to leave more than reviews for the same company under 2 or more different usernames. Don’t try submitting multiple reviews under different names. It doesn't matter whether the company is offering a perfect product or is a terrible scammer. It doesn't matter if you disagree with other reviewers. The rules are very simple. 1. Submitting a second review under the same name lets you provide more information or change the rating if you want to. 2. Submitting a second review under a different name is trying to cheat and vote twice. If you get caught cheating by using two or more names, the best that you can hope for is to have all of your reviews deleted. The FPA is always working to improve detection of those who try to cheat.
If you left a review, it hasn’t shown up in 10 business days, and this page doesn’t explain why, AND the page doesn't have a block for Helpful Reviews, use the Missing Review Inquiry Form at the bottom of this post. READ THE PAGE BEFORE USING THE CONTACT FORM! BILL WROTE IT TO ANSWER QUESTIONS! Someone here will check on your review. If you give a valid email address, someone will get back to you.
Related Questions
Are you a company representative checking on missing reviews? If so, CLICK HERE.
Are you wondering why the FPA moderates reviews? CLICK HERE to learn why the FPA takes time and effort do this
Want to know what happens if a company employee gets caught leaving fake reviews? CLICK HERE to find out.
Other Review Questions? CLICK HERE
Please note that the form below is exclusively for reviewers, not for company representatives. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ ALL THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE BEFORE USING THE CONTACT FORM!
Please note that the form above is exclusively for reviewers, not for company representatives.
Note: As of October 12, 2022, review approval time has been extended from 5 business days to 10 business days.
NOVEMBER 2023 UPDATE - BIG CHANGES ARE BEGINNING
Some of you have already noticed that a handful of sites are only showing 1 page of reviews or else have a "Show More Reviews" option to show 1 or 2 more sets of reviews. Very few people ever click to see the 2nd page of reviews. Even fewer ever go to the 3rd page. Those 1-3 page review pages were part of an experiment to try different layouts.
Many reviews are only "I really like this company very much. You should try them." or "I hate this company very much. You should avoid them." Those reviews lack useful content and are not very helpful to readers. Under current rules, a review with that text would be deleted, but many reviews are just barely over the line and get approved. Under the new system, all approved reviews add or subtract from the overall rating, but not all reviews will be displayed.
What will be displayed? First, if a site has enough reviews containing helpful content, the reviews list will start with Helpful Reviews. Whether or not there is a block of Helpful Reviews, there will be a block for Recent Reviews. Under the new system, reviews with very little content can be approved, but won't be displayed. Reviews with very little content can be approved, but won't be displayed. Approved reviews that would require significant edits before display will probably not be displayed. The Helpful Reviews block will generally have higher standards than the Recent Reviews block. Like approval, display selections for both Recent and Helpful will be done by humans with assistance from automatic filters.
I really like about this new system. As a review page gets more reviews that are well-written and informative, the standards for review display on that page can slowly increase. Another benefit to this change is that by not showing 100% of newly approved reviews, it becomes much harder for review spammers to figure out ways around the filters. Once this system is set up on enough pages, I'll be removing the contact form from this page. Only a few legitimate reviewers have used it. A large percentage of those didn't read the whole page before filling out the form. All the others who wrote in look like paid review spammers trying to find exact instructions to get their fake reviews approved.
As of now, once a page has been modified this way, the FPA Review Moderation Team will no longer be answering questions about reviews not displayed. Reviewers should read this entire page to learn more about why their non-displayed review may have been either approved and not displayed or rejected. Those reviewers may then try to write a more informative review or correct any of the issues mentioned below that can lead to automatic rejection.
I hope to provide more information soon. My moderators and I have thousands of review pages to configure for the new settings. Each of those needs Helpful and Recent reviews to be selected. This will be a long process, but we will focus on pages that get the most new reviews and that are viewed the most.
I hope that by sometime in January, any page not yet set up that gets a new review will be configured immediately. By picking a time frame, I've probably just condemned myself and the whole review moderation team to get too bogged down to get even halfway to that point by January.
------------
First, the FPA does want honest reviews from real people. Many dishonest companies work very hard to manipulate their ratings. When I first took over the reviews, everything was manually done by humans. Later, as more filters to catch fakes were implemented, automatic systems were added. A review rejection is not a personal attack on you. If you carefully read the items below, you will learn how to avoid most rejections and also how to improve your review's chances of going on display.
Be patient. The review moderation queue can get backed up. Every time you post a review, there’s a note about reviews taking from 5-10 business days (2 business weeks) to be processed. The time spent answering this same question over and over again every day from people who don't wait for reviews to be processed adds at least 1 day to the moderation process. Once the new Helpful Reviews and Recent Reviews system is implemented on a review page, the FPA will cease discussing individual missing reviews on that page in order to make it harder for companies to try to manipulate the review system. Once again, if you take the time to read the information below, you will be able to avoid most automatic rejections and to have a better chance of having your review go on display.
Please don’t give incorrect information about your location. You don’t have to give your city or region, but if you give false information about what country you are in, your review will probably be deleted. The bulk of reviews with fake countries are fake reviews. There’s an idiot in Latvia who spent more than 6 months leaving hundreds of fake reviews claiming to be from all over the world. He thought he could rearrange the top rated brokers. He failed. If you are traveling outside your home country, select the country you are currently in from the country dropdown box and write “(home country), currently visiting” in the location box if you feel the need to say where you are originally from. The FPA’s reviews don’t require you to give your real name, so your privacy is protected. Relate to this, if you use any method to hide your real IP, the FPA can't tell what country your review is from. If you have an issue with a company that’s threatened you and are worried that they can identify you just from the country you live in, then please use the contact form HERE to send a message to the FPA.
Is your review really a review?
“I need contact info for the company or a reviewer.” Or “Hello person who left a review long ago, how’s it going?” aren’t reviews. People go to the reviews to read about experiences dealing with companies. If your review is mostly "Some other reviewer is completely wrong!", that's not a review. Reviewers need to focus on their own experiences, not reply to someone else's reviews. There is a system in place to allow registered company representatives to submit their own replies and comments on recent reviews.
If you want to talk about the best settings or chat with other users, please do that in the Financial Companies Comparisons and Discussions folder of the FPA's forums. "Has anyone else used this company?" won’t make users come to the review page and share their experiences. If you want to ask the FPA at large if anyone has used a company or product, the Financial Companies Comparisons and Discussions folder is the place to post.
Is your review a Waiter Review? "John Honcho answered all my questions. 5 Stars!" isn't helpful. This might as well say "My waiter answered all my questions so I'm rating the restaurant as 5 stars." You need to try to broker (or the food) before leaving the review if you want it to be approved. You can read more about Waiter Reviews HERE.
About bonuses. "Wow! My account number is 123456 and I got a no deposit bonus!" and similar will not be approved. Would you give a bank a good review because they gave you some free money before you actually used their services? If you are aware of any broker offering bonuses or other incentives in exchange for leaving reviews, use the form on this page to report the program immediately. Please make sure to include enough information so that the FPA can verify the accusation.
About demo usage. Demo performance can be very different from live performance. I've never seen a case of live performance being better than demo. I have seen many cases of demo performance being better than live. Demo performance can not be used to support a positive recommendation of broker or trading-related item.
Did you write your review? The amount of generic promotional review text written by AIs has reached the point that the FPA is checking reviews for AI-generated text. You may use an AI to give you ideas, but the review text needs to be written by a human.
Do you have a conflict of interest? IBs, other affiliates, or anyone having any financial relationship with a company other than as a client are no longer permitted to leave reviews for companies they are affiliated with or for competitors of those companies.
Our readers are worldwide. This website has chosen English as its primary language. Bilingual reviews are very welcome, as long as one of the languages is English. Reviews containing no English don't serve the majority of our readers and limit the ability of our moderators to check the content. The FPA does permit forums postings to come in a variety of languages, but the reviews are supposed to be available to as many of our regular readers as possible.
Please do not use profanity or offensive language in your review.
The FPA had been editing profanity to things like f*** or s***. Later, creative euphemisms were edited in to try to discourage the use profanity. This lead to another problem. Some reviews have large amounts of profanity, and editing those reviews takes up time needed for other tasks. Because of this, I am giving the FPA Review Moderation Team a large amount of discretion. Any review containing profanity or offensive language may be edited however the moderator sees fit or may be marked to never display or can be deleted at that moderator's discretion. If you don't want to risk your review getting dumped by a busy moderator and to have a chance to go on display, please write your review in a civilized fashion.
Please do not include emoji in your review.
A good review should explain how the reviewer feels as well as why. A bunch of smiling faces, frowning faces, or other emoji don't explain anything. Emoji can also gain additional meanings over time, making the original meaning of the review harder to understand. If there is enough text, the FPA has been deleting emoji. Otherwise, the reviews have been deleted.
One trader gets one vote. NO exceptions!
If you leave a second review under the same account for the same company, that is a followup review. Followup reviews are permitted to update a review. Maybe the situation has changed, or maybe you just want to let people know that things are just as good, or bad, as previously reported. When leaving a followup review, use the same account and location you used in the first review. If you are leaving a follow-up to an older review you left as a guest, make sure to mention the name and date on your original review.
What is never permitted is for one person to leave more than reviews for the same company under 2 or more different usernames. Don’t try submitting multiple reviews under different names. It doesn't matter whether the company is offering a perfect product or is a terrible scammer. It doesn't matter if you disagree with other reviewers. The rules are very simple. 1. Submitting a second review under the same name lets you provide more information or change the rating if you want to. 2. Submitting a second review under a different name is trying to cheat and vote twice. If you get caught cheating by using two or more names, the best that you can hope for is to have all of your reviews deleted. The FPA is always working to improve detection of those who try to cheat.
If you left a review, it hasn’t shown up in 10 business days, and this page doesn’t explain why, AND the page doesn't have a block for Helpful Reviews, use the Missing Review Inquiry Form at the bottom of this post. READ THE PAGE BEFORE USING THE CONTACT FORM! BILL WROTE IT TO ANSWER QUESTIONS! Someone here will check on your review. If you give a valid email address, someone will get back to you.
Related Questions
Are you a company representative checking on missing reviews? If so, CLICK HERE.
Are you wondering why the FPA moderates reviews? CLICK HERE to learn why the FPA takes time and effort do this
Want to know what happens if a company employee gets caught leaving fake reviews? CLICK HERE to find out.
Other Review Questions? CLICK HERE
Please note that the form below is exclusively for reviewers, not for company representatives. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ ALL THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE BEFORE USING THE CONTACT FORM!
Please note that the form above is exclusively for reviewers, not for company representatives.
Note: As of October 12, 2022, review approval time has been extended from 5 business days to 10 business days.