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As I have stated several times already, I am loathe to give guests a bad review.
Writing “This guest was nice but left snot all over the shower and I found him overfriendly” is in all honesty, a negative review.
Why this obsession with “honest reviews” when I have said I will message him privately?
How long are you going to insist on this point?
Why this insistence that I am pressuring you to leave a review? I’m the one who said if you think private messaging him would alert him that his behaviors were inappropriate, that seemed a viable alternative to leaving a less than stellar review.
Discussing what constitutes a factual, honest review as opposed to what is subjective has nothing to do with pressuring you to leave a review.
An honest review helps us hosts. A dishonest review hurts hosts and guests. No review does not help hosts.
Messaging privately makes the messenger feel good, I suppose, but does not share the experience they had with a guest with hosts who have to decide whether to host a guest or not.
Hosts read reviews and decide based on reviews whether to host a guest.
Mar, I have asked a few times and you have never answered: If you read a review of this guest and it contained information like his "delicate personal hygiene issues’ and his issues invading your space, would you have hosted this guest?
I wrote the above several messages ago.
As I stated before, I have a face-to-face IRL relationships with my guest. I don’t want to leave ugly reviews for people who I have met.
“A factual honest review” - there is no such thing! There is no way the reviewers personal biases and history, temperament etc. don’t affect their judgement.
All reviews are subjective!
If I focus on the snot but not on the fact that he didn’t use the kitchen (a plus in my opinion), I am still being “economical with the truth” or presenting the facts I want to present.
Bias simply can’t be avoided.
Of course there is. If I say in a review “The guest answered all my messages within the hour and let me know right away that her flight was delayed and she’d be two hours later than her original ETA”, that is honest and factual. As is “The guest said she would arrive around 3pm, but didn’t arrive until 8pm, and never advised me of the late arrival”.
That has nothing to do with personal biases and history, or temperament, “judgement” or anything else but stating a fact.
A review system isn’t meant to be a mutual admiration society, that we only review guests we like. Nor are we reviewing them as to personality or character- we are reviewing them as to whether they behaved well as guests, so other hosts are informed as to what to expect from that guest.
Nominated for ‘quote of the month’.
Yes but which “facts” you present don’t mean the review is "factual’ if you are only presenting certain “facts”.
If i didn’t like someone, i would present negative facts to reinforce my biases.
And vice versa.
I didn’t understand Bogey Man’s behaviour.
I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he’s unaware of his odd behaviours and message him privately about them.
Thank you.
We could start a thread about this very subject with a poll.
Of course it is. Just because I might not feel something is worth mentioning in a review doesn’t mean the things I do mention, because I think other hosts would like to be aware of them, aren’t factual.
So in that case writing a review for Bogey Man that said “He never used the kitchen and left his room very clean” would also be factually correct.
So I could post that and still be giving him the thing you love so much - an honest review
In the USA we have a group of people that claim that ‘facts’ are subjective - they are MAGA Trump supporters. Try as hard as you can with logic, the ultimate answer will always be “I’ll do what I want” and “You can’t make me”.
Hosts that do not look out for other hosts should not be welcome here.
I sincerely hope America votes for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win the elections in November.
But I’m 100% not getting into a debate about American politics. That is 100% a fact.
As opposed to “Do what I want you to do or leave”?
Not writing a review doesn’t mean you are evil and want other hosts to suffer.
Yes, it would be factually correct and honest. What it would be is incomplete, though. Bogeyman made you quite uncomfortable, enough so that you posted here about it. If a guest’s behavior made me uncomfortable in my own home, I would feel that is something other hosts would want to be aware of and include a factual description of that behavior and leave it up to other hosts to decide if that behavior would bother them.
If I decided not to mention something in a review, it wouldn’t be because I was loathe to mention anything that could be perceived as negative, it would be because I didn’t find the behavior to be any big deal, such as a guest being a lax dishwasher. But if a guest’s behavior was such that it felt creepy to me and affected my own movements and enjoyment of my home and wouldn’t want to host them again, I would certainly think that worth making other hosts aware of.
Would you want to host this guest again? I imagine not. In which case I can’t understand a reticence to review the guest honestly and completely, both the positive and negative. We talk about “honest” reviews because reviews are not necessarily good or bad and mentioning some disturbing guest behaviors, as long as we are fair and also mention the positives doesn’t make it an “ugly” or “humiliating” review. And I would never directly mention something that would publicly embarrass a guest. Not “snot on the shower walls”, but “Needs some guidance on cleaning up after himself in the shared shower”.
You review for other hosts. PLEASE review this person, I wouldn’t want to host someone who leaves large boogers in the shower if I could mention it to them.
Say something neutral that @Rolf would put so elegantly on the subject of cleanliness and boundaries.
The interesting point here is that the host didn’t mention the guest’s anti-social behaviour to him at any time during the stay.
Unfair.
Snotwise I can imagine that had I been the guest, reading the review, I’d think “well why on earth didn’t she say something?”
I don’t believe that I’ve ever written anything in a review that I haven’t mentioned to the guest at the time.
Yes, I was wondering why the host hadn’t said anything to the guest during his stay instead of being annoyed, uncomfortable and grossed out.
It seems like when he asked “Am I doing everything right?” that was the perfect opportunity to say, “Actually, I’d really appreciate it if you’d wipe down the shower walls after you shower. (No need to mention snot) And I’m not a very chatty person, so it is making me a bit uncomfortable when you try to strike up a conversation every time I pass by your door, especially at night. Otherwise, everything is okay, and I appreciate how clean and tidy you are.”
I don’t think the op can choose to not host this guest again unless a review is written?
This guy sounds like the housemate from short term hell not so much the bothersome boogers but the popping out at you at every chance is so weird. He must have been incredibly lonely.
Honestly I have only written one bad review out of hundreds but she deserved an outing and Air had backed me up too.
Deficient social skills on my part. I wasn’t able to say that to his face. I posted this before.
Anyway, you guys want to continue? Let’s go and rehash all the arguments that we’ve already had! Wooooo!