[Ishaq786]

As per thread title. Is this possible? I hear alot of people saying their reviews have disappeared. If true, how can this be allowed. We base our purchases on reviews. We don't want some sort of skewed information.

[berriac]

I Have the first hand experience of getting my review removed from the app world. This is a shameless policy of RIM

[SifJar]

Developers can flag reviews for moderation, and some RIM employee will then look at them and decide whether or not to remove them. I know this because I have had a couple of negative reviews removed after I fixed bugs in my application which where the focus of those comments.

[berriac]

Developers can flag reviews for moderation, and some RIM employee will then look at them and decide whether or not to remove them. I know this because I have had a couple of negative reviews removed after I fixed bugs in my application which where the focus of those comments.

I bought a theme from app world and it had some bugs. I emailed the developer 3-4 times and did not get any reply. After waiting for 15 days, I posted the review with a single star stating that there is no support whatsoever from the developer.
How can you justify my review removed from app world ?

[lyserman]

If it is the case, as SifJar says, that reviews highlighting problems that are subsequently fixed then that review becomes irrelevant and should be removed. This rewards developers who take on board constructive criticism and improve their work.
However, a review that states "This app is s**t" without giving any follow up as to what is wrong is neither helpful nor needed and should be removed as well.
If RIM removes bad reviews just because the developer, et al, do not like it then that is a worrying concept as it undermines the whole concept of a review system.
@ berriac.
I agree with you. You attempted to contact the developer, heard nothing for 15 days and then left a review. If the dev had just spent more time looking after their customers instead of looking at reviews then their rating may improve. Try re-submitting your review, or contacting the dev again and asking why.

[berriac]

If RIM removes bad reviews just because the developer, et al, do not like it then that is a worrying concept as it undermines the whole concept of a review system.

Not only that, I have some serious concerns regarding dummy reviews added to an app. I think it's possible to add reviews by developers/RIM employees nexus. I have seen some pretty ordinary apps getting hundreds of almost 5 star reviews. RIM needs to put some serious thought into the review system of app world besides overhauling entire app world.

[kevinnugent]

The whole App World experience is pretty dodgey, with the pricing and feedback policies.

[NFLPLAYBOOK]

So who points out and has the bogus positive reviews removed that appear with an app? Not the developer that's for sure.

[SifJar]

I bought a theme from app world and it had some bugs. I emailed the developer 3-4 times and did not get any reply. After waiting for 15 days, I posted the review with a single star stating that there is no support whatsoever from the developer.
How can you justify my review removed from app world ?

If the bug was fixed, it is perfectly easy to justify the review being removed. I sense that was not the case in this instance, and agree it should not have been removed. I did however get the feeling when I reported the reviews on my app for removal that they didn't really scrutinize the situation too carefully. From what I recall, it never asked for a reason you wanted the review removed. RIM should have a look at their system for dealing with this, so that in legitimate cases (where reviews focus on bugs which are later fixed, or reviews that are just plain unhelpful like lyserman suggested) reviews can be removed, but when they have legitimate criticisms they cannot.

It would also be wise to add a system where customers can report reviews as potentially "bad" (e.g. unhelpful bad reviews, reviews about old bugs that have been fixed, unfairly high reviews etc.).

[Innovatology]

Also, some reviews get automatically denied by App World, supposedly due to some fuzzy-logic obscenity filter which obviously doesn't work well. Many perfectly fine reviews (language-wise) get automatically denied.

[jeroen_13]

Developers can flag reviews for moderation, and some RIM employee will then look at them and decide whether or not to remove them. I know this because I have had a couple of negative reviews removed after I fixed bugs in my application which where the focus of those comments.

People who comment before bug fixes, have a different opinion that people who comment AFTER the bug fixes.
In this case it is fair to delete the old reviews

[Boight]

Good point jeroen, but how do we know which review was for what version of the program?
In an ideal appworld, version #s would be included with the date when reviewing and developers would always add the list of revisions since last update.
Some do and I find that really helpful, most don't though.. sadly.

[Sriman]

I have experience on this topic from both the sides (as a developer and as a customer). While I like the feature of the App World in terms of being able to request removal of inappropriate reviews, I think it is a bit too loose right now and RIM could tighten it.

My experience as a customer:
Some developers just don't respond to emails/issues. No option other than to leave negative feedback for them. However, I have noticed that RIM removes such reviews without thought.

My experience as a developer:
I had a customer who posted a negative review because a feature that he thought extremely crucial was not available in the app. I promised that it is very much in the road map and would be incorporated in the subsequent releases and also gave an approximate timeline for the same. The customer was still not happy and decided to leave a negative review. It was completely fine because he left it with adequate comments for anyone to understand why he did so. Eventually, after incorporating the feature, I contacted him again and requested him to update the app and try it again and modify his review. He didn't respond. After waiting for a couple of weeks, I approached RIM and had the review removed.

There was another customer who just left a review without any detailed comments and never contacted me. I waited to see if he would contact me but he didn't. I contacted RIM and got the review removed.

Agreed, that developers could misuse it but I think RIM needs to do a good job of deciding whether or not to remove a review. Probably they should include some mechanism to hear the developer version of the story to decide better. Right now there is no place to add some comments on why the request is being made to remove the review.

There is no such feature on Google Play and I wish they brought it along also. I have a review on Google Play that was made by a customer who didn't know how to use the app. There is no way to get it removed other than contacting him. I did contact him multiple times but he doesn't respond. This is unfair to the developer..

[Sriman]

Not only that, I have some serious concerns regarding dummy reviews added to an app. I think it's possible to add reviews by developers/RIM employees nexus. I have seen some pretty ordinary apps getting hundreds of almost 5 star reviews. RIM needs to put some serious thought into the review system of app world besides overhauling entire app world.

I think most of them are paid reviews. There are lot of websites where you can "buy" reviews for your app. You just need to provide them the link to the app and they do the rest. You can even write and give them a set of reviews and they will post it from multiple accounts. They do this for both free and paid apps. For paid apps, they charge the cost of the app back to you. In fact these guys scout for customers on various app markets. I was contacted by one such guy with a proactive proposal to add 100 reviews to my app on Google Play and BlackBerry App World at a very reasonable and tempting price. I don't want to post those links here because I personally don't think it is fair. And I don't use them for my apps. As you can see I still don't have those 100 reviews for my app.......

[Ishaq786]

How can they add 100 reviews to the app. They have to buy the app 100 times on several different BB ID's?

[berriac]

How can they add 100 reviews to the app. They have to buy the app 100 times on several different BB ID's?

If they have to buy the app to leave the reviews, then there is nothing that RIM or Google or Apple, can do about it.

[Sriman]

How can they add 100 reviews to the app. They have to buy the app 100 times on several different BB ID's?

Yes. They buy the app 100 times using different BB IDs and leave the review in all those IDs. Since they do this as a business, they probably have several IDs on each platform already created. As soon as they receive an order, they just download/buy the app and add the reviews....

[Ishaq786]

So if an app is 7 dollars, like Kalemsoft. It will cost 700 dollars to buy 100 apps.

[Sriman]

So if an app is 7 dollars, like Kalemsoft. It will cost 700 dollars to buy 100 apps.

yes, for that app the cost f buying 100 reviews will be 700 + charges/fees....

[ignites]

yes, for that app the cost f buying 100 reviews will be 700 + charges/fees....

Nope it'd only cost you $210 since developer gets back 70% of sales.

Anyone who has purchased my apps know I am easy to get a hold of =) you can hit me up at my website, email, twitter, crackberry pm etc. =). Some people just dont try and leave bad reviews. It happens, I want to help them (because what they ask for is in my FAQ of app description pages, AND my webpage). But theres only so much you can do. Thus those reviews deserve to be rejected.

[StampyBeaverbrook]

Until recently some reviews showed the reviewers nickname. I saw one app that had 4 gushing 5 star reviews from the same person who's nickname was very similar to the real name of the developer. My generous 3 star review only lasted a few days.

I've had my fingers burnt a few times trusting the reviews on app world and I'm more reluctant to buy apps now as a result, so this situation is hurting the ethical devs.

[Sriman]

Nope it'd only cost you $210 since developer gets back 70% of sales.

Anyone who has purchased my apps know I am easy to get a hold of =) you can hit me up at my website, email, twitter, crackberry pm etc. =). Some people just dont try and leave bad reviews. It happens, I want to help them (because what they ask for is in my FAQ of app description pages, AND my webpage). But theres only so much you can do. Thus those reviews deserve to be rejected.

yeah, I forgot about that... and completely with you on those reviews that deserve to be rejected...

[olblueyez]

Happens everyday, and yet the developers claim it has no affect on the scoring of the reviews. Its kinda like when people on Wall Street say that raising their taxes and regulating stock trade will hurt "Your Bottom Line".

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[nicklas79]

Indeed developers can ask to RIM to remove app reviews in the appworld.

As far as I'm concerned I keep all reviews wheras some are really wrong.

The real issue is that a lot of people don't search to use and understand the app. And few use the support.

So I can have a bad review and I don't know why and I can't improve the app.

In my case my app is PlayCloud

Nicolas

[KidCaboose]

I think I'm definitely flagged for review removal. I have a policy now that I only review apps that I would rate 3 stars and above. I don't think I've ever given a full 5 star review, but plenty of 4 and 4 1/2 star ones, with descriptions of what i liked, and possible improvements or hopes for future updates, along with the version I'm commenting on. About 90% of my reviews are removed. Checking back on the app reviews, especially within the first couple of weeks of its release, often, the only reviews that remain are 5 star ones.

On a side note, i hate when an app prompts me to give it a 5 star review.