What would you do? Heh.

[phiketpete]

i am with KS, Straycat and Sam on this one

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

 

 

I don't want to allow this because:

 

- people may abuse it

 

- the girls can never give their side of the story

 

- there are too many issues coming into play that may lead to a bad experience

 

 

 

The first two reasons should be pretty clear, the last may require some explanation, so here goes.

 

What I mean is that I could go with a girl and get extremely lousy service, yet the next day you go with her and have a great time. Whether or not somebody has a good time with a girl depends on a lot of aspects, for example: drunkenness (sp?), attraction, mood, ability to communicate, etc.

 

Therefore if someone says that a certain girl is a bitch, others may find her a sweetheart.

 

 

 

Besides, if I were to allow people to start naming girls that did 'bad' things, how do we define bad? Would naming a girl that steals be fine, a girl that tries to weazel out of a deal, a girl that does not want to give a BJ even though she said she would? How about a girl that gets you to buy her a ladydrink and then disappears to go dancing?

 

And how about a girl who has some STD? Or AIDS?

 

Where would we draw the line?

 

 

 

And as for Gadfly's earlier comment on moderating and liability, yes I am aware of that. I am also aware that the majority of you are enjoying this board especially *because* it is moderated. Can you imagine the chaos that would reign if it wasn't?

 

Exhibit A: the TAG board.

 

 

 

Sanuk!

 

 

[Guest]

Isn't it just an ethical standing. After all, what is your name? In my opinion it's not fair to name individuals on a board like this.

 

 

 

There are many ways in which these cases are not symmetric, but even the similarities hold up pretty well.

 

 

 

First, the bargirl network is not as sophisticated as ours, but it is very extensive. You can be sure that the girl in this post gave her side of the story to all the girls at this bar, and Gummi was not allowed to be present to defend himself. His reputation has probably been tarnished somewhat, even though he was apparently in the right. You can be sure that if a frequent customer to say Soi Cowboy regularly short changes the girls that a high percentage of the girls there will know about that and avoid him. The same is not true of a girl that regularly fleeces her customers, most customers will not know and she will continue to prosper.

 

 

 

Second, if I can write reviews of the girls, I don't have a problem with them posting (or putting up sticky notes) that FarangDang is a bad tipper whose penis is too large (jep mahk mahk). But I'm not interested in their personal lives and certainly would not post about them, and I would expect the same courtesy.

 

 

 

Prostituition is a shady business. And it's certainly not like buying a gadget in a store.

 

 

 

Part of the reason it is shady is because of the veil of secrecy. It should be treated as any other business with valid consumer reviews. The weight given to the review is up to the individual.

 

 

 

Be careful and on your guard at all times. That will save you from a lot more trouble than allowing naming on an anonymous board, which -- by the way -- is only read by a fraction of the visitors of Thailand.

 

 

 

That last part is key. I would not propose painting a red letter on the forehead of any girl who got a bad review. A single review here will only have a minimal impact. The purpose of the review is two-fold, 1) make the girls more responsible to the individual customer, 2) notify the community about bargirls to avoid or seek out.

 

 

 

1) This is no different than a restaurant review. The restaurant does not know who the critic is or on what night. If they get careless and service or quality slacks off on the night the critic is there, it will have an impact on their business. An individual dishonest bargirl has no incentive to not cheat a lone tourist at every opportunity, or whenever she feels lazy. If every customer had a real potential to affect future business a smart bargirl would think twice.

 

 

 

2) If you had a bad experience with a girl would you tell your drinking buddy to avoid her? Any argument used to justify that, can justify posting the review to a slightly larger audience.

 

 

 

 

 

There would be cases where innocent girls are hurt. There may even be tears. If the thought of making even one bargirl cry will make you unable to sleep at night, then perhaps this system is not for you. However, IMO the benefits outweigh the occasional hurt feelings.

[Guest]

I don't want to allow this because:

 

- people may abuse it

 

- the girls can never give their side of the story

 

- there are too many issues coming into play that may lead to a bad experience

 

 

 

The first two reasons should be pretty clear, the last may require some explanation, so here goes.

 

 

 

It's clear what you mean, but as I've written before I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for the first two.

 

 

 

What I mean is that I could go with a girl and get extremely lousy service, yet the next day you go with her and have a great time. Whether or not somebody has a good time with a girl depends on a lot of aspects, for example: drunkenness (sp?), attraction, mood, ability to communicate, etc.

 

Therefore if someone says that a certain girl is a bitch, others may find her a sweetheart.

 

 

 

That's not a problem. If someone posts that a girl is a bitch without any details it doesn't carry any weight. There would be little benefit in just assigning a single number rating to the girls, the more detailed the review the more useful it is. Also, the weight given to the review depends on who posts it. A frequent poster would have more credibility. Also, people would get to know which reviewers are more in-line with their tastes than others. Do you give more weight to Siskel's opinion or Ebert's? If Ebert's hemorrhoids are acting up that day he might pan a borderline movie. So a few people don't go see it that might have, not the end of the world.

 

 

 

You have to give the readers of the review some credit for intelligent analysis (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously). The more data that can be grouped together and fully indexed the better.

 

 

 

The system rewards the good just as much as it punishes the bad.

 

 

 

Besides, if I were to allow people to start naming girls that did 'bad' things, how do we define bad? Would naming a girl that steals be fine, a girl that tries to weazel out of a deal, a girl that does not want to give a BJ even though she said she would? How about a girl that gets you to buy her a ladydrink and then disappears to go dancing?

 

And how about a girl who has some STD? Or AIDS?

 

Where would we draw the line?

 

 

 

I don't see a problem with reviews stating any of the cases you mentioned. It may be that the reason the girl left after being bought a ladydring was because the customer stuffed his hand down her pants. But, again, one biased incomplete review is not going to kill anyone. If someone you or anyone else on the board knows wants to defend a particular girl you should feel free to add another review recommending the girl.

 

 

 

You draw the line on anything personal. Giving personal details about the girls life, family, where she lives, etc. should be off-limits. If she can't go long-time, I don't need to know it's because she has a husband.

 

 

 

I'm not suggesting that you need to change the board's guidelines to allow this. It's your board you can do what you want and people who like the atmosphere you've created will stay. If there is a competing board that offers such reviews and people prefer that, it's up to them. It would be a lot of work to make a review system work well and is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

 

 

 

I've tried browsing a couple of the Thai language boards reviewing MPs. It's interesting that they have no problems at all (that I can tell) with giving numbers and names. And they are very candid about the physical attributes and services provided by the girls. I wonder if this is because they are Thai, or because the service provider/customer relationship is much clearer for MPs. I.e. the customers don't fall in love with the girls, and the girls aren't looking for men to take them out of the business (not as often, at least).

[itsmedave]

Khun Sanuk,

 

 

 

This argument has raged before with seemingly a 50/50 split and then continued for about 2 weeks until you finally got frustrated with people challenging your decision and ended the thread. With this is mind, I fully understand that no change is imminent, and I am in no way challenging you...BUT I do have to say that I fall into the other camp.

 

 

 

This board is about information...this board is about Sanuk. While this board is about a far greater range than others of its type, certainly experiences in the Bangkok nightlife rank high on people's reason for reading.

 

 

 

While I can appreciate that some innocent bargirls may wind up with tarnished reputations, many more who are guilty will be exposed. Frankly, I care more about us (as a whole) than I do about them. The bargirls have their network to expose the good and bad punters...this is OUR network.

 

 

 

Also, not only could we point out the bad, but highlight the good. Of course this is subjective, but we're all adults and I think we understand that. If you feel the need to have a disclaimer after each review (The feelings and opinions expressed by this poster do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the moderators or any other sane person) I suppose you could...but I think most of us get that concept by ourselves.

 

 

 

Why is it you worry about where the line is to be drawn? This is your board and you can draw it where you see fit. (as you have) But I don't think it has to be an all or nothing situation. Certainly a little information is better than none. The more we know about any topic the better a decision we can make for our lives. That is the basic tenet of education in general. Again, this is your board and you can do what you like. Only post about girls who steal or are willing to nurse you when you're sick? Okay, it's your board, and it's better than nothing.

 

 

 

Already we are allowed to post about good and bad experiences in bars. I've seen many a thread where "Firecats" in Patpong has been dragged through the mud for padding the bill. Couldn't this type of post also be made by someone who has a score to settle? If so, then why make the bars pay for their misdeeds and not the girls. Being forced to pay an extra 200 bht is a lot less serious to me than going with a girl who has HIV, and if somebody out there knows about both issues, I'd much prefer a warning about the girl. The bar can only take what's in your wallet, the girl can take quite a bit more.

 

 

 

Again, I'm not trying to start a revolution, but just some random thoughts from a random guy.

 

 

 

Sanuk!

[think_too_mut]

How about BGs running their own board where they could comment about us, giving a warning to their sisters?

 

 

 

Anonymous, allowed to provide identifiable information about customers. A board like that could attract even more interest than this one.

 

 

 

And some freelancer with no traces to folow nor real name, posts something nasty about me. She could even be right.

 

 

 

Then, with identifiable info, my wife, daughter, students, colleagues, parents realize it was me.

 

 

 

Would it help to tell them that the girls had only a few posts, hence "low credibility"?

 

 

 

Or, the poster could be anyone, even my farang "friend" who came to dislike me for some reason.

 

 

 

Khun Sanuk, don't give in!

[Guest]

I think the topic (naming names) should be freely discussed; perhaps the Board Bar is the place for that in the future.

 

 

 

However, I want to make clear that the owners/moderators of the board should make whatever decision they feel comfortable with. The success or failure of the board will depend on their decisions, but they are highly motivated to make the right choices and should be trusted to do so. They must balance doing what's right for the board with their own ethics and deal with the repercussions. I can argue this topic based on logic and statistics because I'm not the one who has to face a bargirl crying because someone rightly or wrongly called her a cheat (or worse).

 

 

 

Even more importantly they shouldn't feel forced to repeatedly defend their decisions as moderators. This would be a big time sink for them and keep them from more important tasks. If enough members of the board are convinced that changing a policy is the right thing, I'm sure KS will at least reconsider his analysis. But as long as the topic is hotly contested, he'll probably just go with what he thinks is right.

[Guest]

How about BGs running their own board where they could comment about us, giving a warning to their sisters?

 

 

 

This situation is different. One, you are the customer and you have a right to a certain amount of privacy. This is widely accepted in America and probably most other societies. This means that while you the customer can complain about the service at your local drug store; they can not disclose that you were buying anal itch cream and a box of condoms (size extra small). This is something you have to accept when you go into business.

 

 

 

However, I don't have a problem with the girls providing some information on this bulletin board, but it would be hard to do so without infringing on your privacy. To identify a bargirl all you need say is "Lek" with the long hair from "Long Gun" (or even #123 from LG). Even if you occasionally had to narrow down the girl based on home town (which I would not recommend) this still makes it very difficult for anyone other than a customer of the bar to identify the girl. If "Lek" has told her husband that she's working at Long Gun, then that's her business and he is entitled to whatever info we have to say. It is far different to identify "Bob Smith, 33yo, blond hair from Texas, works for Chevron." Which is pretty much how far you'd have to go for a bar girl to uniquely identify you. In short, you can identify a girl relatively uniquely in the context of a bar, without violating her privacy. You can't do that with customers.

 

 

 

Not only that, but it would be very bad business to do so. First, many customers who would want to be discreet would not be cusomters any longer. Second, this would just encourage customers to lie (certainly the bad ones); so there would be no advantage to this BGBB.

 

 

 

Then, with identifiable info, my wife, daughter, students, colleagues, parents realize it was me.

 

 

 

Why are your family and colleagues poring over this bar girl bulletin board? It's unlikely that even if someone posted complete identifying information on you that it would come up. I'm sure for people with a lot of enemies or poor relationships it could be embarrassing, but for most people it wouldn't be an issue. This may change in the very near future; your wife might do a search on your name innocently and that info may come up. That would be a bummer, so don't use your real name with a bargirl.

 

 

 

Or, the poster could be anyone, even my farang "friend" who came to dislike me for some reason.

 

 

 

A farang "friend" could poison your life in many ways much more direct and easier than this. Just send an anonymous e-mail to your wife, for example.

 

 

 

 

 

I think a lot of people don't want to talk about bargirls, because they want to hold onto the illisusion that their girl is special. They don't want to be reminded that their temporary GF, the one who treats them so gently, is a wildcat in bed with every other guy (even more so). They don't want to hear that their girl who has "just started bar 2 weeks and only had 1 customer old man" is actually the star of Asian Anal Invaders 27.

[Guest]

Well, FarangDang and itsmedave, you've convinced me. If it were my board, I'd go your route. At least you've won a moral victory. Though, most would dispute whether having me on your side is flattering in any respect--particularly from a moral standpoint

 

 

 

Do me a favor, send me a "heads-up" PM when you run into bad shit, and I'll do the same for you.

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

 

 

"It's clear what you mean, but as I've written before I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for the first two."

 

 

 

Which is where we disagree.

 

We get all the benefits, the girls get all the drawbacks.

 

 

 

"I don't see a problem with reviews stating any of the cases you mentioned."

 

 

 

Even the AIDS one? Anybody posting that a certain girl has AIDS, true or not, will likely ruin her career/life. Most people would take the "better safe than sorry" approach and will not take her, and the rumour will spread.

 

 

 

Also what value would these reviews have? In order for them to become valuable you would need to have at least a couple of different guys write about the same girl. There are 10,000s of girls out there, and only about a few 100 posters on this board, several of which would never write such a review.

 

So, the chances of having a couple guys write about the same girl are rather slim, especially if they write in the same timeframe.

 

 

 

This means you would likely end up with a list of girls based upon the opinions of only one guy. Would you go out looking for the 'good' ones and avoid the 'bad' based on the opinion of 1 or 2 guys?

 

 

 

"I've tried browsing a couple of the Thai language boards reviewing MPs. It's interesting that they have no problems at all (that I can tell) with giving numbers and names. And they are very candid about the physical attributes and services provided by the girls. I wonder if this is because they are Thai, or because the service provider/customer relationship is much clearer for MPs. I.e. the customers don't fall in love with the girls, and the girls aren't looking for men to take them out of the business (not as often, at least)."

 

 

 

Likely your assumptions are correct, I however do not wish to treat human beings like goods. You mentioned restaurant reviews earlier, not the same I think as reviewing people. After all, in a restaurant review it is not the cook being reviewed, it is the entire restaurant. Big difference in my eyes.

 

 

 

As for the reason why reviews seem to be fine on the sites you mentioned, it is likely a combination of the reasons you mentioned. Thai men will likely look down on these girls (much more so than your average John will do in the farang barscene), and treat them like goods. And yes, the provider/customer relationship is much clearer, but isn't it exactly the girlfriend experience that draws us to the farang scene?

 

Start reviewing the girls and you quickly take this gf experience away, to be replaced by a provider/customer relationship pretty much like in the West.

 

 

 

This from your reply to Straycat:

 

"First, the bargirl network is not as sophisticated as ours, but it is very extensive. You can be sure that the girl in this post gave her side of the story to all the girls at this bar, and Gummi was not allowed to be present to defend himself. His reputation has probably been tarnished somewhat, even though he was apparently in the right. You can be sure that if a frequent customer to say Soi Cowboy regularly short changes the girls that a high percentage of the girls there will know about that and avoid him."

 

 

 

You are probably correct, but of course this only holds true for regular customers. What about the 2-weeks-a-year tourist who does this (short changing)? You don't honestly believe that, other than the girls he fleeced (and maybe some of their friends), anybody will remember when he next comes around?

 

Yet, a review on the Internet is there to stay, forever.

 

 

 

Sanuk!