Prevent users from using stars in the location field

[Rufai]

I think this is done intentionally to mislead other users and make them think that the person has a five-star rating. I once saw a case in the dispute section where a user purchased services from another user because he thought the user had five-star ratings on their profile, and this was exactly what they did.

 

[PetraAnn]

Do you have any links to profiles doing this?

 

[TheMarquis]

I use that, and I use it as a GTA joke, not as faking a rating. The buyer should do his/her own due diligence before buying a product or a service, not only on BlackHat World, but everywhere else.

 

[Steptoe]

Do you have any links to profiles doing this?

Google has a few:

site:blackhatworld.com "From ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"

I don't think it's being abused though.

 

[PetraAnn]

Google has a few:

site:blackhatworld.com "From ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"

I don't think it's being abused though.

I actually just got all of the info we need to investigate to see IF it's actually being abused. I'm shocked at how many people are actually doing this (and yes, it's just the stars alone I have data on).

I'm going to leave this open for awhile to see if anyone else has feelings about this issue. Otherwise, we'll see how big of an issue it is once we've had a chance to look through the data.

 

[Venusaur]

This is a good suggestion, there is no reason to allow that, it's misleading...I can see on Google that most members doing that are reputable members, including Jr Exec VIP members without bad intentions, but ObsidianFlow (the last scammer who did that) started abusing this feature and it's in fact misleading and easy to confuse among newcomers who may misinterpret what these stars symbolize

 

[Rufai]

@PetraAnn
In this dispute thread, the OP stated that they chose the accused because "her profile had a good rating". I think it was because of the five stars on her profile, because her actual rating was 38% and you can not regard that as a good rating.
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/resolved-dispute-sam_uel-vs-gamelabxtention.1699158/

 

[CanuckSEO]

It's misleading and I agree with those who say it should be removed. At minimum, remove the ability at add emojis.

 

[INCC]

Literally nobody is abusing this.

This has never been brought up before, and people have had those stars there for years.

Not every place is a Trustpilot front.

 

[PetraAnn]

Since nobody else has an opinion on this, I'm going to close the thread. We are looking into this to see if it is a problem.

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