Recruiting gay porn site reviewers

[GayGeek]

Hi folks,

I hope Bjorn will permit me to post this here, as it's a touch off-topic. But for the life of me I haven't figured out how best on the Internet to recruit reviewers for GayGeek.

GayGeek differs from GayDemon and most other review sites in that we use teams of volunteer reviewers to look over sites. This means we tend not to go quite into the level of detail/analysis that GayDemon's reviews do, but it evens out a bit because we are viewing the website from multiple fresh perspectives.

Of course this also means that we need to recruit reviewers with some regularity, and over the past several years our number of reviewers has steadily decreased. Frankly, I'm a bit stumped on the best places to recruit reviewers. I have tried Craigslist but no matter how carefully I write the posting people always flag my messages as spam causing them to be removed. It's very frustrating.

So I've been asking around and someone suggested I try posting a few messages on sites like Gay Demon, GWW, etc. And so I'm doing that. I realize that the folks who hang out here are webmasters and not users, but we've even had a few webmasters reviewing for us over the years. We don't let them review sites on which they would have a conflict of interest, of course, but they still enjoy reviewing for us because it gives them an opportunity to see what other sites in the business are up to.

Anyway, if you might be interested in them come check out GayGeek at www.gaygeek.com (http://www.gaygeek.com). Our specific instructions for becoming a reviewer are located here (http://www.gaygeek.com/become.php). We generally have prospective reviewers write a mock review just to prove they can write coherently, but I'll waive that for anyone with a demonstrated track record of writing skill.

Alternately, I'm open to suggestions on good places on the Internet to recruit reviewers!

--Aaron

[RDude]

So you're looking for members to write reviews for you then? And these would be done on a volunteer basis, not paid?

This is an interesting way of going about getting reviews done, indeed. I wish you luck with it.

[GayGeek]

Yup, a volunteer basis.

It's not that unusual. GayGeek has utilized volunteer reviewers since its inception in 2004. It's part of what makes our site unique -- multiple perspectives from "real" porn viewers, not paid employees of GayGeek who might otherwise feel pressured to write text to make certain sites convert better.

That being said, we allow our reviewers to pick the types of sites they review. So presumably they are receiving websites for which they would have a genuine interest. So it allows them to enjoy porn they'd otherwise have to pay for. So in that respect they are paid.

We don't expect written reviews on par with what the New York Times theater critic might write either. Our reviews are a simple set of numerical evaluations along with four open-ended descriptive questions. (For example, "What does this site promise on the outside? Does it deliver?") So it's not that hard to write for us.

Most of our reviewers aren't industry professionals either. A few work in the industry, but most are just porn surfers who enjoy writing about what they read.

(Us = Me, really. I'm just in the habit of saying "we" in regards to my site.)

[Seth]

Aaron, the JUB forums (http://www.justusboys.com/forum/) come to mind. Maybe ask the moderators (http://www.justusboys.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=130) first though.

[GayGeek]

Yah, I'm cognizant that this posting is slightly off-track for some webmaster forums. Most webmasters wouldn't mind, but Gay Demon is a review site so I didn't want to step on their toes. We have a good relationship though so I thought I'd burn a few brownie points and start the conversation here. Good idea though, Seth. I'm not very familiar with their site but will check it out.

[gaydemon]

Thanks appriciate your concern. It's ok with me, I've always liked your work and site. ;)

I know how difficult it can be with volunteers, I gave up several years ago simple because it's too unreliable. Not sure posting here will do you much good though as its mainly people working in porn already, but who knows.

[basschick]

you could put cheap ads on porn link lists or start a gay porn member community like thebestporn does. will craigslist leave your ad if you pay? i pay for my model ads there. on the other hand, you're not offering a paying job, so i don't know.

i've had a couple clients who used to use members as reviewers. the reviews were often pretty inaccurate. of course, i see a lot of paid reviews that are just as inaccurate. but the other big problem with using members as reviewers is that they're so opinionated, and often don't get a niche, so make a good selling site sell poorly due to lack of understanding.

[rawTOP]

That being said, we allow our reviewers to pick the types of sites they review. So presumably they are receiving websites for which they would have a genuine interest. So it allows them to enjoy porn they'd otherwise have to pay for. So in that respect they are paid.

If you want guys to review bareback sites, post a message on my forum, BreedingZone.com (http://www.breedingzone.com), under "General Discussion" (after it gets initial exposure I'll move it to "New BB Porn Scenes" and sticky for a little while).

If "MAIKOL20 (http://www.breedingzone.com/members/592-MAIKOL20)" responds he'd probably be a good choice. Based on his comments on the forum it seems he buys memberships to porn sites and he loves to comment on things :)

[GayGeek]

Basschick,

Thanks for the suggestions.

I usually post on Craiglist under the M4M message area. They don't currently accept paid ads for that area (to my knowledge). They do accept paid job ads, but this isn't really a paid job so I don't think it would qualify. I don't think I'd get much of a respond under their general job postings anyway.

And yes, I agree with the accuracy of our volunteer reviewers. Which is why I keep an eye on what they're writing and often ask webmasters to look over their reviews for accuracy. When there's a problem I bring it up with the reviewer. Over time I have also been adding in more pieces of information that I as the webmaster have to keep track of. Listings of what specific content feeds a site uses, for example. Or a count of how many videos/photo sets a website offers.

My main complaint with volunteer reviewers is the high level of bias they inadvertently bring to the reviews. That's why I send in multiple reviewers -- so it balances out a bit. For example, we ask our reviewers to rate the website on a 7-point scale for the website's speed. I have definitely noticed a strong correlation between how erotic the reviewer finds the site's content and how fast they perceive the site to be. It's not 1:1 by any means, and there are hot sites that run slowly (and vice-versa). But if the reviewer is hot for a site's content then he is likely to be more patient while waiting for pages to load.

I could take speed out of the equation by doing a test download and watching to see how fast it downloads, but that in turn is also affected by my own Internet speed. The time of the day I run the test will also play a significant role as well. So even were I to have a mathematical way of measuring speed, I'm not sure how it would be a very useful measure. Perhaps I should just remove it altogether.

I digress. Suffice to say I am aware that volunteer reviewers are subject to bias. I do plan overhauling the way we review websites at some point, but I haven't been able to solve all of the problems that need addressing (like measuring a website's speed).

--Aaron

[GayGeek]

RawTop,

Thanks for the suggestion -- much appreciated. I'll try and post something there later today. I'm also a stay-at-home dad which slows me down significantly, but I'm on a big "recruit reviewers" kick right now so I'll post there shortly.

--Aaron

[dzinerbear]

And with the volunteer reviews you can still interject yourself as the editor of the site. You may not want to do it often, but for instance, if someone were to say, "I hated this twink site because there weren't any hairy twinks." You could add this [Generally speaking, twinks are not hairy. People who like twinks like the fact that while the guys are of legal age they maintain their boyishness with smooth and under-developed bodies.] The use of square brackets is a device in writing that signals to the reader that something is being inserted that the author did not write. Often it's used to leave a spelling mistake in a piece (perhaps to show what an idiot the writer is) i.e. "The prime minister is seriously misformed.[sic]" But I still think it could be a useful device to add some clarity to those reviews.

[GayGeek]

And with the volunteer reviews you can still interject yourself as the editor of the site.

Yup, I do that at times. Whenever possible I work with the reviewer to make changes that we both agree with. But if necessary (or if the reviewer is not available) I'll interject a correction or explanation like you said.

A classic example of this is when a reviewer points out there are broken links on the website. Two days after the review goes live I get an e-mail from the webmaster saying he has fixed them. So I usually put an editor's note in stating that the webmaster informs me the links have been fixed.

The reviewers are also pretty good about keeping their personal tastes out of it. It's a bit challenging at times, especially since some websites bill themselves as having twinks even when the guys are in their mid-twenties. As long as a webmaster isn't trying a bait-and-switch (ie; "old" twinks), the reviewers typically indicate any limitations on the types of twinks in the site in the descriptive reviews but don't knock off points in the numeric ones for it.

There are exceptions, of course. If the guys in the movie look bored or are overacting, the reviewers will sometimes dock points from "erotic quality". But they won't generally dock points if the twinks are overly hairy, boyish, of a specific ethnic group, or whatever.

--Aaron