Certifications - Time for an update?

Not always sexfun, so we have been select active swingers well over 30 years mainly in south Florida. Both had high profile public jobs in south Florida and were never on a swing site prior but introduced to like swingers through FWBs , It worked out great for years.

When we decided to come on SLS and even last year here are the things we ran into... couples with a swingers profile, always on SLS and forums, when asked to play multiple times , they had any time and date to meet or play, they backed out of many times. Several of the couples we know from our area, we met with them and they too laughed and said yep they met us for lunch or dinner but would never ever play. They were just CERT collectors.

We have run into this several times just this last year.

We had many XXX play photos and most were deleted from SLS 5 year rule now.. Hilarious as we see the same certs that we have met them and they are NICE and hope to play still on profiles from years ago. What CERTS just to meet and breath show you are alive ?

One time we traveled to NOLA to attend a swingers party advertised on SLS as the best swingers party on Bourbon street. We paid for our 3rd to come with us and it was not cheap . All dressed up for the theme during Halloween. It was at an upstairs bar on Bourbon St . It had a DJ but nothing else. As we looked around the place we could not see any playrooms or anything related to swinging . We asked along with a dozen other couples.. and were rudely told " everyone knows you cant have sex on BOURBON St this is just a meet and greet" many got into it with this owner as they too traveled to attend. After all this he gave everyone of us who attended a CERT. Many found out he scams people all the time doing this . We no longer see his parties on SLS

He should have been blackballed from any and all swinger events publicly

Yes jokingly we suggested a 'YELP" type system as we also have run into many guys and couples with over 10 year photos, married when they have a singles profile and hide it from the wife, we have had couples who one party had no idea they were on a swing site and when the wife went to the bathroom, husbands asked us to talk the other party into swinging.. are you kidding me

We could go on and talk about the positive and negative of each.. and have fine tuned questions on IM or on phone before a first meet... but for us , if you have a nice well written profile, nice photos with smiles, we set up a meet quickly and go home or to our hotel and play.

That easy for us.. some we play with because of high profile jobs do NOT want Certs.

Also we play with ALL who have class, sensual, smile with photos and seem fun , we have had singles and couples when we had our CERTS say "you play with XYZ" and that in itself tells us all we need to know.

So we have now taken ALL our CERTS out we are not playing these childish games we have run into on SLS.

Good certs are easily faked, negative ones would also be.

Think this works as designed.

What is a Certified member?
A certified member is one that another member of the site has vouched for; indicating that they personally know this person and that the person is who they say they are.

We make notes on certain profiles if we find issues. Don’t agree we need to have a review type cert. you have good and bad experiences in this lifestyle with others. What you experience others may not. We are a no to a review type validation.

ShoreFeelsGood: I provided an example where a negative Cert would be useful, but said it wasn't worth the negativity it might cause.

As for allowing people to approve their own Certs: Many profiles prefer to maintain a level of privacy where they don't want others to know whom they've been with. Allowing them to approve (and post) certifications gives them that level of privacy.

Certifications work well as they are.

Allowing Yelp-type reviews would be a can of worms.

[quote=MandC508][quote=AandJinNNJ][quote=ShoreFeelsGood][quote=lcmim]I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."[/quote]Reading through the certs we've gotten and we've seen on others profiles, there's far more than a verification of authenticity. However, even if it was just that, the party being certified should not have the option to prevent the certification from being posted if it says, "these people are NOT real" don't you think?[/quote]We think the issue with allowing negative reviews/certa is that you have far too many immature/petty people who will post negatives just because they wish to hurt someone or get revenge for a rejections.

I know we've had several folks respond very poorly to our "no thank you" and would hate for that to become a public reflection of us even though we did nothing wrong.[/quote]There is nothing positive to be gained by having the ability to post a negative Certification.

Just look at Yelp for reasons why...........I was read a negative Yelp review of a restaurant complaining about how it was too loud.........the review was for a sports bar.......I don't want to see that here.........even though lots of Certs here read the same.

The only possible good thing about negative certs is if someone grossly misrepresents themselves, or exhibits a pattern of not showing up after making plans. But we agree that the potential for emotional negative Certs for revenge or rejection is too great.[/quote]Isn't it strange that you say there's nothing positive to be gained, then provide a positive thing two sentences later?

Google reviews allow the business being reviewed to post replies to reviewers to give readers more context. Amazon allows reviews to be rated by others who read them as being helpful or not helpful. In many cases, reviewers also have a system by which their reviews can be reviewed. Literally everything we encounter in this world has a way to review it these days. Except the people we are choosing to share intimacy with, can't be reviewed on a site intended to foster that intimacy? And the concern is maturity level? On a site where people share naked pics of themselves? Seems like a contradiction.

[quote=AandJinNNJ][quote=ShoreFeelsGood][quote=lcmim]I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."[/quote]Reading through the certs we've gotten and we've seen on others profiles, there's far more than a verification of authenticity. However, even if it was just that, the party being certified should not have the option to prevent the certification from being posted if it says, "these people are NOT real" don't you think?[/quote]We think the issue with allowing negative reviews/certa is that you have far too many immature/petty people who will post negatives just because they wish to hurt someone or get revenge for a rejections.

I know we've had several folks respond very poorly to our "no thank you" and would hate for that to become a public reflection of us even though we did nothing wrong.[/quote]It's interesting that everyone is focusing on negatives. The initial point we brought up is that the gatekeeper for the persons being certified should not be themselves. How helpful would restaurant reviews be if the restaurants got to choose which reviews get posted? On this site, there is a third party who approves photos, and approves profiles being created. Why wouldn't that functionality also be used for certifications?

When you look at a profile without certifications, do you assume they are fake? Do you assume they are bad? Or do you assume they are inexperienced? The answer is, you don't know what to assume because you don't have any information other than what strangers have allowed you to see about themselves. That information is completely unreliable and has caused us and many of our friends on this site to waste a tremendous amount of time to find "real" people.

[quote=AandJinNNJ][quote=ShoreFeelsGood][quote=lcmim]I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."[/quote]Reading through the certs we've gotten and we've seen on others profiles, there's far more than a verification of authenticity. However, even if it was just that, the party being certified should not have the option to prevent the certification from being posted if it says, "these people are NOT real" don't you think?[/quote]We think the issue with allowing negative reviews/certa is that you have far too many immature/petty people who will post negatives just because they wish to hurt someone or get revenge for a rejections.

I know we've had several folks respond very poorly to our "no thank you" and would hate for that to become a public reflection of us even though we did nothing wrong.[/quote]There is nothing positive to be gained by having the ability to post a negative Certification.

Just look at Yelp for reasons why...........I was read a negative Yelp review of a restaurant complaining about how it was too loud.........the review was for a sports bar.......I don't want to see that here.........even though lots of Certs here read the same.

The only possible good thing about negative certs is if someone grossly misrepresents themselves, or exhibits a pattern of not showing up after making plans. But we agree that the potential for emotional negative Certs for revenge or rejection is too great.

[quote=ShoreFeelsGood][quote=lcmim]I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."[/quote]Reading through the certs we've gotten and we've seen on others profiles, there's far more than a verification of authenticity. However, even if it was just that, the party being certified should not have the option to prevent the certification from being posted if it says, "these people are NOT real" don't you think?[/quote]We think the issue with allowing negative reviews/certa is that you have far too many immature/petty people who will post negatives just because they wish to hurt someone or get revenge for a rejections.

I know we've had several folks respond very poorly to our "no thank you" and would hate for that to become a public reflection of us even though we did nothing wrong.

At its core certs are intended to “prove” they are real. Is it used beyond that yes. So a name change alone is unneeded in MHO. As far as switching to a review systemwith potential negatives being used, I would be against it. Their are too many petty people that don’t handle rejection well and would leave false negatives to “fix them”. Keep it as is. The only way you have certs is by earning positive certs. Seems like a very effective way when considered in that way

[quote=lcmim]I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."[/quote]Reading through the certs we've gotten and we've seen on others profiles, there's far more than a verification of authenticity. However, even if it was just that, the party being certified should not have the option to prevent the certification from being posted if it says, "these people are NOT real" don't you think?

I always thought that a cert was a verification of authenticity and not of quality.
"These people are real."

We've been members on this site for well over a decade. And we have received and given quite a few certifications. Isn't it time the "certification" system was updated? It's also kind of a silly thing to label one person's opinion of another as any type of "certification." Might be more accurate to call these reviews, "First Impressions" as in, "You only get one chance to make a first impression."

It seems counterproductive to share your experience with people, only to allow them the final say on whether it gets posted. We understand the need for discretion and think a censorship system could be put in to block proper names or certain keywords. Another possible solution is to allow third party approval of the certification, the same way you have with uploaded photos or new profile creation. Regardless of how it's handled, there needs to be a way to share the good AND the bad about people you've met and interacted with.

We've had lots of great experiences with people we met through SLS, but we've also had plenty of not-so-good ones. We've been stood up, ghosted after an initial meeting if we didn't put out (and sometimes when we did), subjected to rude and disrespectful behavior, bad hygiene, and any number of other negative things. When a profile only shows the positive stuff, it allows folks who don't know how to conduct themselves properly to victimize multiple people. I think the management of this site owes its users some way to flag or identify problematic behavior, and currently there is none.

At the very least, if you have some sort of reservations about people sharing specifics. Allow a rating system that's publicly visible. Virtually every other service or business where people interact with each other, has a ratings system in place. I know you allow us to privately give profiles star ratings and notes. Maybe make those viewable to everyone? Or maybe have flags instead of stars? Like "this unicorn is 2 red flags out of five" or "that couple is 4 green flags out of five" or "that single man is 5 out of 5 green flags."

We just think the "certifications" are useless if they only say stuff that's approved by the people they are talking about.