Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

[Chad Sniffen <>]

Hi Nancy, thank you for your responses.

I think that you would find that the ability to respond to reviews would add significant value to the usefulness of this site should it ever be widely used. The inability to respond to reviews creates a disincentive for participating programs to engage with reviews or advertise their presence on the site, since negative reviews are more likely to make it to the site than positive ones. Dealing with negative reviews (without the ability to respond to them) by encouraging positive ones is a far less safe strategy than pretending the website doesn’t exist at all. You may note that other websites with significant product review content (e.g. Amazon and Yelp) have a way to respond to reviews.

Similarly, Amazon and Yelp validate users and protect their user’s privacy with internal policies. The Navigator’s current setup allows for a situation where a single unhappy participant (or a person or group who haven’t even experienced a program, but may be ideologically opposed to the program) can create multiple negative reviews. If your internal process filtered spam comments via IP address, you wouldn’t be able to determine one student from another at the same university since they would all share the same IP address. So, you are not be able to distinguish between multiple negative spam comments from a single person, and multiple negative legitimate comments from a group of students.

I can sincerely appreciate your desire to protect the anonymity of anyone who might self-disclose on this platform by not collecting their information, but I hope you can appreciate the risk that your website poses to programs in the modern online review-driven consumer market. Since you are reviewing reviews, you have the opportunity to remove any public-facing survivor information before it is exposed. Also, if you are like us at the NSVRC, you receive personally identifying information and stories from survivors on a daily basis. So, I am sure you have the same sort of internal policies protecting survivor confidentiality that we do. Those policies already protect survivors’ information in your organization, I’m sure they could be extended to protect a user validation process in the Navigator.

Thank you for taking the time to review these concerns.

Best,

Chad

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Chad Sniffen, MPH
Online Resource Coordinator

National Sexual Violence Resource Center

Skype: chad.sniffen
www.nsvrc.org

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From: Nancy Amestoy
Date: September 12, 2017 at 1:25:28 PM
To: Chad Sniffen
Cc: 
Subject:  Re: New Prevention Resource from RAINN

Hi Chad,

We work directly with each listed program to create and update their profile. While the current structure doesn't allow direct responses from programs to individual reviews, it's an addition—among others—that we're open to if feedback suggests it'll improve the tool's overall value.

When submitting reviews, students are required to include their institution name and when they attended the program. Administrators are not required to include their institution name, but are asked specific details about the type of institution they represent. This was an intentional design to protect the anonymity of reviewers while helping validate (and contextualize) each review. Additionally, each review goes through an internal review process by RAINN before becoming public. You can see the posting guidelines we follow here. 

Thanks,

Nancy

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 11:48 AM, Chad Sniffen <> wrote:

Hello Nancy,

Will prevention programs in your Navigator have the opportunity to challenge or respond to critical reviews?

Also, I noticed that reviews can be submitted by “administrators” or “students” without requiring that a validated user account be created, which means reviews are essentially anonymous. Was this a factor you considered in the design of the Navigator, and are there any criteria you plan to apply to which reviews are accepted or rejected?

Thanks,

Chad

----- ----- -----

Chad Sniffen, MPH
Online Resource Coordinator

National Sexual Violence Resource Center

Skype: chad.sniffen
www.nsvrc.org

Join our community of 50,000+ on Facebook.

Also find us on Twitter & LinkedIn.

From: Nancy Amestoy
Date: September 12, 2017 at 10:11:51 AM
To: 
Subject:  New Prevention Resource from RAINN

Good morning,

Today, RAINN launched the Prevention Navigator: a free, online resource to help colleges find and review sexual assault prevention programs. RAINN is excited to bring this tool to campuses across the country and elevate the voices of students and administrators alike. I want to personally thank this community for the support and guidance provided throughout the project’s development. I hope the Prevention Navigator can be a useful resource for you and your colleagues, and I encourage you to share it widely. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to learn more or have any questions! 

With gratitude for your support and the work you do,

Nancy

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Nancy C. Amestoy
Campus Programs Manager
RAINN 

1220 L St NW, Suite 505 | Washington D.C. 20005

202.759.3907 | rainn.org | donate.rainn.org | CFC: 10488

    

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Nancy C. Amestoy
Campus Programs Manager
RAINN 

1220 L St NW, Suite 505 | Washington D.C. 20005

202.759.3907 | rainn.org | donate.rainn.org | CFC: 10488