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Question

This idea has been discontinued.

AjiteshArun · Answer

I want to opt out of the Tutor Benefits policy before it comes into effect July 1. GMAT Club is a great resource for test takers, but over the last few years, I've seen it move steadily closer to  some  test prep companies that pay to advertise on GC. That's why I think the GC community needs independent experts, to provide some counterweight to high-volume posts by GMAT Club partners.

I'm not saying 40 posts is an unreasonable entry fee for the Tutor Benefits policy, and I fully support GMAT Club's right to monetise any and every aspect of the forum. But the policy will effectively turn all experts into GMAT Club contractors, and I don't see how I can act independently if I'm just another kind of GMAT Club partner.

AndrewN · Answer

Diplomatically stated, Ajitesh. Speaking to the point on  provid  some counterweight to high-volume posts by GMAT Club partners , I have a few thoughts. First, I would ask GMAT Club to reinstate the old system of Most Helpful Expert/Community Reply by tallying up kudos, rather than selling valuable page real estate to partners whose replies the community itself does not seem to value.  Here  is one such example from Crack Verbal. The post has 0 kudos after  two years  and counting. Understand, I do not have an axe to grind with the company, but how is this particular post "most helpful"? Partners also seem to have the ability to silence the voices of non-partners, Experts and non-Experts alike. For example, why would a debrief that used the term "octopus marketing" in reference to Target Test Prep—the debrief is even listed in the  Best of the Best of 2022: Best Debriefs Collections  under the title "From 600 to 710 in 2.5 months using TTP and GMATClub!"—be restricted to those who are "authorised to read this forum" (i.e. moderators)? I doubt   bb   or   Bunuel   decided on a whim to bury the thread. Is it that dangerous for those poking around the corners of GMAT Club to find anything unfavorable to a site partner? Indeed, will this very post receive the same treatment? And again, I do not have it out for TTP, any more than I do anybody else. But I do believe in the right for community members to voice their opinions without being censored, as long as those views fall within the community guidelines.

This may be a win-win situation for GMAT Club: get independent tutors to pony up, put out (adding value to the site), or get out (undoubtedly pleasing site partners). Since I do not seek to gain business from GMAT Club anyway (and I have plenty of PMs attesting to my asking members to look elsewhere for paid tutoring), I will only gain time and peace of mind, should I choose not to post on the site anymore. When I joined the site in 2019, there were certainly business interests at play, but it was still a fun place to hang out and in which to help out. The landscape seems to have shifted, and the site has become less vibrant.

Vrblanco · Answer

Chiming in with some suggestions, I regularly see some strange upvote/kudos patterns. Users who always give upvotes to the same account from TTP. I think these users are fake and only used to give Kudos (it is very obvious because they have no posts and only like/upvote the same sale advertisements over and over again). I see them again and again. It makes upvotes almost pointless. Here is an Example:

Giver Post Date
KerChacon Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 23-Jun-2023
akhileshhdev Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 23-Jun-2023
agreatadventure Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 23-Jun-2023
sdohaliya Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 22-Jun-2023
Saskeuchiha08 Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 22-Jun-2023
ZoltanBP Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 22-Jun-2023
agonzlz8777 Get a Top GMAT Focus Score with 40 Hours of Live Online Classes 22-Jun-2023

Am I the only one who thinks these are suspicious?

IanStewart · Answer

The idea that an “Expert badge” is something you buy, rather than something you earn, is so offensive that I’m not even sure how to respond.

It is unethical and dishonest to sell credentials in this way. It is also illegal, unless you clearly disclose that the credentials were bought. It’s a fundamental principle of endorsement law: if you are getting paid (or receiving anything of value) to endorse something, you need to disclose that you’ve been paid for that endorsement. That is exactly what you’ll be doing by endorsing people with a paid-for ‘Expert badge’.

Most of the best experts on this site are independent tutors. Many of us post here because we enjoy teaching, and because we want to help people. We aren’t here because it’s some kind of amazing marketing opportunity. If you’ll now be promoting (with ‘Expert badges’ and bolded names) marketing types who need to pay for “Expert” credentials, and making those who are just here to teach (and who won’t pay for this program) appear to be second-class experts, that will be a disservice to everyone reading this forum. It is also unbelievably insulting. Many of us have donated hundreds of hours of our time to your website. We are one of the reasons people come here. We are one of the reasons GMAT Club is successful. We have never received anything from GMAT Club in exchange. In fact, GMAT Club’s whole business model works against us, when your mission seems to be to direct people away from good private tutors and into mass market prep company programs. But we post here anyway, because we enjoy teaching and because we feel we’re helping people. Now you want us to pay you to do that. It is backwards, and it is absurd.

I would never pay someone for an endorsement; it is completely unethical. So there’s no way I would ever participate in this program or anything like it, and if you intend to move forward with it, I probably won’t participate on this site at all.

Vrblanco · Answer

My post got all messed up it seems. 
 nightblade354  please review, bolded usernames to make it easier to read.

nightblade354 · Answer

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. This is clearly inappropriate -- the accounts will be deactivated.

In the future, to tag a user place an "@" before their username.

nightblade354 · Answer

AjiteshArun ,  AndrewN , and  IanStewart ,

We appreciate your candid and passionate feedback. As always, we will take into consideration all viewpoints.

Evan

bb · Answer

Wow. Quite a discussion you started Ajitesh on an end of school year Friday night! I will try to address your points one by one so bear with me. I know you get to be much more concise. I don't have that gift. I am not trying to drown you but it is faster to make quick conclusions than to explain the reasoning - just look at the length of an average question vs. explanation.

I do appreciate your posts and voice. I also appreciate that you have a modest signature and good quality comments. Just to address something that rubbed me the wrong way, these benefits are not about a scheme for monetization. It is unfortunate that's the perception. I appreciate you speaking up and pointing it out rather than ignoring something that bugs you. I appreciate knowing it and I want to clarify and hopefully change that perception. There is a reason for a paid tier. It came in late in the planning process. (it took 12 months to formalize these benefits and the paid tier showed up only in the last 2 months. It looked like a good idea and I will touch it lower and having a quick glance on another post in this discussion, I hope it would be easy fix to change the perception.)

As we have been working on redesigning some elements of GMAT Club's site. We ran across across the badges that we have and decided to update and look into them further. The idea of giving benefits to experts has been brewing for maybe a year now, and started out as a way to simplify/clarify/standardize/explain the expert status on GMAT Club. Right now we have variety of people who are currently carrying the expert badge and we wanted to clean it up and that required parameters as to who gets it so it is clear both to users and to experts. Moreover, I have provided this expert benefit to a number of people who came to GMAT Club, sent me a PM and said they were a tutor/instructor, and asked for it. Some MBA/GMAT Moderators got it who may not have been real experts. That was a very low bar but we have had no requirements, no guidelines, and no policies governing granting or refusing it. We do now - we have a quality review that requires to meet certain quality and ability standards. I think it is a good thing. Moreover, everyone will have clearly spelled out list of benefits they receive if they meet the expert qualifications.

Reason for 40 posts was to encourage participation and encourage engagement and to reward those who are active and engaged on a regular basis. If you have an experts status it means you are an active expert and not a dead account from 10 years ago. This puts more attention on the current experts and encourages them to stay engaged and users to engage with them/follow them/etc.

When you say monetizing, what specifically do you mean? I am wondering how do you feel these benefits monetize things? What is being monetized? How? (The way I saw it, we are only adding benefits and with many experts already making over 40 posts a month, it seemed like it would not take meaningfully more effort). You made 37 in the last 30 days.

In terms of being independent contractor. I don't think it works this way. Moreover, I don't think you can't argue monetization and contractor in the same argument. Either you can argue that this is a money grab (a non-diplomatic way of saying monetization) and GMAT Club wants to get money (in which case you are HIRING GMAT Club and we are performing services for you, so technically GMAT Club is the contractor and you are the customer)... OR you can argue that GMAT Club is hiring you to make 40 posts and that makes it a contractor relationship. I have to say that making 40 posts and earning a badge does not make you a contractor. Think about Delta Airlines. Delta will give me Silver Tier benefits that include upgrades, free seat selection, checked bags, priority boarding, Silver Medallion card, etc for taking 25 flights per year. Did they hire me to make 25 flights? Am I a contractor to Delta Airlines? I don't think so... The reason Delta provides these benefits to their customers is to thank and reward them for their loyalty. Maybe I did not present these benefits properly (happy to take the blame) but these are simply benefits we are offering to experts who want them. We chose 40 posts per month instead of 25 flights per year as a way to reward active experts and thank them for their time and help on GMAT Club because we felt it would be an easy target to meet for most.

Anyway, this post took an hour to write... hope it clarifies. I appreciate you reading it. I hope I explained the intent and reasoning behind it. Thank you for reading. Let me know if it did not help. 
-B.

bb · Answer

Thank you Andrew! Your voice is also always appreciated! So you will probably HATE my reply because I have perfect weird explanations for these. It may seem like I have a convenient explanation for everything, and have a book I wrote called "100 excuses for any reason" and whenever anyone brings up an issue about GMAT Club, I just grab off the shelf and copy past it here. Thank you for bringing up the Best Reply. We can use your constructive criticism to make the system better. We have just revised it 3 weeks ago and updated it so more posts would be included into the Best Reply category. Previously (until 3 weeks ago) we had 2 Best Replies for popular topics. One was Expert Reply and one was Community Reply. We actually removed the requirement that one of the replies had to be from Experts - this was not because we wanted to hurt experts (and hopefully proves that we prioritize features based on the benefits to the community and not monetization/etc because why change if we want to monetize experts - would have done the opposite... right?). Anyway, now the Best Reply expanded from 2 to basically unlimited number of posts. This was done to capture great posts from users and posters who may not be experts but have very good points. Today, as long as a post has over 20 Kudos, they will be included into Best Reply (For topics with few Kudos, we auto-assign at least 2 replies as Best Replies once they have more than 5 kudos each but if there are more than 2 with 20 Kudos, then we add them all. No other conditions.). Note that there is a way that moderators can PIN any other post as best reply without Kudos requirement (this is the only exceptions). In the example you referred to (screenshot below), there are 5 best replies (a bit too many for me but that's how many the moderator felt was helpful). Most of these best replies were actually pinned because they do not have 20 Kudos. So #3, 4, and 5 were pinned manually by moderators because they must have felt they were worthwhile. Actually I realized we have this information in the logs and I was able to look up the logs. All 3 posts were added into best reply by a moderator in one swoop on July 5, 2021 - over 2 years ago. I think they felt those post were worthwhile. As you and I can see below, they have added 3 in less than a minute, so I don't think they carefully reviewed each of the posts but rather they have believed that these were quality answers since they came from experts with reputation and all of these posters have Kudos to Posts ration that is greater than 1. We did not sell the spot to Crack Verbal (they are not advertising on GMAT Club by the way any longer; I believe they left sometime last year). Based on the logic, we should have taken them down I guess? I would appreciate if you could check our logic/thinking above about how we qualify the Best Replies and I would appreciate feedback and improve it further. log-best-reply.jpg But I think you bring up a good point that we may have some posts that were pinned in a similar manner by a moderator and they just fell flat and did not have value and we need to revisit the pinned posts and remove some that similar to this one earned no kudos. I think we can add a check that if a Best Reply that was pinned does not get a necessary minimum Kudos in 6 or 12 months, it gets automatically removed. I am all for it because we have no obligation to anyone to pin their posts. We do try to pin good new posts however, and when moderators spot them on page 2, 3, etc, they try to move them up to page 1 since some discussions have hundreds of Kudos and otherwise, this post will never be seen. Best Replies.png About that topic from debriefs that you brought up. It was Bunuel who was culprit

but he did not just casually move it. There was a reason. There was no negative experience or posts. I am happy to share the topic but basically it was deleted by the request of the user. Here is the request that the user submitted (screenshot). If anyone feels like investigating further, I suggest you reach out to the user and see if this is accurate. This was the author. https://gmatclub.com/forum/members/member-1241490.html reported-ttp-post.jpg P.S. Watching glued to the screen as the the Russian Civil War is unfolding...

AjiteshArun · Answer

Hi bb, Of course I can. GMAT Club has something that it believes is valuable to tutors: Tutor Benefits. Let's call it {TuBe}. GMAT Club will give {TuBe} to tutors in exchange (a) for money ($200-300 per month) and no work (0 posts) or (b) for work (40 posts per month) and no money. I may be wrong about this, but isn't GMAT Club mostly just taking away features that used to be free and now providing them as "benefits" to some users? But it doesn't bug me. When I say I support GMAT Club's right to monetise the forum in any and all ways, I mean it. I don't know anything about GMAT Club's cost structures or the expectations of GC's investors/owners (including you). As I said in my post, I don't think 40 posts is a hard target for any active expert to reach. As you pointed out, I'll be able to hit it easily. But the Tutor Benefits policy is effectively a commercial arrangement with an explicit exchange of value between tutors and GMAT Club. This is going to make it harder for experts to be truly independent. But why is that so important? There are so many valuable posts on GC by experts who aren't active on GC anymore. More directly, if GC implements this policy, will it also revoke daagh's expert badge? I won't attempt to address your point about Delta Airlines. I've never flown Delta

, but it's a little worrying that you'd equate passengers sitting on a seat for a relatively short period of time to experts sharing their knowledge and opinions with others in posts that increase the value of the forum significantly. I appreciate your work on GC as well. I don't think most members of the community will visit this subforum, but it's good to see at least some dialogue here. And because I had to address a lot of other points in this post, here's a quick summary of my position (other experts have voiced other concerns, which I respect): 1. Personally, I don't care about an expert badge or a signature. 2. However, many forum members aren't aware that many (perhaps most) expert badges are given in exchange for, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, advertising on GC by GMAT Club partners, without any real due diligence. Further, although I wasn't part of the team that negotiated Jamboree's contract with GMAT Club, it may be true that: 3. GMAT Club and its partners sign a legally binding contract that includes a mutual non-disparagement clause. 4. GMAT Club has revenue-sharing agreements in place for sales made through or as a result of activity on GMAT Club. 5. Independent experts haven't entered into any special arrangements with either GMAT Club or its partners. 6. This independence is valuable to the GMAT Club community, as at least some experts have no incentive to promote GMAT Club partners.

0Lucky0 · Answer

Interesting! I am just a regular student and I completely agree with the experts as well. They raise very legitimate points.

vv65 · Answer

bb  wrote 
Thanks for this. I have been curious about the Expert Badge.

Most private tutors would agree with IanStewart: "we post here anyway, because we enjoy teaching and because we feel we’re helping people". I don't post often (and I'm not as expert), but that's my main reason for posting on gmatclub. My other, more selfish, reason is to keep in touch with the GMAT. Most of my current students are preparing for other exams.

It would be good if the TutorPro plan is dropped. Some of the most helpful experts on the site hate the idea. No expert should pay for a badge. I do not like the term "Tutor Benefits" either. It makes it seem that there is some kind of quid pro quo involved. There really isn't.

Still, I have agreed to be enrolled in the free plan because it is a recognition of contributions, and also because the 40-post requirement would force me to be more active on the site (let's see whether and for how long I continue).

0Lucky0 · Answer

bb ,
Regarding giving people an "Expert" Badge for money or for posts. I think this will take away the dignity of most experts, IMO. An expertise is not something that can be bought with anything, be it posts or money!
But if this does go through, I think then gmatclub would look more like a marketplace (sorta how beatthegmat looks) rather than a community driven place. But that's just my opinion.

AndrewN · Answer

No,  Vrblanco , you are not. In fact, I brought up this very point about the same company and, indeed, some of the same users in a string of PMs to   bb   over a year ago. It appears as though that internal high-fiving continued, unchecked, ever since. Who gets that excited about token announcements? If   nightblade354   wants to do something about it, so much the better. Someone should be on the lookout for such suspicious activity.

AndrewN · Answer

No, if you have a valid counterpoint to anything I mention, you should bring it up. (Just because something is my opinion does not, unfortunately, make that view correct.)

Moderators should not feel compelled to "bump" anything. It is up to the community to show what its members value. I like the idea of Most Helpful Reply posts having some sort of ongoing kudos requirement. Just make it automatic, and ditch the superlative if multiple posts can be the "most" helpful reply. If moderators want to get so involved, they can pin their own post at the top of the thread to link to other helpful but perhaps not "most" helpful posts. For example, moderators in the RC forum could post links to explanations for various questions, making the thread more user-friendly; in the Quant forum, moderators might wish to draw attention to posts besides the Most Helpful Reply that show novel ways of approaching the same problem.

If I am wrong about something, I will admit I am wrong. No such proof was necessary, but thank you, nonetheless. (I would not want to think that anything I wrote you privately could end up in the forum.)

Thank you for addressing the points in my post.

- Andrew

IanStewart · Answer

The reality is, in my view, more sinister. Every expert who posts here understands that kudos are meant to measure how useful posts are to the community. GMAT Club uses kudos to elevate posts to the tops of threads, and even to rank experts on the site. I've pasted below one page from the kudos history of Jeff Miller, and one page from the kudos history of Marty Murray. They are not members of the community by any reasonable standard. They are employees of Target Test Prep (or perhaps co-owners, I don't know the hierarchy). And they have both given hundreds of kudos to their own company (in Jeff Miller's case, probably well over 1000). They are trying to make Scott appear more helpful to the community than the community actually finds him to be, and presumably have elevated many of their posts to the tops of threads when the community has found a different reply more valuable. It's deceptive, and unfair to other GMAT professionals who do not dishonestly try to inflate their kudos count. I don't know what kind of people do this sort of thing.

So, as I'd characterize it, they've been rigging things here for a long time (possibly also with bot accounts, as you suggest - I don't know about that, but they receive a suspicious number of kudos from 'users' with no activity on the forum). As Andrew points out above, GMAT Club has been aware of this for at least a year, and has done nothing about it. That's one reason I no longer assume good faith in discussions like the main one we're having in this thread.

I'll add that I really dislike litigating such a minor issue in such detail; if I cared a lot about it, I would have posted a year ago, when I first became aware of TTP's abuse of the kudos system. But since it came up, I thought it would be helpful to paint a more complete picture for the few people who might read this far. More importantly, this one minor issue is emblematic of a much larger problem. Sadly, dishonest practices are common these days in the GMAT field.

IanStewart · Answer

About the "Best Reply" question, it is deeply problematic to allow moderators to decide which posts are best, because some moderators here are not impartial. At least three of your moderators are regularly profiled in the marketing material of certain prep companies, and other moderators repeatedly promote specific companies in their posts.

It would seem fair to let the community decide which posts have been most helpful, but when TTP (and perhaps other companies) look for ways to game that system, that doesn't seem fair either. So I'm not sure what the best solution is. Perhaps it would involve only allowing users with a certain number of posts to give kudos, and disallowing companies from giving themselves kudos. But I can easily imagine ways to circumvent a system like that, if someone was determined to do so.

And can a moderator please remove the two links to TTP from my post (and presumably from this one). I have never agreed to allow my writing on this forum to be edited, and I would never include a link to that company in anything I write.

avigutman · Answer

We (independent tutors) are not your customers,  bb . The test prep companies that pay GMAT Club many thousands of dollars per month are your customers.
The GMAT Club Tutor Benefits program seems like a business development initiative, designed to turn us into your customers. We are to pay GMAT Club, either with our labour or with our dollars.
From the users' (students) perspective, an Expert badge ought to be something that is purely merit based, untethered to the  number  of posts or dollars that the "expert" contributes to GMAT Club monthly.
Looking at the list of "benefits", it seems the only benefit I didn't already have is the 30% off of GMAT Club Tests.
These benefits, which I already had, have kept me coming back to contribute to GC and to respond to student questions. 
Will I start paying $300/month now for those benefits? I think not. I will be opting out of this program, lose all my benefits, and with them my incentive to participate in this forum.

bb · Answer

Do you have examples of the not impartial moderators? 
I would like to address that issue.

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