Reviews on Palliser Music are meant to help parents choose a teacher with better information than a search engine can give them. This page lays out the rules we run reviews under — where they come from, how we moderate them, what teachers can and can’t do about them, and what will get a review pulled down.
Who can leave a review
Anyone who has actually taken lessons with a teacher listed on Palliser (or whose child has). Reviewers submit their review through the form on a teacher’s listing page and confirm their email before the review enters moderation. No accounts, no signup — just an email confirmation and a written review.
We keep the barrier low on purpose. Parents rarely have time to create an account to leave a review; the email-verify step is enough friction to filter obvious spam without turning honest reviewers away.
How every review gets moderated
Every review goes through moderation before it appears on a listing. Linda and Spencer read each one. Approvals usually happen within a day or two.
We approve reviews that look like they come from a real family who actually took lessons. We hold reviews that raise flags — a submitter email that doesn’t match anything in the teacher’s inquiry history, wording that reads like a competitor or a family member, star ratings that seem inconsistent with the written comment — and we reach out to the reviewer or the teacher to clarify. We reject reviews that are abusive, defamatory, off-topic, or clearly fabricated.
What teachers can and cannot do about their reviews
Teachers cannot delete reviews from their own listings. This is a hard rule and it’s not negotiable. A directory where teachers can quietly remove critical reviews isn’t a trustworthy source for parents, and it would defeat the whole point of publishing reviews at all.
Teachers can do three things:
- Respond publicly to a review they want to add context to. Their response appears underneath the review, attributed to them.
- Flag a review for us to re-examine if they believe it’s fake, defamatory, or from someone who never actually took lessons. We investigate every flag; if the reviewer can’t confirm they were a real student, the review comes down.
- Ask their students to leave reviews. This is one of the intake channels we intentionally support (see below).
What we don’t accept payment for
A few things are off the table, permanently:
- Paid review removal. No teacher can pay us to take down a review — good, bad, or otherwise. If a review is legitimate, it stays up.
- Paid star ratings or featured placement. The listing tier a teacher pays for (once tiered listings launch) never affects their star rating, review count, or how they rank in search results. Sort order is honest math on the reviews.
- Editorial trades. We don’t accept payment or in-kind arrangements to feature a teacher in a city guide or editorial article.
Where reviews come from
Three intentional channels:
- Teachers invite their own students’ families to leave a review when they feel it’s earned. Most teachers do this at the end of a term or a milestone lesson.
- Linda sometimes suggests to a family that they leave a review after hearing them speak positively about their teacher — usually at a recital or a music-store conversation.
- Parents find the review link on their teacher’s listing and leave one on their own.
That’s it. We don’t send automated review-request emails. We don’t scrape reviews from other sites. Reviews on Palliser tend to arrive slowly and read like something a real parent would actually write — that’s the trade-off we’ve chosen and we’re comfortable with it.
What will get a review pulled down
Any of the following, at any time:
- The reviewer can’t confirm they (or their child) actually took lessons with the teacher — either because we asked and they didn’t respond, or because the teacher’s inquiry history contradicts the reviewer’s account.
- The review names other students, families, or third parties in ways they wouldn’t consent to.
- The review contains threats, slurs, or personal attacks that go beyond honest criticism of the lessons.
- The review is clearly written by the teacher, a family member, or a competitor — even if it’s positive.
- The review is a factual claim about a legal matter (allegations of misconduct that would belong in a formal complaint, not on a directory page).
Serious concerns — safety, misconduct, credential fraud — are outside the scope of a review page. If something serious happened, please contact us directly at hello@palliser.music and we’ll handle it away from the public listing.
Editing a review after you’ve submitted it
Reviewers can edit their own review within 48 hours of submitting, in case they want to soften wording, fix a factual error, or change their star ratings. The edit link is in the confirmation email. After 48 hours the review locks.
Appealing a rejection
If we hold or reject a review and you think we got it wrong, email hello@palliser.music with a subject line that starts with “Review appeal —”. Include the teacher’s name and the date of your lessons. We’ll re-read the review and reply, usually within a few days.
Related reading: How we vet teachers · For teachers — how to list · About Palliser Music