Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#21

Post by dfee »

The tenor in this discussion so far seems to be a bit on the condescending side. Frankly, I'll pick it up for this guy. What an incredible job – and a great reminder that marketing your service is often times more important than the service itself.

Maybe it's the prankster in me, but I don't feel like this is the end of the world – and it's not an indicator that the world is coming to an end. Fundamentally, people follow the rules and trust structure. That's probably why society can exist.

For the many people who don't have their glasses on, this was a brief glimpse at reality.

I'd recommend watching the Vice video I found in another comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#22

Post by pensivemood »

eksemplar wrote: post #13

These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…

>flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers

Seriously. It hurts me to see the "anti-vaxxers" term thrown around so loosely. There are very legitimate reasons for being skeptical of vaccine research. Events like this appear quite frequently [1]. It is not at all in the same league as "flat-earths".

[1] https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-cl...

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#23

Post by code_duck »

I have also observed that TripAdvisor seems to have rather poor fraud control on their reviews.

Recently I was driving home after cutting a trip short due to health issues, and then to compound difficulties, my car was overheating. I asked my girlfriend to help me find a motel - I knew of one on the way back to town, about 20 miles closer, and requested she look up reviews online. She told me the one I was thinking of looked fine, and had several positive reviews online. One even said “the best part about our trip to Colorado”, she quoted as I parked and walked inside.

It turned out to be decidely not the best part about anything in Colorado, unless you are a Satanist who pairs a fondness for shabby 70s decor with an aversion to cleanliness. I had already paid when I fully realized this, and only spent 25 minutes at the hotel before I essentially fled in terror.

When researching how this could have happened, I found that Yelp gave this motel only 1.5 stars, and had several reviews with similar stories, noting things like how the clerk seemed to be on drugs and was wearing a large pentagram necklace. This man looked somewhat like an elderly mixture of Frank Zappa and Bowie with anorexia, and insisted on walking me to my room for reasons unknown. I was not provided with a key, and the room had no way to lock from the inside.

Google has mixed reviews for them, with some likely fakes standing out and also reviews sourced from TripAdvisor. The TripAdvisor reviews are mixed as well, with many glowing 5 stars reviews balanced by many 1 stars for a total of 3 stars. Many of the 5 star reviews are defensive about the specifics of other negative reviews.

I looked into this motel on FB, and found it had the highest rating there - 4.4 stars. Not a trace of anything negative. I was also able to find the personal page of the man I talked to, who was cited as seemingly drug-addled and pentagram-adorned in other reviews as well as my experience. His page mentioned how his partner, owner of the motel, promoted him from clerk to manager on their 30th anniversary as a couple. He had many pictures of their satanic altars, references to demons, the pitbulls (referred to negatively in reviews) being ‘possessed’, and pictures around the motel. I feel somewhat lucky to have escaped.

So, in summary, Yelp had the most accurate reviews and presented the most realistic picture. Facebook presented the motel as they would like to be seen. Google and TripAdvisor are in between, showing equal amounts of true and false reviews.

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#24

Post by kbenson »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #16
tinymollusk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depth (well-known individual who built their reputation over time) versus Breadth (crowd). We seem to increasingly incentivize breadth of appeal over depth. TV Shows that appeal to the lowest common denominator, etc.

Breadth makes more money.

Depth competes on a different level. Depth works when a market becomes cheap enough to cater to (or the market is so large that a small fraction is worth it) that you get long tail economics. The benefit for the producer is less cost petition. We're almost there with television. We're almost or possible already there for some select markets for YouTube, but coming from the other direction (high production vs low production).

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#25

Post by gonvaled »

astebbin wrote: post #6

To me, this suggests the value of professional food critics as well-known sources of... well maybe not truth, but at least honest opinion. It's easy to fake a crowd. It's a lot harder to impersonate a well-known individual's trusted name.

I agree that professional food critics are making public their opinion, backed by their reputation. But nothing can be inferred about this opinion being honest, since it can be (and is surely often) bought.

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#26

Post by gonvaled »

ggm wrote: post #9

You can't spoof into michelin, because michelin stand behind their name. Tripadvisor has a huge buried EULA which basically says "nope: nothing to see here don't blame me if its lies"

You can probably buy a spot in Michelin. Whether that happens frequently or is accepted is an interesting question.

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#27

Post by pintxo »

pensivemood wrote: post #22
eksemplar wrote: post #13

These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered…

>flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers Seriously. It hurts me to see the "anti-vaxxers" term thrown around so loosely. There are very legitimate reasons for being skeptical of vaccine research. Events like this appear quite frequently [1]. It is not at all in the same league as "flat-earths". [1] https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-cl...

Assuming that "flat-earthers" potential to cause harm is fairly limited, but that "anti-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is rather significant - population immunity comes to mind - I would rather say it hurts me to see the "flat-earthers" term thrown around so loosely.

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#28

Post by pensivemood »

pintxo wrote: post #27
pensivemood wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers Seriously. It hurts me to see the "anti-vaxxers" term thrown around so loosely. There are very legitimate reasons for being skeptical of vaccine research. Events like this appear quite frequently [1]. It is not at all in the same league as "flat-earths". [1] https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-cl...

Assuming that "flat-earthers" potential to cause harm is fairly limited, but that "anti-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is rather significant - population immunity comes to mind - I would rather say it hurts me to see the "flat-earthers" term thrown around so loosely.

If anti-vaxxers potenial to cause harm is significant, the "pro-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is significant too. Try another argument.

Re: ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. It didn’t exist

#30

Post by tinymollusk »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #16
tinymollusk wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depth (well-known individual who built their reputation over time) versus Breadth (crowd). We seem to increasingly incentivize breadth of appeal over depth. TV Shows that appeal to the lowest common denominator, etc.

Breadth makes more money.

More accurate to say breadth tends to scale bigger, and depth allows for focus and better product/market fit in a smaller market.
Post reply on HN