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Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

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Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#291

Post by NSMutableSet »

g42gregory wrote: post #248

Who thinks that these reviews can be trusted? When I read Yelp reviews, I look for the absence of negative, not presence of positive.

How I use Yelp reviews:

5-star, less than 100 reviews: probably paid for reviews. I've never been to a "bad" place in this category, but I usually avoid it unless it's the most appealing option, so my sample size is small

4+ star, 1000+ reviews: definitely not bad. i would rate every place ive been to in this category as good or excellent, although some are overpriced. all of my favorite places in the bay area fall between 4.0 and 4.5

3.5 star, 100+ reviews: possibly good, probably not bad. ill check reviews, if people are primarily complaining about service and not food, it's probably good. i never pick 3.5 places if it's somewhere i've never been before, but i won't veto one if someone else suggests it

3.5 star, less than 100 reviews: i avoid these completely. i've still never been to one

less than 3.5 stars, any number reviews: i also avoid these completely

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#292

Post by moneywoes »

eep_social wrote: post #173
throwaway5752 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Craigslist does great. They take a small fixed fee on volume and don't favor listings. A good restaurant directory - some exist for restaurant niches, but none in general - could clean up with non-obtrusive ads if the focused on completeness and accuracy with a fairly minor feature set. It would just require having enough capital and time to establish social trust. Curating reviews is just broken, just li…

Zagat was a decently good restaurant directory but Google bought it, didn’t do much with it, and then sold it to some shitty app maker.

What did they do good?

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#293

Post by moneywoes »

sensanaty wrote: post #175
xyst wrote: post #118

I am surprised a yelp/google alternative has not been created with a feature to establish provenance of a review. Perhaps something like a receipt which contains a unique link and that person can provide a review through the link. The review will be posted as "verified transaction" on the site and overall score of the restaurant is determined from there. "Anonymous" reviews can still be posted but won't be factored i…

I actually worked for a startup that did this, albeit it wasn't public-facing, rather we'd incentivize people to leave reviews in exchange for a coupon code or whatever Turns out a lot of restaurant owners would prefer to straight up own the reviews/influence it themselves rather than get legitimate, anonymized ones. There's just not that much of a reason to genuinely improve as a service when there's so much cutthro…

Did they pivot?

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#294

Post by icantsec »

JohnFen wrote: post #199
freetinker wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. But then why not just say “no results found”? Because that might give the impression to the “average” user that Google is broken and isn’t solving their problem. To the more sophisticated user, Google is just meddling where they shouldn’t. Google is proving the central limit theorem by catering to the average.

Google long ago decided that "No results found" is never an acceptable response. Same with regular Google search. It will just choose arbitrary things to show you instead. It's one of the things that has reduced the usefulness of these tools.

But this isn’t true

Your search - "abcdfksosifjdjwkdkwotmdnwkqk" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure that all words are spelled correctly. Try different keywords. Try more general keywords.

————————-

“No results found on Google Maps

Try searching for something else or in a different area”

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#295

Post by mu53 »

telchior wrote: post #178
Guest9081239812 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is terrible for hiding results. I'll use the filter to show restaurants with a 4.5+ star rating, and it hides dozens of places 4.5+ stars while instead showing results 4.0 - 4.4 stars and even some that have no reviews at all. I find the arrogance insulting. You want to see 4.5+ star Japanese food restaurants? Well, I don't think that's best for you, and I'm going to replace some of those results with 4.1…

I despise Google Maps for this. I can know that a restaurant exists, zoom in on its block, search 'restaurants' -- nothing. It'll zoom out the map and show other stuff. Worse, I can max my zoom and hunt for it on the map and it will outright show a blank space. Only searching for the restaurant's actual name will bring it up. But there's not really any alternative. Apple Maps can't show me things because it's missing…

I have noticed this too. I wonder if those businesses haven't paid an SEO expert to set up their business properly or if they haven't paid google for their "premium" map features

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#296

Post by beaugunderson »

telchior wrote: post #178
Guest9081239812 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is terrible for hiding results. I'll use the filter to show restaurants with a 4.5+ star rating, and it hides dozens of places 4.5+ stars while instead showing results 4.0 - 4.4 stars and even some that have no reviews at all. I find the arrogance insulting. You want to see 4.5+ star Japanese food restaurants? Well, I don't think that's best for you, and I'm going to replace some of those results with 4.1…

I despise Google Maps for this. I can know that a restaurant exists, zoom in on its block, search 'restaurants' -- nothing. It'll zoom out the map and show other stuff. Worse, I can max my zoom and hunt for it on the map and it will outright show a blank space. Only searching for the restaurant's actual name will bring it up. But there's not really any alternative. Apple Maps can't show me things because it's missing…

I've noticed this in the last 6 months specifically. If I search for grocery stores it only shows me some chains and not others now. If I want to see where Safeway stores are at I have to search Safeway; they won't show up under grocery stores anymore.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#297

Post by broshi »

xyst wrote: post #118

I am surprised a yelp/google alternative has not been created with a feature to establish provenance of a review. Perhaps something like a receipt which contains a unique link and that person can provide a review through the link. The review will be posted as "verified transaction" on the site and overall score of the restaurant is determined from there. "Anonymous" reviews can still be posted but won't be factored i…

It'll be difficult to do this as a platform.

Retailers do this on their own stores via "mystery shoppers" The retailer pays a firm to go in shop at the stores and they write a detailed report of customer service, how clean the store was etc.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#298

Post by winrid »

emodendroket wrote: post #289
winrid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many people complaining about the sales people doing this stuff. https://youtu.be/C67Lh4LE5LY

I would believe individual salespeople might do unscrupulous things like enlist their friends to leave bad reviews or make promises they can't keep about altering someone's score but that's a totally different accusation than saying Yelp as a company has a policy of doing this.

I doubt they explicitly have such a policy. That'd be suicide.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#299

Post by tauon »

rx_tx wrote: post #271
floren wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a broader internet problem in general - "trending" algorithmic reinforcement stuff will push everyone towards the ONE TRUE BEST HOTTEST MOST POPULAR bbq/ramen/whatver place, when probably there's half a dozen other options within 10% of taste and quality, that some people very well could legitimately like better if they heard about them too. Instagram doesn't help -- gotta get a shot of me eating noodles at th…

I know which place you're talking about, and their stuff is actually sort of unique to me at least, in the sense that there's no broth in any of the ramen, but more of an oily sauce that you mix with the noodles. It's actually really amazing, and worth at least some wait to me. (and a Japanese opening a bay area branch tends to form lines).

Yeah must be Kajiken: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WvPQ115BfmSkJUGw8

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#300

Post by motoxpro »

jiveturkey wrote: post #214
Solvency wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I mean, how difficult is it for Yelp to catch this?!?" The mistake you're making is assuming Yelp: * Wants to "fix" this problem. * Isn't actually complicit in this problem as a means to incentivize small business owners to sign up and pay for Yelp to help "manage their business profile".

And the second mistake is (if they did care) thinking this wouldn't just result in an arms race. IMHO we want easy to spot fake reviews. I want flash to come back. It was so easy to block annoyances in that day. Now we have HTML5 popups.

I assume you're talking about it being easy for the consumer. There is no way I would know that the same college kid copy pasted a pic from a Flordia Zilliow listing to out on a home renovation review but it's trivial to find for Yelp. So I understand the sentiment, but at least to my untrained eye, I just glance at reviews and take them as real as long as a dog walker is not mentioned at a sushi restaurant, which means they are too hard to spot for me.
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