Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online • Hacker News Board

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#191

Post by personZ » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:15 PM UTC

67726e wrote: post #184

Vik1ng wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think it is valid to leave a 1 star review for a restaurant, because you don't like the menu posted in their website?

If I walked into a restaurant and the owner threatened to kick my ass if I posted a bad Yelp review and I decided to leave without eating, would I be qualified to write a review about their practices? I didn't eat at the restaurant. There was no business exchange. I'm reviewing the business' policies and warning others of something I find distasteful. In your example, what if I read the online menu and found some fin…

None of these people walked into the business. I doubt any of them are planning a wedding reception, if even in the target geographic market.

This is a standard internet lynch mob. They are always vile, reprehensible things, with real humans as victim. But pile on, everyone.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#192

Post by aestra » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:17 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #79

zorrb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our Inn, your friends and families may not. This is due to the fact that your guests may not understand what we offer - therefore we expect you to explain that to them. USGH & Hudson are historic. The buildings here are old (but restored). Our bathrooms and kitchens are designed to look old in an artistic "vintage" way. Our furniture is mostly hi…

I actually kinda see where they're coming from. I'm sure they do get complaints from people who never stay anywhere besides upscale chain hotels. But obviously this is not the way to address the issue. It's mean and ultimately self-defeating.

And that's the reason (in my opinion) online reviews are borderline worthless. Everyone has different expectations and preferences. Also - a lot of people are completely unreasonable. Unreasonable people are more likely to leave a negative review than a reasonable random joe to leave a positive review.

I stayed at a hotel where the reviews were almost all negative with comments like "the furniture was outdated and the TV was a CRT."

What to I care about in a hotel? A clean bed to sleep on and a shower. That's it. I stay at hotels just to sleep in and wash up.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#193

Post by personZ » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #153

baddox wrote: post #3

If the hotel is clear about these terms, then I don't see much of a problem with this. It makes it really easy to know to pick a different hotel.

By the time you get around to reading all the fine print, you're pretty mentally committed to signing. If your bride-to-be has her heart set on the quaint old hotel, is already buying decorations to match, telling people the preliminary plans (and they're starting to book in advance), etc ... and then you get down thru the fine print, about to seal the deal, and you see an absurd "you'll be charged $500 for each nega…

Fine print? It's on the page for "Events & Weddings", and will absolutely be the first thing most people considering this venue will read. It looks like they removed it, but any notion that this was fine print or hidden away is just dishonest misrepresentation.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#194

Post by Silhouette » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

dm2 wrote: post #91

eli wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually kinda see where they're coming from. I'm sure they do get complaints from people who never stay anywhere besides upscale chain hotels. But obviously this is not the way to address the issue. It's mean and ultimately self-defeating.

A piece of paper asking guests to keep this in mind when giving reviews would suffice. A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much more likely to actually receive a negative review from me.

A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much more likely to actually receive a negative review from me.

And a company that actually fines me would be much more likely to receive a chargeback, formal complaints to any relevant regulators, or even for that kind of money a small claims suit.

I'm not really sure how they expect to win with this policy, particularly since they're presumably about to get more negative publicity than every bad review they ever avoided and searching for them on-line will probably lead to dozens of critical comments forever now.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#195

Post by XorNot » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #78

Narretz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about "no such thing as bad publicity"?

That may not hold as true as it used to in a market where many purchasing decisions are informed by the consensus instantly accessible and distilled into a single number from aggregators like Yelp. In such cases, it's crucial that you receive positive indicators from those sources. In the past, angry articles or reports faded had less staying power; they would raise the profile of the business or person by directing…

Also "will bill you $500 for a bad review" has a particular sting about it unlike any other I suspect.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#196

Post by rlucas » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

gallamine wrote: post #146

specialp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is true, but this is the wrong way to do it. I have stayed at many places reviewed badly by people who just do not get it. Like I stayed at a wonderful rustic place in Maine [1] but there were quite a few reviews complaining about the rustic nature and giving them one star. As a human being I can then read these reviews and decide that the people rating it one star were expecting that this should have been s…

> Bottom line is that people are smart enough to filter out bad reviews. The problem is that the software generally filters first - e.g. "show me the 'best of'" or "sort by top rated". If you're looking at a selection of hundreds of items, I don't know that your statement holds.

It's the "scalar fallacy."

In a nutshell, the scalar fallacy is the false but pervasive assumption that real-world things (hotels, sandwiches, people, mutual funds, chemo drugs, whatever) have some single-dimension ordering of "goodness".

When you project a multi-dimensional space down to one dimension, you are involving a lot of context and preferences in the act of projecting. Just sayin'.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#197

Post by frogpelt » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

dm2 wrote: post #16

What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them. http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch... http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie... Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website. It's probab…

I feel bad for the unlucky bride and groom racking up all these $500 charges today.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#198

Post by graywh » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

positivejam wrote: post #161

imaginenore wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sarcasm detector is broken. Call the repairman.

personZ understood the sarcasm: -literal meaning of Spooky23's statement: it's unreasonable to expect ice in the middle of summer. -sarcastic meaning of Spooky23's statement: it's completely REASONABLE to expect ice in the middle of summer. personZ acknowledges the sarcastic meaning (that it is reasonable to expect ice in the middle of summer), and is pointing out that based on the article, the guests actually DID in…

There's a deleted comment between those two.

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#199

Post by dm2 » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

frogpelt wrote: post #197

dm2 wrote: post #16

What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them. http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch... http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie... Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website. It's probab…

I feel bad for the unlucky bride and groom racking up all these $500 charges today.

It's at 400 negative reviews after 3 hours, nobody is getting charged anything, if they do they'll sue and the hotel will receive even more negative publicity.

Looks like it hit Reddit, that's why it jumped so quickly, http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2ckx8i/hotel_cha...

Re: Hotel fines $500 for every bad review posted online

#200

Post by internet2pac » Mon, Aug 04, 2014, 4:36 PM UTC

Well this is how we goona do this

Fuck Union Street Guest House, Fuck Policies, Fuck Reviews

And if you want to be down with Internet review policies, then fuck you too

All of y'all businesses, fuck you, die slow motherfuckers

My Enter Key makes sure all y'all businesses don't grow

You motherfuckers can't be us or see us

We motherfuckin Internet Thug life-riders

anonyimized till we die