The Restaurant Raters’ Victim Complex

Interesting perspective about Yelp.

Imagine working for owners who put so much weight into Yelp reviews. I would not have lasted long.

[Robin Garr]

Interesting article. It seems solid. And it touches on at least one of the biggest issues with Yelp: Users post anonymously. Takes me back to the days when we moved this site off our old home-brewed platform in which we asked people to use real names on the honor system but couldn't effectively deter "drive-by shootings." Yelp lives by the numbers, and if they required real names, the numbers would plummet.

I think time has laid bare the real problems with Yelp, not just for restaurants but patrons alike. We used to put a lot of weight in these reviews, not because we wanted to, but felt we had to defend ourselves for others reading it. It really did seem (and some Yelpers haven't caught on that their five paragraph reviews are generally done in a vacuum) that some diners were using Yelp to showcase critical writing rather than offer helpful info. Now they are fodder for our own amusement, unless it is a consistent complaint.

Yelp and other reviewing sites are this interesting blend of cool crowd sourced service, and mob black mail on the surface of what they do. I think the real problem is if Yelp or others encourage the latter for profit.

I like Yelp for finding out hours, addresses, phone numbers, menus, sometimes for pictures of food, and to see if, for example, there's a Filipino restaurant in Chatanooga. Otherwise it is worthless. Robin, I disagree about the anonymity making it worse. People are perfectly willing to use racial slurs in comment sections with their real names attached -- using your real name is zero deterrent to running down a restaurant or business.

[Robin Garr]

using your real name is zero deterrent to running down a restaurant or business.

I hear you, Iggy, but it works pretty well here. We had a lot more problems with "drive bys" when our home-brewed forum software didn't support any kind of registration. It's amazing how well the honor system worked, but there was still a lot of funny business that required a fair amount of moderator time.

I see both sides. Anonymous postings can be problematic, but I know plenty of cats on forums who were total pains and because they were just being themselves and had been users for a long time you couldn't easily ban them like you would just some anonymous two post noob. I have seen whole forums schism because long time well respected users bust up stuff.

That being said, I get that when it's someplace like a Yelp where you are allowed to defame a place and you have no skin in the game afterward it's risky biz. Your lopsided opinion about the place can't be measured by the readers as to your stake in it. Nor are you the anonymous reviewer restrained by having to look your victim in the eye, so to speak. It is amazing the psychology behind the keyboard warrior. It can be like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

I prefer Trip Advisor, but I do use Yelp as well. As a pp mentioned, I give weight to those compliments/complaints that come up consistently over many reviewers.

I am with Christina on this one. I weigh the overall picture rather than focus on an individual's horrible experience. A lot of those reviewers exaggerate if not down-right lie about their experience. Most important is the quantity of reviews and how recently they were posted. It tells me the place is popular.

I notice that Zomato (formerly Urbanspoon) now requires a (minimum) 140 word review. Hopefully that will weed out those annoying two-sentence-no-puntutation-submitted-from-my-mobile-device-drive-by-hack-job-reviews

Here we go again. I hold no social media platform as the gold standard for reviews. But I just don't see the crazy bias drive by reviewing of restaurants that other seem to see. Take as an example, Superchefs. About half the reviews go into great detail without being cruel about the terrible service. I just don't see or understand that there is a conspiracy of like minded cruel, ignorant, diners plotting to abuse Yelp for some nefarious purpose to create the downfall of Superchefs. What I do see, and the owner would be wise to read them all, a problem that needs to be addressed soon. (yes,I've been there and the service was terrible) The food has gotten a fairer minded reading, and though not my favorite place, they deserve some accolades. Same with America, The Diner. Many of the reviews are well written, humorous, accounts...very similar to what we expect on Hotbytes. I think owners should take all of this seriously, and if you can't filter the crazy from the truth, then you have a real problem. We all know in our hearts, who is full of bull and who is speaking the truth. I for one would love to see more actual reviews on hotbytes...rather than the tangents that we seem to get off on. Just saying. Love to all. And easy for me to say, because all my Yelp reviews are good. Knocking on wood...right now.

Certainly Yelp reviews are feedback that can be sifted for some useful information.

It just seems absurd that an owner would take it so seriously that an otherwise decent manager would get sick to the stomach over the upcoming grilling over every negative review. If an owner is using Yelp as a primary source their operations, then they are doing it wrong.