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I agree that the title is sensationalistic. That being said, I think it's a poor product decision on the part of Yelp. Showing and then removing reviews is a lo

by JoelPM 17y ago

I agree that the title is sensationalistic. That being said, I think it's a poor product decision on the part of Yelp. Showing and then removing reviews is a lot more suspicious than not showing them at all for a period of time (until a user has made a second review, or some other criterion), or showing them but not counting their rating toward the overall business rating (until the criterion are met).

rdtsc 17y ago
Not showing the review would put users off. Users need instant feedback. "I wrote something -- it got posted in a second" If they had to wait a day or two, they would not use the site. The second idea of showing reviews but not counting the rating is better, but then after a while it seem these reviews should be garbage collected, which is apparently what happened. On the vendor's side, telling your users to post good reviews for discounts or for promotions is a bit like spamming I think. There is no good way to 100% detect spam like this, so there is always going to be controversy. Also, hopefully Yelp has enough lawyers if it operates in a country with loose libel/slander laws.