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"I don't really want to pollute my profile with candid feedback." This is how I feel about most things. A lot of times I give everyone 5 stars (things on fiver

"I don't really want to pollute my profile with candid feedback." This is how I feel about most things. A lot of times I give everyone 5 stars (things on fiverr, reviews for customer support, airBnB reviews, etc) even if the service is mediocre, partially because I don't want to deal with the potential problems of giving poor reviews. Potential problems include being unable to get files after a project (fiverr → giving someone a bad review), staying at a previous airBnB (giving them anything less than 5 stars), potential harassment (giving anything in general a low review), someone getting fired for anything less than 5 stars (Customer support), potential tampered food (not tipping even if poor service or leaving a bad yelp/google review). Its kind of silly that the public standard (for 5 star reviews) is 3 stars is bad, 4 stars is ok, and 5 stars is good in general. 1 star is just biased, 2 stars are worse than 1 stars in my opinion just because it shows you put enough consideration to give them a 2. This applies to reviews on airBnB, uber, amazon, ebay, etc.

organsnyder 9y ago
Why leave a review at all if you're not going to be honest?
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
  Because people are willing to externalize costs for short term personal benefit at the expense of making everything worse for everyone. The rationale in the moment goes something like "I've already stayed there, so leaving an honest review won't help me." And they just don't think about the logical consequences of that kind of behavior.
- freeone3000 9y ago
  AirBNB UI really emphasizes this - it's nigh impossible to book again without having left feedback of the previous place.
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  Some sites practically force / really encourage you to leave a review (e.g. spam you with email reminders until you do, have seriously annoying UI that won't go away until you review). Apps will constantly ask you to review it, but this can be circumvented by clicking the link and ignoring it. But if a review can be tied back to your account (e.g. the review is not private, rather public) this could hurt you long term. A good example of this is airBnB. If you have written less than stellar reviews to some hosts, some superhosts (those that require initial contact, e.g. not the ones with lightning bolts) might potentially ignore you because you are a liability of poor reviews. This ends up limiting the overall options you have with airBnB when you need to stay at a city. Not only that, some hosts would rather see you left a good review if you only used airBnB a few times. Another example is writing an honest review about your employer, whether its on reddit, glassdoor etc, and that review happens to be bad. If these things end up being traced back to you publically, you might be burning bridges / not having recommendations down the road. It is selfish that I write good reviews because it gives me less problems down the road, thereby making ratings not as honest for everyone else. At the same time it can be incredibly selfish writing a poor honest review, because not everyone rates things equally (what is average rating, is it 3 or 4 stars?). What if that was a first time airBnB host with no ratings (having a poor first review is like a death sentence)? What if your stay as poor and it wasn't entirely their fault (e.g. outside noise was bad, washer broke, your sleep was awful, cockroach infestation next door, etc). My point is, sometimes you need to write a review, and its hard to define what an honest rating is, and how detrimental it can be to you and the other party, especially if its on a personal level. I prefer to leave the honest part on just the text portion of the review, not on the 3 out of 5 stars part. Sometimes people just need a helping hand and a good review goes a long way even if the service was mediocre. As long as they showed good faith and did their best I give them a 5. I know how hard it is to run a business from personal experience, and I know what its like to be on the consumer getting shafted at the end. I try to be as fair as possible
  - stronglikedan 9y ago
    > spam you with email reminders until you do I figure I'm reviewing the experience, not just the product. Amazon reviewers love it when I give their product one or two stars for an otherwise great product, and leave a review that says, "Product was fine, but vendor spams for reviews."
bradleyjg 9y ago
I don’t leave reviews or rate customer service or take corporate surveys. If some wildly profitable company wants my help with thier employee evaluation process or as secret shopper they can compensate me for my time. I see no reason to volunteer for the likes of Amazon, AirBnB, or Verizon.

organsnyder 9y ago

Why leave a review at all if you're not going to be honest?

BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
Because people are willing to externalize costs for short term personal benefit at the expense of making everything worse for everyone. The rationale in the moment goes something like "I've already stayed there, so leaving an honest review won't help me." And they just don't think about the logical consequences of that kind of behavior.
freeone3000 9y ago
AirBNB UI really emphasizes this - it's nigh impossible to book again without having left feedback of the previous place.
Kagerjay 9y ago
Some sites practically force / really encourage you to leave a review (e.g. spam you with email reminders until you do, have seriously annoying UI that won't go away until you review). Apps will constantly ask you to review it, but this can be circumvented by clicking the link and ignoring it. But if a review can be tied back to your account (e.g. the review is not private, rather public) this could hurt you long term. A good example of this is airBnB. If you have written less than stellar reviews to some hosts, some superhosts (those that require initial contact, e.g. not the ones with lightning bolts) might potentially ignore you because you are a liability of poor reviews. This ends up limiting the overall options you have with airBnB when you need to stay at a city. Not only that, some hosts would rather see you left a good review if you only used airBnB a few times. Another example is writing an honest review about your employer, whether its on reddit, glassdoor etc, and that review happens to be bad. If these things end up being traced back to you publically, you might be burning bridges / not having recommendations down the road. It is selfish that I write good reviews because it gives me less problems down the road, thereby making ratings not as honest for everyone else. At the same time it can be incredibly selfish writing a poor honest review, because not everyone rates things equally (what is average rating, is it 3 or 4 stars?). What if that was a first time airBnB host with no ratings (having a poor first review is like a death sentence)? What if your stay as poor and it wasn't entirely their fault (e.g. outside noise was bad, washer broke, your sleep was awful, cockroach infestation next door, etc). My point is, sometimes you need to write a review, and its hard to define what an honest rating is, and how detrimental it can be to you and the other party, especially if its on a personal level. I prefer to leave the honest part on just the text portion of the review, not on the 3 out of 5 stars part. Sometimes people just need a helping hand and a good review goes a long way even if the service was mediocre. As long as they showed good faith and did their best I give them a 5. I know how hard it is to run a business from personal experience, and I know what its like to be on the consumer getting shafted at the end. I try to be as fair as possible
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  > spam you with email reminders until you do I figure I'm reviewing the experience, not just the product. Amazon reviewers love it when I give their product one or two stars for an otherwise great product, and leave a review that says, "Product was fine, but vendor spams for reviews."

bradleyjg 9y ago

I don’t leave reviews or rate customer service or take corporate surveys. If some wildly profitable company wants my help with thier employee evaluation process or as secret shopper they can compensate me for my time. I see no reason to volunteer for the likes of Amazon, AirBnB, or Verizon.