8 ms·

My derelict pub still got TripAdvisor reviews

108 points by bauc 7y ago

aaron695 7y ago
This is an obviously a dumb article, they found a few random issues on a hugely popular site that if it sucks feel free to make a better competitor and make a billion $. But do we really think it's worse than the old days (If the objective is to find a good place to eat or stay) where you used a book often years old? Even the people who claimed to not used the books like Rough Guide, Lets Go and Lonely Planet actually used them since they found the places to eat by talking to others who used the books. It was incredibly inbreed, but you did talk more because everyone ate at the same place. You'd know a restaurant full of Japanese tourists had something unique in their travel guide. Trip adviser actually allows people to expand their horizons and rewards good businesses normally confined to locals. There are parasitic entities running off it which is really interesting, but this article explains nothing.
Irishsteve 7y ago
Guessing it’s just users inserting the incorrect venue by mistake.
- ntzm 7y ago
  Aye, there are loads of pubs called Bridge Inn
Reason077 7y ago
A less sinister explanation is that the reviewers were actually at another pub with the same, or similar, name. And they reviewed the wrong one. This happens all the time on TripAdvisor. I bet there are dozens of “Bridge Inn”s in the UK.
- Neil44 7y ago
  My friend manages the online presence of a dentists, and nearly all negative reviews turn out to actually be about another dentist with a similar name about 60 miles away. So this does happen all the time on TripAdvisor, and they aren't doing anything about it! TripAdvisor makes zero attempt to verify that you've even been to the places you're reviewing, when it would be trivial for them to do so.
  - differentView 7y ago
    How do you verify?
    - riffraff 7y ago
      a simple "Please confirm this the place where you have been? <pictures>" while posting would prevent many (most?) errors. You could use a plethora of other information to show this intelligently and not bother everyone (e.g. if you have been in the area, if you looked for the place beforehand etc)
    - Neil44 7y ago
      Check in on the app first?
- grahamel 7y ago
  Exactly that - my partner's company constantly get negative GlassDoor reviews because there is a different company with a similar name in India
- gdulli 7y ago
  I don't think there's "an" explanation. There are lots of false reviews on the internet. Some are honest mistakes, like you said. Some are intended to artificially raise or lower the target's reputation. And some are stolen, automated, or low-effort content that's not intended to affect the target at all, but exists only to make the account seem legitimate so it can't be trivially identified as having the sole purpose to astroturf one target. I think there's plenty of reason to believe each of these categories is responsible for a ton of internet content.
egeozcan 7y ago
There are also fake reviews purchased by competition to lower the score of their competitors. I can't trust anything in form of a comment that I see on the internet anymore (oh the irony).
lhoff 7y ago
This immediately reminded me of the article on vice in which the author made his gazebo the best restaurant on Tripadvisor. Both the article and the video are very entertaining. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the...
- grahamel 7y ago
  hn comments on that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136
DoubleGlazing 7y ago
Regarding the chap who had his reviews deleted, I had something very similar happen to me. I booked and prepaid for a room in a decent hotel. Upon arrival they asked for a £150 deposit. I offered them my Visa debit card, but they said they only accepted Mastercard for deposits. This really set my alarm bells ringing, but it was late and I had tired kids with me so I had go look for an ATM to get cash to pay the deposit. The rest of the stay was Okay, just this weird deposit thing that really jarred me. So I mentioned that in my TripAdvisor review - the review dissapeared and TripAdvisor wouldn't tell me why. Looking at other review sites, plenty of other people had the same experience. It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites. But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me.
- Avalaxy 7y ago
  So... what was the scam here?
  - jfk13 7y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich for a summary. IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - ddeck 7y ago
      >IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found... The VICE piece is here: How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant The Shed at Dulwich was the number one rated restaurant in London, with foodies, celebrities and bloggers trying to get a table. The main obstacle for them, however, was that it didn't exist. Over the course of 8 months VICE's Oobah Butler used an assault of fake reviews to get his 'restaurant' to the hallowed top spot on TripAdvisor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8
ribalda 7y ago
I went to "according to tripadvisor" the best activity in Tenerife, a zoo called Loro Parque. I described the poor situation of the animals with photos and my comment got censored by tripadvisior, probably due to the great amount of money that they get from the park. From that day I stopped using Tripadvisor after making 100s of reviews.
- acollins1331 7y ago
  All zoos are like that and incredibly sad from the inside even if they look fine to the guests. The only ones that have a moral leg to stand on are the rehabilitation ones that use proceeds to help the animals, but it's still a very wishy washy thing to be running an animal prison for profit.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Almost all zoos in the US are non-profit.
    - mcv 7y ago
      I wish they did the same for human prisons.
      - chaostheory 7y ago
        Only 8.4% of prisons in the US are private and for profit.
        idoubtit 7y ago
        I suspect that figure is wrong, because the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not publish the rate on prisons but on prisoners. "As of 2016, 8.5% of the prisoners are in private for-profit prisons. Since 2000, the number of people in private prisons has increased 47%, compared to an overall rise in the prison population of 9%." Source: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso... So, if the annual increase rate has not change since 2016, as of 2019 about 9.3% of the prisoners are in for-profit jails. [edit: computed the rate, it is not "more than 10%"]
rmsaksida 7y ago
I stopped using TripAdvisor because I found that it has a very strong tourist bias. It seems most of the people who post reviews are tourists, and this ends up being beneficial to places that aren't necessarily the best in their categories, but offer the most tourist-friendly experiences. When I'm looking for a restaurant abroad I'm not looking for the places that have English-speaking service, translated menus, and memorable decoration. I'm looking for the places that have the most genuine and best tasting food, places that locals would like to visit. It's hard to find those places on TripAdvisor.
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  You are correct about the "bias", but the site name is TripAdvisor, so I disagree with calling it a bias. You just aren't the target customer. If you want more sophisticated reviews you can always go with Rick Steves, who usually does a good job of pointing out what are the most popular restaurants for tourists and contrasting that with the most popular restaurants for locals.
herodotus 7y ago
Here are the Tripadvisor reviews: https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-r228644366-Bridge_inn-Middleton_in_Teesdale_County_Durham_England.html https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-...

108 points by bauc 7y ago

This is an obviously a dumb article, they found a few random issues on a hugely popular site that if it sucks feel free to make a better competitor and make a billion $. But do we really think it's worse than the old days (If the objective is to find a good place to eat or stay) where you used a book often years old? Even the people who claimed to not used the books like Rough Guide, Lets Go and Lonely Planet actually used them since they found the places to eat by talking to others who used the books. It was incredibly inbreed, but you did talk more because everyone ate at the same place. You'd know a restaurant full of Japanese tourists had something unique in their travel guide. Trip adviser actually allows people to expand their horizons and rewards good businesses normally confined to locals. There are parasitic entities running off it which is really interesting, but this article explains nothing.

Irishsteve 7y ago

Guessing it’s just users inserting the incorrect venue by mistake.

ntzm 7y ago
Aye, there are loads of pubs called Bridge Inn

Reason077 7y ago

A less sinister explanation is that the reviewers were actually at another pub with the same, or similar, name. And they reviewed the wrong one. This happens all the time on TripAdvisor. I bet there are dozens of “Bridge Inn”s in the UK.

Neil44 7y ago
My friend manages the online presence of a dentists, and nearly all negative reviews turn out to actually be about another dentist with a similar name about 60 miles away. So this does happen all the time on TripAdvisor, and they aren't doing anything about it! TripAdvisor makes zero attempt to verify that you've even been to the places you're reviewing, when it would be trivial for them to do so.
- differentView 7y ago
  How do you verify?
  - riffraff 7y ago
    a simple "Please confirm this the place where you have been? <pictures>" while posting would prevent many (most?) errors. You could use a plethora of other information to show this intelligently and not bother everyone (e.g. if you have been in the area, if you looked for the place beforehand etc)
  - Neil44 7y ago
    Check in on the app first?
grahamel 7y ago
Exactly that - my partner's company constantly get negative GlassDoor reviews because there is a different company with a similar name in India
gdulli 7y ago
I don't think there's "an" explanation. There are lots of false reviews on the internet. Some are honest mistakes, like you said. Some are intended to artificially raise or lower the target's reputation. And some are stolen, automated, or low-effort content that's not intended to affect the target at all, but exists only to make the account seem legitimate so it can't be trivially identified as having the sole purpose to astroturf one target. I think there's plenty of reason to believe each of these categories is responsible for a ton of internet content.

egeozcan 7y ago

There are also fake reviews purchased by competition to lower the score of their competitors. I can't trust anything in form of a comment that I see on the internet anymore (oh the irony).

lhoff 7y ago

This immediately reminded me of the article on vice in which the author made his gazebo the best restaurant on Tripadvisor. Both the article and the video are very entertaining. https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the-top-rated-restaurant-on-tripadvisor https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/434gqw/i-made-my-shed-the...

grahamel 7y ago
hn comments on that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15861136

DoubleGlazing 7y ago

Regarding the chap who had his reviews deleted, I had something very similar happen to me. I booked and prepaid for a room in a decent hotel. Upon arrival they asked for a £150 deposit. I offered them my Visa debit card, but they said they only accepted Mastercard for deposits. This really set my alarm bells ringing, but it was late and I had tired kids with me so I had go look for an ATM to get cash to pay the deposit. The rest of the stay was Okay, just this weird deposit thing that really jarred me. So I mentioned that in my TripAdvisor review - the review dissapeared and TripAdvisor wouldn't tell me why. Looking at other review sites, plenty of other people had the same experience. It would appear that it was easier for the hotel to get these negative reviews taken off TripAdvisor than from other sites. But why anyone takes TripAdvisor seriously after the whole "Shed at Dulwich" debacle is beyond me.

Avalaxy 7y ago
So... what was the scam here?
- jfk13 7y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich for a summary. IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ddeck 7y ago
    >IIRC there's also video reportage about it to be found... The VICE piece is here: How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant The Shed at Dulwich was the number one rated restaurant in London, with foodies, celebrities and bloggers trying to get a table. The main obstacle for them, however, was that it didn't exist. Over the course of 8 months VICE's Oobah Butler used an assault of fake reviews to get his 'restaurant' to the hallowed top spot on TripAdvisor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqPARIKHbN8

ribalda 7y ago

I went to "according to tripadvisor" the best activity in Tenerife, a zoo called Loro Parque. I described the poor situation of the animals with photos and my comment got censored by tripadvisior, probably due to the great amount of money that they get from the park. From that day I stopped using Tripadvisor after making 100s of reviews.

acollins1331 7y ago
All zoos are like that and incredibly sad from the inside even if they look fine to the guests. The only ones that have a moral leg to stand on are the rehabilitation ones that use proceeds to help the animals, but it's still a very wishy washy thing to be running an animal prison for profit.
- nradov 7y ago
  Almost all zoos in the US are non-profit.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I wish they did the same for human prisons.
    - chaostheory 7y ago
      Only 8.4% of prisons in the US are private and for profit.
      - idoubtit 7y ago
        I suspect that figure is wrong, because the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not publish the rate on prisons but on prisoners. "As of 2016, 8.5% of the prisoners are in private for-profit prisons. Since 2000, the number of people in private prisons has increased 47%, compared to an overall rise in the prison population of 9%." Source: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-united-states/ https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso... So, if the annual increase rate has not change since 2016, as of 2019 about 9.3% of the prisoners are in for-profit jails. [edit: computed the rate, it is not "more than 10%"]

rmsaksida 7y ago

I stopped using TripAdvisor because I found that it has a very strong tourist bias. It seems most of the people who post reviews are tourists, and this ends up being beneficial to places that aren't necessarily the best in their categories, but offer the most tourist-friendly experiences. When I'm looking for a restaurant abroad I'm not looking for the places that have English-speaking service, translated menus, and memorable decoration. I'm looking for the places that have the most genuine and best tasting food, places that locals would like to visit. It's hard to find those places on TripAdvisor.

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
You are correct about the "bias", but the site name is TripAdvisor, so I disagree with calling it a bias. You just aren't the target customer. If you want more sophisticated reviews you can always go with Rick Steves, who usually does a good job of pointing out what are the most popular restaurants for tourists and contrasting that with the most popular restaurants for locals.

herodotus 7y ago

Here are the Tripadvisor reviews: https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-r228644366-Bridge_inn-Middleton_in_Teesdale_County_Durham_England.html https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g776617-d4090866-...