5 ms·

Good reviews also barely mean anything these days. The worst item I have ever bought online, which damaged itself on opening for 100% of buyers, had ~4.1 rating

Good reviews also barely mean anything these days. The worst item I have ever bought online, which damaged itself on opening for 100% of buyers, had ~4.1 rating. At this point, it is fair to say getting less than 4 stars means the seller was too poor/naive to hire "online promotion" services or whatever they are called, rather than anything else.

7952 5y ago
Redordering reviews by date helps a lot.
zrm 5y ago
Similar to eBay seller ratings where 99.9% positive feedback means you might get your item, whereas 95% positive feedback implies the seller is stealing the goods from the factory that counterfeits them and whether you receive anything depends mainly on how the shipping carrier handles a package that catches fire in transit. Less than 80% positive feedback has never been observed but would presumably involve the seller coming to your house to murder you and steal your identity and then using your account to leave negative feedback for themselves.
- kstenerud 5y ago
  I spit my tea all over at that last sentence.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  This has the same energy as that "you wouldn't steal a car" ad in IT Crowd. But it's not far from the truth, and unless 10 news websites report on it online platforms won't even bother with an empty statement. Amazon for example lets vendors transfer good reviews to any other product by just replacing the product entry (name, description, price). Sure you then have reviews for coffee cups under some solder wire, but it fools enough users. And if the reviews are too negative you can just remove the product offer and immediately create it again.
  - nefitty 5y ago
    I think it's also review shyness. My wife yelled at me once (like real, oh shit I'm in trouble, yell) for leaving a 1 star review for an Uber driver who sped the whole way and ran a red light.
    - MereInterest 5y ago
      That's caused by excessive metric tracking on the part of companies, and passing the blame down to individual employees. When a 5-star rating is the default and anything else is a push for the person to be fired, of course people won't leave negative reviews, that's going to prevent people from leaving accurate reviews. If I could trust reviews to be used in good faith (e.g. by paying employees a living wage and not implicitly requiring dangerous behavior to meet quotas), then I could leave more accurate reviews.
      - Aunche 5y ago
        If they were driving recklessly, then they should be fired though. Uber prices are pretty much completely dictated by supply and demand. By taking a higher volume of passengers at the cost of safety, you're increasing the supply of trips and pressuring safer drivers to match your volume. Firing the reckless drivers creates a landscape where safer drivers can fairly compete.
    - ziml77 5y ago
      What was her concern about leaving a bad review?
      - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
        I’m this case a bad review could threaten someone’s livelihood and ability to feed/house themselves and their dependents. I feel a lot less bad leaving a bad review on an object on Amazon, but a bad review of a person who I know might very well lose everything because of even small changes in rating makes me nervous to rate them anything worse than a perfect score.

7952 5y ago

Redordering reviews by date helps a lot.

zrm 5y ago

Similar to eBay seller ratings where 99.9% positive feedback means you might get your item, whereas 95% positive feedback implies the seller is stealing the goods from the factory that counterfeits them and whether you receive anything depends mainly on how the shipping carrier handles a package that catches fire in transit. Less than 80% positive feedback has never been observed but would presumably involve the seller coming to your house to murder you and steal your identity and then using your account to leave negative feedback for themselves.

kstenerud 5y ago
I spit my tea all over at that last sentence.
alpaca128 5y ago
This has the same energy as that "you wouldn't steal a car" ad in IT Crowd. But it's not far from the truth, and unless 10 news websites report on it online platforms won't even bother with an empty statement. Amazon for example lets vendors transfer good reviews to any other product by just replacing the product entry (name, description, price). Sure you then have reviews for coffee cups under some solder wire, but it fools enough users. And if the reviews are too negative you can just remove the product offer and immediately create it again.
- nefitty 5y ago
  I think it's also review shyness. My wife yelled at me once (like real, oh shit I'm in trouble, yell) for leaving a 1 star review for an Uber driver who sped the whole way and ran a red light.
  - MereInterest 5y ago
    That's caused by excessive metric tracking on the part of companies, and passing the blame down to individual employees. When a 5-star rating is the default and anything else is a push for the person to be fired, of course people won't leave negative reviews, that's going to prevent people from leaving accurate reviews. If I could trust reviews to be used in good faith (e.g. by paying employees a living wage and not implicitly requiring dangerous behavior to meet quotas), then I could leave more accurate reviews.
    - Aunche 5y ago
      If they were driving recklessly, then they should be fired though. Uber prices are pretty much completely dictated by supply and demand. By taking a higher volume of passengers at the cost of safety, you're increasing the supply of trips and pressuring safer drivers to match your volume. Firing the reckless drivers creates a landscape where safer drivers can fairly compete.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    What was her concern about leaving a bad review?
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      I’m this case a bad review could threaten someone’s livelihood and ability to feed/house themselves and their dependents. I feel a lot less bad leaving a bad review on an object on Amazon, but a bad review of a person who I know might very well lose everything because of even small changes in rating makes me nervous to rate them anything worse than a perfect score.