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So then how do you explain them filtering mostly negative reviews for their own service while filtering all positive reviews for the dog training company?

by pbz 15y ago

jrockway 15y ago
I'm not defending Yelp. I'm just saying there's no evidence that Yelp is widely hated amongst average people. (I assume it's not, but I don't have any data for that either.) I can't explain their filtering algorithm because I didn't write their filtering algorithm. Ultimately, automatic fraud assessment is the only way Yelp is going to scale; it's too expensive to have a human validate every review, so you get the computer to do it for you. 99% of the time, it works. 1% of the time, you get the situation where the dog training company gets screwed. It's like when your credit card gets flagged for buying gas out of state or using an ATM in China. It's annoying that you got false-positived for fraud, but that's what happens. It's the only way the credit-card system can work. Same for Yelp's filtering; no automatic filtering, no Yelp. The problem with Yelp is that people don't take it with a grain of salt. But that's not Yelp's problem, that's a "people are morons" problem.
- salemh 15y ago
  I wonder the psychology (of many review sites) that people are more motivation to seek out area's to post negative reviews, rather then a positive. Lack of a business "if you enjoyed our service please let us know via (Yelp, Google Pages, etc.) which may net a higher return of happy customers. I personally more inclined to hop on Yelp as a warning to other consumers on a poor business, vs, just random "ups" to other well run businesses. I gain no benefit but altruistic feelings, and this, takes time. The time it takes to post a negative review is rewarding in itself to try and "help" others avoid or be wary of said business. Also, markets should take a factor in analysis of Yelp reviews. As an example, larger cities have a much higher preponderance of reviews as a whole, where even medium (what I would call them) such as SLC (where I live) are very sparse and therefore limited in search / decision making.
jmtame 15y ago
I believe the way the algorithm works is it looks for how credible a given complaint is based on many factors. If I had to guess, they'll look at the age of the user account, how active it is, how many other reviews are written by the user. A user who just created an account and wrote a negative review against Yelp is probably going to be filtered out because that user isn't a regular reviewer. A more compelling argument would take all the users that were filtered and analyze their history. That's where the interesting data is, so show me that and convince me that Yelp's algorithm is bad. Don't just say "Look at how difficult reCaptcha is, Yelp must be up to something here." When has any implementation of captcha ever been easy to use? That original article says that the users banded together to write positive reviews over a short period of time. We don't know whether the business owner incentivized them or if they just did that altruistically. The facts are simply not known, the best we can do is make assumptions there (which makes for a pretty weak argument to begin with). Banding together and writing reviews with the sole purpose of boosting a business' online reputation is what really happened here, and Yelp specifically designed their algorithm to deal with those use cases. The actual pattern businesses follow for building a reputation is very incremental: positive reviews spread over time, not a short burst by people who aren't actively using the site to review other businesses. To make a compelling case, rather than what appears as a rant in its current form, you need more data. You need to show that the users are active on Yelp and they aren't afraid to write both positive and negative reviews to reflect their true experiences. Banding together in groups to write positive reviews is basically the same thing as submitting a story to HN and getting all your friends to upvote it.
- Goladus 15y ago
  You need to show that the users are active on Yelp and they aren't afraid to write both positive and negative reviews to reflect their true experiences. That shouldn't be necessary. I've written like, five reviews ever and they're all honest, I have a few friends that have written reviews and they seem to average one review every few years or so. Meanwhile I've seen reviews from elites that are well-written but absolutely pointless for me. Sometimes it's as if they're writing more to impress other reviewers than to actually give me any useful information. Banding together and writing reviews with the sole purpose of boosting a business' online reputation is what really happened here, and Yelp specifically designed their algorithm to deal with those use cases. Why filter the reviews entirely instead of just sorting them down or something? Especially if they seem more or less legit except there's a small bunch all at once? Banding together to boost an online business's reputation really should not be cause for filtration. Fake accounts, bots, lies, and attempts to bury negative information are problems. A bunch of loyal customers who hear about yelp from the owner and want to write a review is quite simply not a problem and yelp shouldn't be doing anything about it. And why discriminate against businesses that don't sell advertising?

So then how do you explain them filtering mostly negative reviews for their own service while filtering all positive reviews for the dog training company?

by pbz 15y ago

So then how do you explain them filtering mostly negative reviews for their own service while filtering all positive reviews for the dog training company?

jrockway 15y ago

I'm not defending Yelp. I'm just saying there's no evidence that Yelp is widely hated amongst average people. (I assume it's not, but I don't have any data for that either.) I can't explain their filtering algorithm because I didn't write their filtering algorithm. Ultimately, automatic fraud assessment is the only way Yelp is going to scale; it's too expensive to have a human validate every review, so you get the computer to do it for you. 99% of the time, it works. 1% of the time, you get the situation where the dog training company gets screwed. It's like when your credit card gets flagged for buying gas out of state or using an ATM in China. It's annoying that you got false-positived for fraud, but that's what happens. It's the only way the credit-card system can work. Same for Yelp's filtering; no automatic filtering, no Yelp. The problem with Yelp is that people don't take it with a grain of salt. But that's not Yelp's problem, that's a "people are morons" problem.

salemh 15y ago
I wonder the psychology (of many review sites) that people are more motivation to seek out area's to post negative reviews, rather then a positive. Lack of a business "if you enjoyed our service please let us know via (Yelp, Google Pages, etc.) which may net a higher return of happy customers. I personally more inclined to hop on Yelp as a warning to other consumers on a poor business, vs, just random "ups" to other well run businesses. I gain no benefit but altruistic feelings, and this, takes time. The time it takes to post a negative review is rewarding in itself to try and "help" others avoid or be wary of said business. Also, markets should take a factor in analysis of Yelp reviews. As an example, larger cities have a much higher preponderance of reviews as a whole, where even medium (what I would call them) such as SLC (where I live) are very sparse and therefore limited in search / decision making.

jmtame 15y ago

I believe the way the algorithm works is it looks for how credible a given complaint is based on many factors. If I had to guess, they'll look at the age of the user account, how active it is, how many other reviews are written by the user. A user who just created an account and wrote a negative review against Yelp is probably going to be filtered out because that user isn't a regular reviewer. A more compelling argument would take all the users that were filtered and analyze their history. That's where the interesting data is, so show me that and convince me that Yelp's algorithm is bad. Don't just say "Look at how difficult reCaptcha is, Yelp must be up to something here." When has any implementation of captcha ever been easy to use? That original article says that the users banded together to write positive reviews over a short period of time. We don't know whether the business owner incentivized them or if they just did that altruistically. The facts are simply not known, the best we can do is make assumptions there (which makes for a pretty weak argument to begin with). Banding together and writing reviews with the sole purpose of boosting a business' online reputation is what really happened here, and Yelp specifically designed their algorithm to deal with those use cases. The actual pattern businesses follow for building a reputation is very incremental: positive reviews spread over time, not a short burst by people who aren't actively using the site to review other businesses. To make a compelling case, rather than what appears as a rant in its current form, you need more data. You need to show that the users are active on Yelp and they aren't afraid to write both positive and negative reviews to reflect their true experiences. Banding together in groups to write positive reviews is basically the same thing as submitting a story to HN and getting all your friends to upvote it.

Goladus 15y ago
You need to show that the users are active on Yelp and they aren't afraid to write both positive and negative reviews to reflect their true experiences. That shouldn't be necessary. I've written like, five reviews ever and they're all honest, I have a few friends that have written reviews and they seem to average one review every few years or so. Meanwhile I've seen reviews from elites that are well-written but absolutely pointless for me. Sometimes it's as if they're writing more to impress other reviewers than to actually give me any useful information. Banding together and writing reviews with the sole purpose of boosting a business' online reputation is what really happened here, and Yelp specifically designed their algorithm to deal with those use cases. Why filter the reviews entirely instead of just sorting them down or something? Especially if they seem more or less legit except there's a small bunch all at once? Banding together to boost an online business's reputation really should not be cause for filtration. Fake accounts, bots, lies, and attempts to bury negative information are problems. A bunch of loyal customers who hear about yelp from the owner and want to write a review is quite simply not a problem and yelp shouldn't be doing anything about it. And why discriminate against businesses that don't sell advertising?