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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 s
by 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?
- jmtame 15y agoBanding 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. How do you algorithmically distinguish between the two? To Yelp, someone who signs up for an account and writes one positive review is the exact same thing as a script written to create bots that go off and write one positive review. They're both identical. And the bots' behavior can change to write more reviews to prevent looking like a bot. Business reputations take time, so when Yelp's algorithm sees "this business has been around since 1975, and 100% of its positive reviews just came in over the past 10 months, where 100% of its reviews were previously negative before that", that should be a red flag. I can't find the age of Frank's dog training business on Yelp; I searched and I didn't see it listed. So I can't say for certain whether the age of his business on Yelp had to do with the algorithm flagging the reviews. And why discriminate against businesses that don't sell advertising? Yelp is letting you bump up your flagged reviews if you pay an advertising fee. If Yelp's algorithms don't trigger any red flags, positive reviews should show up unfiltered on your page whether you pay for advertising or not.
- Goladus 15y agoHow do you algorithmically distinguish between the two? Maybe it can't. It doesn't matter you use a linear or binary search if the program isn't fed valid data. I'm suggesting they are using an algorithm to solve a problem that it shouldn't be used to solve. And the bots' behavior can change to write more reviews to prevent looking like a bot. Business reputations take time, so when Yelp's algorithm sees "this business has been around since 1975, and 100% of its positive reviews just came in over the past 10 months, where 100% of its reviews were previously negative before that", that should be a red flag. Interesting that you use the term "red flag" since that usually means a "warning" or "needs attention." There's a world of difference between using an algorithm to raise red flags, and using an algorithm to automatically prune content. In fact, a three-decades old small business with a lone, 1-star review should raise a red flag about the 1-star review.