4 ms·
Which is why people who know people know that reviews are largely useless.
by dexterdog 5y ago
Which is why people who know people know that reviews are largely useless.
- whimsicalism 5y agoI disagree - but negative reviews certainly almost always are.
- rhacker 5y agoWell, if you're talking about a 4.4 restaurant, they are probably meaningless. There's probably a couple of TRUE negative reviews in there. If the restaurant is a 3.1, then yeah, try to find a different place - there IS hair in the food, the cockroaches are real and the waitress DID stick the hotdog up the you know what.
- whimsicalism 5y agoI'm talking about actually reading the reviews, not looking at the average.
- jet_32951 5y agoDo you not find the dispersion of ratings more interesting than the averages? Within most sites that promote ratings there is often a standard-ish dispersion, and an outlier is of far greater concern to me than the average. A solid 3 for a budget restaurant is of far lower concern than a bathtub distribution, which suggests your visit is a crapshoot.
- ivberrOg 5y agoIs this really a thing? I know that I'm much more likely to share a negative experience and completely forget a positive.. I'd always assumed we were all like that!
- mst 5y agoI suspect it works out kinda like wikipedia/reddit/etc. being mostly written by a small number of people with high output volume.
- goodcanadian 5y agoI find the negative reviews the most useful, not individually, but in aggregate. If several people complain about the same thing, it might actually be an issue. A well written and thoughtful negative review can also contain useful information. If the negative reviews all seem to be random bitching, however, I know the place/product/service is probably fine.
- hedora 5y agoI find the negative reviews are usually the most informative. If all of a restaurant's bad reviews are about service or exceptional situations, that's a strong endorsement for the quality of the food. Pictures of health code violations and stories of health code violations usually raise some red flags (especially if recent). Those are too easy to fake. The most useful ones are when they go through exactly what they thought was right/wrong with the food (and a pattern emerges across the pictures and multiple reviews about different dishes).
- sneak 5y agoUnfortunately for restaurateurs this isn't most people, as reviews are prominently displayed on search results.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]