4 ms·

‘A source you trust’ no longer including any of the major booking sites, alas. You know what we do now? We get the Lonely Planet.

by jen729w 11mo ago

mandevil 11mo ago
My experience with LP is that they went way down in quality after Red Ventures (who own CNET, Bankrate.com etc.) bought them in 2020. I stopped trusting them completely after the CNET AI scandal- wikipedia no longer considers CNET to be a reliable source, and I'm not sure why I should trust LP either. It turns out that living in a high trust environment is a lot better than living in a low trust environment, but if we're going to be living in a low trust environment, better to understand it than to pretend we can still act like it's still high trust.
HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago
If you still do guidebooks, it’s baffling that you get the Lonely Planet. After all, already in the early millennium there were magazine investigative pieces and tell-all books by former LP writers that the publisher was not actually researching everything on the ground, but was just putting together things found on the internet or making stuff up. I see that there are accusations that recent guides rely on AI generation. What got LP flack has now spread to other guidebook publishers with little furor. I looked at a Rough Guide recently that had all the tell-tale signs that the publisher no longer considers fact-checking and quality control necessary steps. I do like a good guidebook, but in English that means only Bradt these days for its combination of abundant historical context and local knowledge, since so many of its guides are written by people who have been resident in the country for many years and often have an areal-studies background.
- jen729w 11mo ago
  Honestly, all we need is a decent hotel recommendation. LP does the job. We guide ourselves around; that's not the sort of advice we're after. I didn't know this about LP though, and hadn't heard of Bradt. Next time that's what I need, I'll look them up.

‘A source you trust’ no longer including any of the major booking sites, alas. You know what we do now? We get the Lonely Planet.

by jen729w 11mo ago

‘A source you trust’ no longer including any of the major booking sites, alas. You know what we do now? We get the Lonely Planet.

mandevil 11mo ago

My experience with LP is that they went way down in quality after Red Ventures (who own CNET, Bankrate.com etc.) bought them in 2020. I stopped trusting them completely after the CNET AI scandal- wikipedia no longer considers CNET to be a reliable source, and I'm not sure why I should trust LP either. It turns out that living in a high trust environment is a lot better than living in a low trust environment, but if we're going to be living in a low trust environment, better to understand it than to pretend we can still act like it's still high trust.

HeinzStuckeIt 11mo ago

If you still do guidebooks, it’s baffling that you get the Lonely Planet. After all, already in the early millennium there were magazine investigative pieces and tell-all books by former LP writers that the publisher was not actually researching everything on the ground, but was just putting together things found on the internet or making stuff up. I see that there are accusations that recent guides rely on AI generation. What got LP flack has now spread to other guidebook publishers with little furor. I looked at a Rough Guide recently that had all the tell-tale signs that the publisher no longer considers fact-checking and quality control necessary steps. I do like a good guidebook, but in English that means only Bradt these days for its combination of abundant historical context and local knowledge, since so many of its guides are written by people who have been resident in the country for many years and often have an areal-studies background.

jen729w 11mo ago
Honestly, all we need is a decent hotel recommendation. LP does the job. We guide ourselves around; that's not the sort of advice we're after. I didn't know this about LP though, and hadn't heard of Bradt. Next time that's what I need, I'll look them up.