The other problem with the one-star reviews is that since the livelihood of the person (or company) is directly affected by it - they fight tooth and nail to hi

The other problem with the one-star reviews is that since the livelihood of the person (or company) is directly affected by it - they fight tooth and nail to hide it or somehow drown it by putting fake 5 star reviews on top of it. Something which they won't necessarily resort to. This is of course based on my own personal experience but at least on tripadvisor.com I have seen this happen a lot. Every time there is a 1-star review of a hotel you can can bet that there will be 3-4, 5 star reviews on top of it by reviewers who have left 1 review in total (suggesting they are fake or outsourced) just so that the 1-star review can be bumped to page 2 or drowned.