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Yelp has a system. It doesn't seem to be perfect; I've seen what looks like both false-negative and false-positive classification of fake reviews. But it seems

Yelp has a system. It doesn't seem to be perfect; I've seen what looks like both false-negative and false-positive classification of fake reviews. But it seems to work decently well. One thing I do like about their system is that you can click a link to read the reviews they consider "not recommended." Here's what they say about it publicly: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/11/yelp-recommended-reviews.html http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/11/yelp-recommended-review...

primitivesuave 12y ago
Let me just say that Yelp's classification system is complete crap. Until a user starts actively using Yelp, their reviews get filtered out, which excludes most people who only post a review because they loved a certain business. Sometimes, five star reviews will vanish after months of being up, all because of a change in the algorithm. And the Yelp business team is extremely unresponsive when there is a clearly illegitimate review that needs to be removed, or really when there is any concern whatsoever. This may not be the best place to bash Yelp, but if you're reading this, please don't pay Yelp for their exorbitantly-priced business service. It is absolute garbage.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  Also it discourages any new people from participating. I signed up, posted a few reviews of businesses I'd been going to for years, then noticed they got filtered out and stopped participating. And frankly, I don't have seem to have a lot of tastes in common with the hardcore Yelp users.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    I reached this conclusion when the top two restaurants in a big city were a Mexican place and Greek food truck.
- batguano 12y ago
  Heh, I actually agree with you (and emodendroket's) observation that Yelp buries reviews by new posters. (That's discouraged me from posting, too.) Maybe I was too generous by saying their system works "decently well"; though I don't think I'd say "complete crap"--unless my business had been burned by fake bad reviews, which it sounds like happened to you. Perhaps this illustrates how subtle/difficult this problem is.

primitivesuave 12y ago

Let me just say that Yelp's classification system is complete crap. Until a user starts actively using Yelp, their reviews get filtered out, which excludes most people who only post a review because they loved a certain business. Sometimes, five star reviews will vanish after months of being up, all because of a change in the algorithm. And the Yelp business team is extremely unresponsive when there is a clearly illegitimate review that needs to be removed, or really when there is any concern whatsoever. This may not be the best place to bash Yelp, but if you're reading this, please don't pay Yelp for their exorbitantly-priced business service. It is absolute garbage.

emodendroket 12y ago
Also it discourages any new people from participating. I signed up, posted a few reviews of businesses I'd been going to for years, then noticed they got filtered out and stopped participating. And frankly, I don't have seem to have a lot of tastes in common with the hardcore Yelp users.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  I reached this conclusion when the top two restaurants in a big city were a Mexican place and Greek food truck.
batguano 12y ago
Heh, I actually agree with you (and emodendroket's) observation that Yelp buries reviews by new posters. (That's discouraged me from posting, too.) Maybe I was too generous by saying their system works "decently well"; though I don't think I'd say "complete crap"--unless my business had been burned by fake bad reviews, which it sounds like happened to you. Perhaps this illustrates how subtle/difficult this problem is.