5 ms·

The problem with yelp is that I don't trust other reviewers. Too many bad reviews are docking a business for things I don't care about, or the reviewer went in

The problem with yelp is that I don't trust other reviewers. Too many bad reviews are docking a business for things I don't care about, or the reviewer went in with drastically different expectations than I have, or they are simply trying to extort the business. A buyer like facebook could have some interesting abilities to fix this problem. Filtering to only reviews from people I know would drastically reduce the noise. Additionally, I theoretically know a few things about the reviewer - what their tastes are, what their level of expertise is, etc. That added context seems like it would add a lot of value to the review. In a sense, it becomes more of a recommendation than a review, which is what I really wanted in the first place.

lbotos 11y ago
I've always wanted a "friend circle" yelp where It showed you recommendations from friends of friends/people you know so you could temper the rating with what you know about the person reviewing.
- munificent 11y ago
  I believe Google+ actually does this.
- lazerwalker 11y ago
  Foursquare does this. Explicitly shows you your 4sq/Swarm friends' relationships to the place (have they been there? saved it to a list? said they 'like it' or 'dislike it'?), and then in the list of tips/reviews surfaces the stuff your friends have left before others. When searching, you can even filter for "only show me places my friends have been".
alwaysdoit 11y ago
I always wish I could filter out vegetarians, and I'm sure they feel the same way about me. I'll go to a vegetarian restaurant, but only if non-vegetarians say it's good.
- bane 11y ago
  And Sushi. Unless the fish is literally rotting on the plate, Americans will pretty much give high marks to just about any Sushi hut.
  - applecore 11y ago
    Where in the USA are you referring to? You can find better sushi in New York City than you can in Tokyo (and the reviews reflect that fact).
    - 6t6t6 11y ago
      [citation needed]
pki 11y ago
I've seen 5 star reviews with LOOKS COOL IM GOING NEXT MONTH, like, WTF?
bsbechtel 11y ago
Reviews across the Internet have a problem of all averaging out to 3.5-4.5 stars. There needs to be some serious innovation in review/recommendation engines for user submitted reviews to be valuable to other users.
- gcr 11y ago
  Something like a system that lets people say "This restaurant is better than that restaurant" or some other simple way to establish a partial ordering?
- silverlake 11y ago
  > a problem of all averaging out to 3.5-4.5 stars This is not a problem, it's sampling bias. If you went to restaurants randomly, then your average rating would be lower. But if you purposely select restaurants that you tend to like, then the average must be higher. Same for books, music, and everything on Amazon.
  - bsbechtel 11y ago
    If the reviews fail to provide an accurate assessment of the product's value to the potential consumer considering the purchase, then it's a problem. Sampling bias would be the root cause of that problem.
  - freehunter 11y ago
    This is where Netflix ratings really shine. The Big Lebowski on my Netflix profile shows as five red stars. On my wife's, it's two red stars. Netflix guesses that I would really like the movie, while they don't think my wife would enjoy it much at all. And that's completely true. However, they give her a rating of five red stars for Masterchef, a show she actually loves. They give me four red stars, because I've rated other reality shows and other cooking shows lower in the past. So if Yelp had that kind of thing, this person rated McDonald's highly, they'll probably like Burger King. This person liked Subway but hated McDonalds, so they'll probably like Jimmy John's but not Wendy's. Even more specifically, this person liked Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich, they'll probably like Subway's sriracha buffalo chicken sub. That's the kind of investment and innovation that drivers user interaction.
ljk 11y ago
Also the system is not consistent enough to really tell anything about the experience. There are reviews that had 4-5 stars that only had simple statements like "it was pretty good" to multiple paragraphs about how one tiny part of the meal not being satisfactory and had 1 star. I feel like a lot of the people who write reviews on Yelp are not really qualified to do so(not that there's a lot at stake..)
- jinushaun 11y ago
  I keep saying. Yelp needs private ratings, and it needs detailed rating for Elite reviewers. A bad review is a review that praises the meal, but gives 1 star because they couldn't accommodate 8 people in a timely manner. That's all over Yelp. You have to separate the food, the decor and the service.
nether 11y ago
There needs to be Netflix style predictive reviews: "Based on Yelpers with review histories like yours, our guess for your rating is 4 stars." And maybe a rottentomatoes-esque separate average rating using only ratings from "top Yelpers."
serve_yay 11y ago
I don't trust them either, but I think that's OK. Just looking at pictures of the food on Yelp is a pretty big thing. But besides that, the comments can tell you things you otherwise might not know, like certain things are only available on some days of the week, or the house specialty is such-and-such, that sort of thing. It's good for facts, skip all the "We found ourselves peckish on a recent gloomy Thursday afternoon..." garbage.

lbotos 11y ago

I've always wanted a "friend circle" yelp where It showed you recommendations from friends of friends/people you know so you could temper the rating with what you know about the person reviewing.

munificent 11y ago
I believe Google+ actually does this.
lazerwalker 11y ago
Foursquare does this. Explicitly shows you your 4sq/Swarm friends' relationships to the place (have they been there? saved it to a list? said they 'like it' or 'dislike it'?), and then in the list of tips/reviews surfaces the stuff your friends have left before others. When searching, you can even filter for "only show me places my friends have been".

alwaysdoit 11y ago

I always wish I could filter out vegetarians, and I'm sure they feel the same way about me. I'll go to a vegetarian restaurant, but only if non-vegetarians say it's good.

bane 11y ago
And Sushi. Unless the fish is literally rotting on the plate, Americans will pretty much give high marks to just about any Sushi hut.
- applecore 11y ago
  Where in the USA are you referring to? You can find better sushi in New York City than you can in Tokyo (and the reviews reflect that fact).
  - 6t6t6 11y ago
    [citation needed]

pki 11y ago

I've seen 5 star reviews with LOOKS COOL IM GOING NEXT MONTH, like, WTF?

bsbechtel 11y ago

Reviews across the Internet have a problem of all averaging out to 3.5-4.5 stars. There needs to be some serious innovation in review/recommendation engines for user submitted reviews to be valuable to other users.

gcr 11y ago
Something like a system that lets people say "This restaurant is better than that restaurant" or some other simple way to establish a partial ordering?
silverlake 11y ago
> a problem of all averaging out to 3.5-4.5 stars This is not a problem, it's sampling bias. If you went to restaurants randomly, then your average rating would be lower. But if you purposely select restaurants that you tend to like, then the average must be higher. Same for books, music, and everything on Amazon.
- bsbechtel 11y ago
  If the reviews fail to provide an accurate assessment of the product's value to the potential consumer considering the purchase, then it's a problem. Sampling bias would be the root cause of that problem.
- freehunter 11y ago
  This is where Netflix ratings really shine. The Big Lebowski on my Netflix profile shows as five red stars. On my wife's, it's two red stars. Netflix guesses that I would really like the movie, while they don't think my wife would enjoy it much at all. And that's completely true. However, they give her a rating of five red stars for Masterchef, a show she actually loves. They give me four red stars, because I've rated other reality shows and other cooking shows lower in the past. So if Yelp had that kind of thing, this person rated McDonald's highly, they'll probably like Burger King. This person liked Subway but hated McDonalds, so they'll probably like Jimmy John's but not Wendy's. Even more specifically, this person liked Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich, they'll probably like Subway's sriracha buffalo chicken sub. That's the kind of investment and innovation that drivers user interaction.

ljk 11y ago

Also the system is not consistent enough to really tell anything about the experience. There are reviews that had 4-5 stars that only had simple statements like "it was pretty good" to multiple paragraphs about how one tiny part of the meal not being satisfactory and had 1 star. I feel like a lot of the people who write reviews on Yelp are not really qualified to do so(not that there's a lot at stake..)

jinushaun 11y ago
I keep saying. Yelp needs private ratings, and it needs detailed rating for Elite reviewers. A bad review is a review that praises the meal, but gives 1 star because they couldn't accommodate 8 people in a timely manner. That's all over Yelp. You have to separate the food, the decor and the service.

nether 11y ago

There needs to be Netflix style predictive reviews: "Based on Yelpers with review histories like yours, our guess for your rating is 4 stars." And maybe a rottentomatoes-esque separate average rating using only ratings from "top Yelpers."

serve_yay 11y ago

I don't trust them either, but I think that's OK. Just looking at pictures of the food on Yelp is a pretty big thing. But besides that, the comments can tell you things you otherwise might not know, like certain things are only available on some days of the week, or the house specialty is such-and-such, that sort of thing. It's good for facts, skip all the "We found ourselves peckish on a recent gloomy Thursday afternoon..." garbage.