4 ms·

Sounds like real names have power, then, no? If I know that you, as mawburn, are backing a review with your personal reputation, I'm going to believe it a lot

by ISL 12y ago

Sounds like real names have power, then, no? If I know that you, as mawburn, are backing a review with your personal reputation, I'm going to believe it a lot more.

ssmoot 12y ago
That should be his choice though. (For myself, as an avid Yelp user, I don't care. It's mostly easy to pick up good vs bad reviews IME.) I also don't have a lot of sympathy for "small business owners" wanting to fight bad reviews. I don't need or want your pointless TripAdvisor style feedback. It's antagonistic, and likely to discourage good reviews. The playing field is level. That's all that really matters. So you get a few completely bogus, unfair reviews? So what. You're in the same boat as anyone else. Give me anonymized data. And while some few businesses will suffer, the amount of reviews encouraged will serve a greater good. At least that's my theory.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mawburn 12y ago
Why should it matter if it's my personal reputation or an online persona? A legitimate review, is a legitimate review. There are plenty of people out there writing legitimate things online under online personas, like mawburn. If I read a review from Joe Bob, I don't know Joe Bob and I don't really care who he is. The fact that I can see his real name makes absolutely no difference to me as a user. All I care about is what he said. To me, his real name is no more different than if he was Joe B. or J. Bob or redneck69.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  > A legitimate review, is a legitimate review. To filter for legitimate reviews, real identity can be important. That turned out to be what set facebook apart. People transacted online as themselves, and they incorporated real life experiences into their profiles. Reviews that were verified to be by a person, with a verifiable identity, track record, and reputation can raise the signal to noise. If you simply need a valid email address, anyone can make as many reviews as they want with no stakes, which in turn, devalues everyones ratings in general.
tracker1 12y ago
This could be adjusted for other reviews a person does... a lot of fake review accounts don't have many reviews, and tend to lean towards all 5 or 1 stars respectively. It there's a variety of 2-4 star reviews, and actually insightful responses it adds weight even without anonymity. I really wish Amazon would add such weighting to reviews in terms of computing the average stars for a given product since they have this feedback data. There's very little reason others can't do the same... extending location reviews to more than a "like" would go a long way towards helping too.
ProAm 12y ago
> Sounds like real names have power, then, no? It does prevent honest feedback. What's the value in using your real name? As a user I get zero benefit/upside from it, and huge potential downside.
- NeutronBoy 12y ago
  That's pretty much the entire point - the upside is that there's a downside for writing bad review (and by 'bad review' I mean from an objective perspective - terribly written content, content doesn't match rating, etc. Not a negative review of the restaurant).

by ISL 12y ago

Sounds like real names have power, then, no? If I know that you, as mawburn, are backing a review with your personal reputation, I'm going to believe it a lot more.

ssmoot 12y ago

That should be his choice though. (For myself, as an avid Yelp user, I don't care. It's mostly easy to pick up good vs bad reviews IME.) I also don't have a lot of sympathy for "small business owners" wanting to fight bad reviews. I don't need or want your pointless TripAdvisor style feedback. It's antagonistic, and likely to discourage good reviews. The playing field is level. That's all that really matters. So you get a few completely bogus, unfair reviews? So what. You're in the same boat as anyone else. Give me anonymized data. And while some few businesses will suffer, the amount of reviews encouraged will serve a greater good. At least that's my theory.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

mawburn 12y ago

Why should it matter if it's my personal reputation or an online persona? A legitimate review, is a legitimate review. There are plenty of people out there writing legitimate things online under online personas, like mawburn. If I read a review from Joe Bob, I don't know Joe Bob and I don't really care who he is. The fact that I can see his real name makes absolutely no difference to me as a user. All I care about is what he said. To me, his real name is no more different than if he was Joe B. or J. Bob or redneck69.

vonklaus 12y ago
> A legitimate review, is a legitimate review. To filter for legitimate reviews, real identity can be important. That turned out to be what set facebook apart. People transacted online as themselves, and they incorporated real life experiences into their profiles. Reviews that were verified to be by a person, with a verifiable identity, track record, and reputation can raise the signal to noise. If you simply need a valid email address, anyone can make as many reviews as they want with no stakes, which in turn, devalues everyones ratings in general.

tracker1 12y ago

This could be adjusted for other reviews a person does... a lot of fake review accounts don't have many reviews, and tend to lean towards all 5 or 1 stars respectively. It there's a variety of 2-4 star reviews, and actually insightful responses it adds weight even without anonymity. I really wish Amazon would add such weighting to reviews in terms of computing the average stars for a given product since they have this feedback data. There's very little reason others can't do the same... extending location reviews to more than a "like" would go a long way towards helping too.

ProAm 12y ago

> Sounds like real names have power, then, no? It does prevent honest feedback. What's the value in using your real name? As a user I get zero benefit/upside from it, and huge potential downside.

NeutronBoy 12y ago
That's pretty much the entire point - the upside is that there's a downside for writing bad review (and by 'bad review' I mean from an objective perspective - terribly written content, content doesn't match rating, etc. Not a negative review of the restaurant).