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Old 04-05-2018, 10:36 AM   #21
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Hmm, I never looked at it that way. When the burger joint goes to the top of the list, I just figure it's because [assuming an equal level of fidelity across all reviews] the burgers must be stupendous, whereas the foo-food and accompanying service is, considering its much higher price, just so-so.
+1

I don't care if it's a $2.00 meal or $200.

Two of the worst meals ever. 1. A McTartare burger. Absolutely raw in the middle. 2. A fine meal at The Phoenix in downtown KCMO. They sent me to the gastrointestinal unit for several days. Salmonella is no joke.
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Old 04-05-2018, 10:53 AM   #22
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Plus it is based on the "number of reviews."

A Hilton Garden Inn is likely going to get more reviews than a Conrad just because of the price point even though the Conrad should be much better than the Hilton Garden Inn. Therefore the HGI will likely be higher rated.

Unfortunately I base my hotels a lot on Trip Adviser. It's dumb because I'm sure there are nice hotels lower on the list but I probably won't stay unless they are in the top 20%--# 20/100 or 200/1000--I plug in my price point and it narrows it down a lot.

Another VENT--I will plug in my price and then go to the official site and it's often 50% more than TA states. TA will use the lowest possible price, such as a single bed in Europe which I don't think many people want or no refunds.
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Old 04-05-2018, 11:00 AM   #23
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Hmm, I never looked at it that way. When the burger joint goes to the top of the list, I just figure it's because [assuming an equal level of fidelity across all reviews] the burgers must be stupendous, whereas the foo-food and accompanying service is, considering its much higher price, just so-so.
Me too. I at least kind of rate it based on expectations. A burger place is going to have to be really really good to get 5* from me, but it certainly can. If the food or service at a high end place isn't good, I'm certainly going to knock it down because I expected really good based on the price.
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Old 04-05-2018, 01:41 PM   #24
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Me too. I at least kind of rate it based on expectations. A burger place is going to have to be really really good to get 5* from me, but it certainly can. If the food or service at a high end place isn't good, I'm certainly going to knock it down because I expected really good based on the price.
Agree. If I'm writing a review of a brewpub, I'll rate it in terms of all the other brewpubs I've been to lately. Certainly not in terms of how it stands against other types of restaurant. Seems to me that if people don't read the reviews with that in mind, they just don't understand how it's supposed to work.
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Old 04-05-2018, 02:09 PM   #25
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I use tripadvisor and the hotel chains own reviews. Haven't been steered yet, we stay in 5 to 15 different hotels a year in our annual travels.
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Old 04-05-2018, 02:19 PM   #26
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I was not aware of this on Trip Advisor (it's called astroturfing -- correct?)

My sis-in-law has a home-based business and "reviews" herself under fake Facebook accounts and asks family and friends to write reviews as well. I told her I wouldn't because I wasn't one of her customers, and tried to explain that it was also unethical (that was a waste of time).

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The thing I do not like is they allow the reviewee to message you back.
Oh yeah. I gave a place an unflattering review once and -- Wow! -- did I get an profanity-laced message from the owner!
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Old 04-05-2018, 02:26 PM   #27
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I left a pretty detailed review. TripAdvisor removed it because the restaurant said that I must've gotten it confused with another place. I told TripAdvisor I was absolutely certain I had the right place, even had a picture in front of it, and that this was a bogus way to get a good overall rating, by getting the bad ones removed.
I had this experience with Yelp (and it was one of the reasons I dumped Yelp).

I wrote a pretty balanced review of a place that only had around 10 reviews -- they were all glowing reviews by people with one or two reviews. Even though I was a Yelp "Elite" reviewer with a couple of hundred reviews, they complained and Yelp removed my review.
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Old 04-05-2018, 03:12 PM   #28
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I use Fakespot.

https://www.fakespot.com

It analyzes reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, Amazon...and assigns a grade. Super helpful.
Interesting- I checked a resort in Nepal where I just stayed and had written a review of my own; the indication was that 50% of the 931 reviews might be fake. (I now have 300 reviews and gave it 4 stars.) Will definitely be using fakespot in the future.
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Old 04-05-2018, 03:30 PM   #29
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Like others, when I write a restaurant review (I have written maybe ten.) I rate it based on what it represents itself to be. A place in IL that advertises itself as a specialist in horseshoe sandwiches and delivers the goods could well get a higher rating than a Ruth's Chris that served an overdone steak.

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... Two of the worst meals ever. 1. A McTartare burger. Absolutely raw in the middle. ...
I never heard of a McTartare burger but you do know that steak tartare is beef served raw, right?
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Old 04-05-2018, 03:51 PM   #30
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I can't recall ever feeling I was completely misled by a TA review.

Yes I don't trust reviewers with low numbers of reviews and hotels or restaurants which only have a handful of reviews.
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Old 04-05-2018, 03:58 PM   #31
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Yelp has a similar problem.
I read 300+ Yelp reviews daily and flag all the fake ones.
Many, most, get nuked.

You can do the same with TripAdvisor.
That’s good to know with Yelp. Although sounds like they are too ready to remove bad reviews if the restaurant complains.

I don’t trust TripAdvisor. I think they have a conflict of interest because they sometimes enter into agreements with hotels, etc., being reviewed, and in some cases this may skew the reviews.

And there are other conflicts of interest.
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Old 04-05-2018, 04:01 PM   #32
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I'm a compensated reviewer for a big box store. I've told my story before. I get free product for review. It is all in the open, as our reviews are tagged.

Nothing fake about it if you follow the given rules.

However, the psychology of writing a review for compensation plays with your brain. I recently had a kitchen faucet that was the biggest piece of garbage I ever saw. Gave it a 1, wish I could have given it a zero. Yet, my fellow compensated reviewers gave it a 5. I swear that many of them didn't even install it or open the box, they just resold it on ebay. This is all against the rules. No matter, when money is involved, the fakery creeps in.

I wish my Big Box sugar daddy would pay more attention to these people, who, by the way, the big box outlet chose. You don't apply for this. They need to cull more of the reviewers who fall into this bad habit.
I have run into many products that have ONLY been reviewed by people who openly stated they’d received the product. It makes me very leery of the product. I’m less likely to buy.
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Old 04-05-2018, 04:47 PM   #33
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Fakespot is very interesting.
I just tried it out on three hotels we recently stayed at. Two were in Europe, one in the US.

The European hotels had great reviews on TripAdvisor, and we also thought they were wonderful. Fakespot gave them both low scores, but I really think it's because a lot of the reviews were in other languages. The one in the US got a high Fakespot score, which seemed much more accurate. So I think they do best when the reviews are in English.
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Old 04-05-2018, 05:23 PM   #34
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I never heard of a McTartare burger but you do know that steak tartare is beef served raw, right?
I assumed he was indicating that he received a bad hamburger from McDonalds.
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Old 04-05-2018, 05:43 PM   #35
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I've gone to Yelp reviews that were awesome and then some that were horrid. As far as I'm concerned they are just as much a crapshoot as picking our a place by random.
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Old 04-05-2018, 05:55 PM   #36
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Re: the product provider contacting you after you review...

Well, I nearly stopped reviewing on Amazon due to this. After a few bad reviews, I got pummeled by the product provider to "help" me so I could change my review to 5-star. One product was a little USB key to provide bluetooth. They insisted on sending me another version of their cheap piece of junk to make me "happy." I got it, but it still didn't work. Obviously a software problem. No problem, they'll send me another to make me "5-star happy." I had to tell them to STOP already, my review was what it was. They responded with a cry-baby response on how this mom and pop outfit would die due to my one response.

Ridiculous.

On my big-box reviewer job, they don't allow modifications of the original review. On one hand, I don't like this because I can't modify something that breaks 6 months later. But on the other hand, it stops the nonsense I got on Amazon where they brow-beat you to change a review.
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Old 04-05-2018, 05:59 PM   #37
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I assumed he was indicating that he received a bad hamburger from McDonalds.
If so, the reference was too subtle for me! Steak tartare burgers do exist.
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Old 04-05-2018, 06:15 PM   #38
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The European hotels had great reviews on TripAdvisor, and we also thought they were wonderful. Fakespot gave them both low scores, but I really think it's because a lot of the reviews were in other languages. The one in the US got a high Fakespot score, which seemed much more accurate. So I think they do best when the reviews are in English.
Thanks for this observation; I checked 3 places I rated highly in the US and two got "A" scores and one a "B". The "B" was for a pub/distillery that opened less than a year ago and has only 38 reviews. The food was standard pub stuff but their small-batch wheat whisky was so good I bought a bottle to take home.

I'll just have to take the Fakespot scores with a grain of salt when researching places with a lot of reviews in languages other than English.
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Old 04-05-2018, 09:40 PM   #39
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Like others, when I write a restaurant review (I have written maybe ten.) I rate it based on what it represents itself to be. A place in IL that advertises itself as a specialist in horseshoe sandwiches and delivers the goods could well get a higher rating than a Ruth's Chris that served an overdone steak.

I never heard of a McTartare burger but you do know that steak tartare is beef served raw, right?
Well you haven't lived until you've had a McDonald's patty served raw in the middle. Yummy.

BTW: That was the only McDonald's I've ever seen that went paws up.
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Old 04-06-2018, 12:31 AM   #40
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On a related note, you gotta love these fake Amazon reviews

https://www.amazon.com/Hutzler-571-B.../dp/B0047E0EII
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