I don't understand the value of crowdsourced restaurant reviews. When I'm looking for a dining establishment, what I care about are simple facts: where is it, what are the hours, what's the menu, is there a dress code, are there fees in addition to the listed prices.
The kinds of subjective assessments you'd typically see in a review such as "I liked (or didn't like) the service" or "the establishment was gross" are ultimately meaningless. They're written by randos with values and expectations that may not necessarily align with mine, so it's a waste of time trying to parse that out. And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption.
What am I missing here? Why do people place so much weight on online restaurant reviews that establishments are willing to fake and game the system?
> When I'm looking for a dining establishment, what I care about are simple facts: where is it, what are the hours, what's the menu, is there a dress code, are there fees in addition to the listed prices.
You don’t care about the intangibles, or things that may be unsavory that a business owner would want to hide? If the waitstaff are consistently rude or horrible in some way, that wouldn’t be put in a website (besides those places where that is the schtick).
> The kinds of subjective assessments you'd typically see in a review such as "I liked (or didn't like) the service" or "the establishment was gross" are ultimately meaningless. They're written by randos with values and expectations that may not necessarily align with mine, so it's a waste of time trying to parse that out. And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption.
Just because your values and expectations don’t align with every rando, doesn’t mean you can’t get signaling cues from reviews. It’s just like product reviews: if most people consistently complain about a specific thing, it probably has some flaw or problem. Praise and general 5 star flattery is less useful, especially in review gamification though.
Crowdsourced reviews often provide objective information that is not offered by the restaurant.
Sometimes the omission is unintentional, but more importantly, independent reviews will write negative things that a restaurant never would.
A restaurant won’t tell you there’s cockroaches running across the floor, or that it takes 30 minutes after being seated to place a drink order.
> And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption
I exclusively shop around the bad reviews. All the fluffy positive comments are noise. People writing real, substantial complaints are much less common an issue. If everyone has the same complaint about a rude owner or a bland dish, that’s some good signal.
I find 2, 3, and 4 star reviews the most useful. 5 star reviews are too effusive, and 1 star reviews are often people that are just upset, spiteful, and want to complain. Honest gripes and complaints are found in the middle.
I don't understand the value of crowdsourced restaurant reviews. When I'm looking for a dining establishment, what I care about are simple facts: where is it, what are the hours, what's the menu, is there a dress code, are there fees in addition to the listed prices.
The kinds of subjective assessments you'd typically see in a review such as "I liked (or didn't like) the service" or "the establishment was gross" are ultimately meaningless. They're written by randos with values and expectations that may not necessarily align with mine, so it's a waste of time trying to parse that out. And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption.
What am I missing here? Why do people place so much weight on online restaurant reviews that establishments are willing to fake and game the system?
> When I'm looking for a dining establishment, what I care about are simple facts: where is it, what are the hours, what's the menu, is there a dress code, are there fees in addition to the listed prices.
You don’t care about the intangibles, or things that may be unsavory that a business owner would want to hide? If the waitstaff are consistently rude or horrible in some way, that wouldn’t be put in a website (besides those places where that is the schtick).
> The kinds of subjective assessments you'd typically see in a review such as "I liked (or didn't like) the service" or "the establishment was gross" are ultimately meaningless. They're written by randos with values and expectations that may not necessarily align with mine, so it's a waste of time trying to parse that out. And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption.
Just because your values and expectations don’t align with every rando, doesn’t mean you can’t get signaling cues from reviews. It’s just like product reviews: if most people consistently complain about a specific thing, it probably has some flaw or problem. Praise and general 5 star flattery is less useful, especially in review gamification though.
Crowdsourced reviews often provide objective information that is not offered by the restaurant. Sometimes the omission is unintentional, but more importantly, independent reviews will write negative things that a restaurant never would. A restaurant won’t tell you there’s cockroaches running across the floor, or that it takes 30 minutes after being seated to place a drink order.
> And that's assuming an environment of honest reviews written in good faith, which isn't a realistic assumption
I exclusively shop around the bad reviews. All the fluffy positive comments are noise. People writing real, substantial complaints are much less common an issue. If everyone has the same complaint about a rude owner or a bland dish, that’s some good signal.
I find 2, 3, and 4 star reviews the most useful. 5 star reviews are too effusive, and 1 star reviews are often people that are just upset, spiteful, and want to complain. Honest gripes and complaints are found in the middle.