Why I don't trust Menupages.ie, Qype or any other restaurant review sites

They always either rant about how awful everything is or praise the features in suspiciously oily language.

This got me thinking: what motivates a member of the public to log on to one of these sites and post a review? Overwhelmingly, I think it's an urge to give out.

This leads me to suspect that the only people posting reviews on these sites are cranks and restaurant employees.

Comments

[Justin Mason]

I dunno. I've posted good reviews before. if you find a good site with useful, correct reviews, that motivates you to reciprocate with good reviews of your own.

So far none of the Irish review sites have managed to curate enough of a community to do this. Allowing astroturfing to happen is a sure-fire community-killer IMO...

[Justin Mason]

how's that for timing. I just saw on twitter that a friend of mine in the states is playing this: http://playfoursquare.com/ . Interesting approach...

[Dan]

Ever heard of altruism or attention seeking? You know - the reason why millions of people contribute to OSS projects, post answering questions on forums, contribute to Digg, review on Amazon, post to Yahoo Answers etc etc. These concepts are pretty much the backbone of UGC on the internet, and Qype or MenuPages are no different. I'd suggest you read up on user motivations behind knowledge sharing, the resultant blog post would be a lot more insightful than this one.

[Adrian]

Dan,

Firstly: comparing OSS contributions and forums to local restaurant reviews? Sorry, hard to equalise those two.

Secondly, forgive my suspicion but the phrase "user motivations behind knowledge sharing" sounds like an industry term...

[Adrian]

Dan,

Do you work for Qype?

After I left the last comment, I felt a bit guilty that I had perhaps jumped to a conclusion about your motivation for your comment. So I checked my comment logs.

But it seems to suggest -- and forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm not 100% on these things -- that you're commenting from Qype?

No worries if so. Just helpful to identify your background when making a call either way.

Thanks for commenting.

[Peter]

Maybe you should post some reviews to the site yourself? Seeing some rational comments and reviews could inspire others, and before you know it you'd have a fantastic site at your disposal full of reliable reviews :D

[Rupert]

I completely disgree that the only people posting reviews on local review sites are cranks and restaurant employees.

For example, I really like curry, I have a number of friends of who really like curry, so whenever one of us tries out a new curry house we'll let the others know (just through casual, run of the mill chat, there are no weekly newsletters or anything) whether it's worth trying or not.

Writing a review on User-Review sites is just an evolution of this process, so it stands to reason that anyone who is motivated enough to discuss their opinions on a restaurant, pub, stonemason, etc with their friends, whilst down the pub should also share them online.

As the chap above said, people love to use the internet to share their opinion, baring this in mind it seems slightly odd to me that someone who blogs as frequently as you do would call into question the motivations people have to post their opinions online.

[Adrian]

Hi Rupert,

Sorry, but your IP address is the same as Dan's (the guy above who works for Qype).

I don't understand why you don't disclose this: you're not a neutral commenter here: I suspect you might agree with me if you did not have a prior allegiance to a company described in this post.

Cheers

Adrian

[manuel]

oh I agree........

http://welldonefillet.blogspot.com/2009/03/democracy-eh.html

"...online restaurant reviews definitely do suck scrotal sack. Again, this requires qualification. Reviews carried out by professional eaters/reviewers (a job I yearn for, obviously) who know what they are yammering on about and have the ability to construct it into a coherent sentence and not only have spellchecker but know how to use it, they are okay"

[cgarvey]

Janey mack, Adrian, it seems you're even more cynical than me ;)

You're right to take the reviews with a grain of salt (because, after all, you don't know the reviewers), but to write them off altogether seems a bit extreme.

Like with spoken word, it takes more reviews from reviewers you don't know/trust, to establish an opinion you're happy with. You'd be happy to go with the opinion of your best friend, but it'd take many anonymous reviews to convince you.

While some self-reviews are done quite covertly, most are not, and that becomes easy to spot. Also, if there are many reviews, you'll get the general picture.

Why contribute a review? To give one more opinion which will help balance out extreme opinions or self-reviews. Every one else will gain from that 2 minutes you spend.

I'm struggling to believe that you've never gained from an online review, mind you!

[Conor O'Neill]

The data around reviews simply doesn't support your assertion that "the only people posting reviews on these sites are cranks and restaurant employees.". The industry average score for reviews of anything is 4.3/5 (we see that in LouderVoice too) indicating that most people write reviews to give positive feedback about products and services not to bitch about them.

I've been writing reviews on Blogs/Twitter/LouderVoice/Amazon/etc for years and most of them are positive. By and large, I want to recommend not condemn. Most reviewers have the same view. The media obsession with the tiny percentage of negative reviews, trolls and fakers really distracts from the value that user reviews give.

We can usually spot fake reviews from a mile away and rather than spiking them, we call out the reviewer in the comments. Doing this results in the review achieving the complete opposite of what the "reviewer" intended.

I've eaten in more rubbish places recommended by the well-known "professionals" than I care to remember. I'll take the opinion of the average person on the street in an instant over a pro because they are giving the experience of being a nobody just like me.

Any restaurant that sees Tom Doorley walking in and gives him a bad meal should be shut down on the spot. It's how they treat the rest of us that I'm more interested in. Also let's not forget that most of the so-called pros in Ireland have neither culinary nor journalism training so they really are no different from us amateurs, they just get paid to do it.

Might be worth doing a longer researched piece on review sites at some stage? I'm sure all of the Irish sites would be more than happy to provide you with the data you need.

[Michael G]

Hi adrian

unlike our colleagues at Q I will be upfront. I am behind an Irish social review site that will launch very soon called whoseview.ie. First off tell these guys at Q that astroturfing on your blog is illegal. To answer your orginal question, there are lots of stats out there to show that consumers now rely on other people's recommendations more than any other medium. If we also look at UGC review sites we will see that on average 75% of the reviews are generally positive, as opposed to simply rants. How to trust a review, that's the question. It all depends on how you enable profiles & communities flurish around the reviews, so we can make our own informed opinions as to whether it's bogus or real. Existing Irish review sites don't answer this question, hence your reason to be suspicious.

[Rob Hinchcliffe]

Guys, I work for Qype (I'm the UK Community Manager).

I read your post when it was first published, had a brief conversation with the guys in the office about responding, but felt that Justin (the first commenter) had said it for us.

I'd thought I'd post here as a bona fide Qype employee just to show that there's no fear about entering these kind of conversations, and that we don't feel the need to astroturf blogs in any situation.

If anyone wants to ask me anything then I'll keep an eye on these comments or you can email me direct on Rob@qype.com. Thanks.

[Adrian Weckler]

Conor,

But that's my point -- I do not have faith that these reviews are made by "the average man in the street".

(Take the astroturfers, for example.)

Perhaps you, a seasoned veteran of review comments, can spot a fake a mile off. Perhaps you cannot. But much of the sentence construction -- positive and touching all points of product/service -- that I see on review websites simply smack of insiderism.

Sorry, that's my view.

Thanks for the comment.

[Adrian Weckler]

Rob,

Thanks for the comment. And for being upfront.

I'm not outraged at the other Qypers' lack of disclosure (this is just a blog, so let's keep it all in perspective).

But it kind of makes my central point about not trusting the motivations/backgrounds/connections of those posting on review sites.

Cheers