Yelp

[zitothebrave]

Does anyone actually use Yelp here? I'm just curious as someone who thinks yelp is a giant waste. I can explain my opinion if someone wants me to.

[ESP47]

Zito, you dip ****. Why would you make a thread on a topic and then say you can explain your opinion if someone wants you to? Just give your opinion and let people discuss.

[zitothebrave]

Zito, you dip ****. Why would you make a thread on a topic and then say you can explain your opinion if someone wants you to? Just give your opinion and let people discuss.

I gave my opinion. Yelp is a waste. It's filled with a ton of terrible people. For an example, there's a review for my girlfriend's parent's restaurant, and it's a flat out lie as they said they waited an hour for food, when their standard table turn around (from butts down to butts up) is like 40 minutes iIRC. They're a restaurant who makes their bones on turning over tables. No way did they take an hour to get pancakes to a table. Not even a rookie waiter/waitress would take that long and they don't have too many of them.

[Carp]

People exaggerate when they're mad. It happens

[zitothebrave]

There in lies the issue with Yelp. Reviews are often from life times fans, or from someone who had a bad experience.

[chop2chip]

I have had good experiences with Yelp in larger cities. Larger metro areas seem to shake out a lot of the noise from the exaggerated reviews.

[thethe]

I had a friend that made money off of writing fictitious reviews on Yelp. Don't believe any customer review on any website.

[zitothebrave]

I have had good experiences with Yelp in larger cities. Larger metro areas seem to shake out a lot of the noise from the exaggerated reviews.

Generally true, but the yelp system is sketchy. I was a yelp user years ago, but all my yelp reviews were flagged for some reason. My favorite yelp reviews is when someone gives it 3 stars and raves about something, but says they don't give 4 or 5 stars on principle.

[Carp]

There in lies the issue with Yelp. Reviews are often from life times fans, or from someone who had a bad experience.

Not much different than trip advisor. I honestly use tripadvisor because I find the app better overall and it's just convenient. But people could say the same thing on trip advisor that they are saying on yelp.

[zitothebrave]

Tripadvisor doesn't have the same issues Yelp does.

[Hawk]

I like Yelp and utilize it to find restaurants and misc. attractions when traveling. The key is to take a formulaic approach when analyzing reviews. If the overwhelming majority of reviews are positive, and the overall number of reviews is significant, then you can usually draw the appropriate conclusions. Fake positive reviews and needlessly negative reviews are easy to parse out. If in doubt, cross check Facebook/UrbanSpoon/etc.

Tripadvisor is decent for hotel reviews and sights, but in the past couple of years they have become increasingly corporate; many of the hotel reviews are solicited directly by the hotels themselves and you really have no way of knowing exactly how legitimate they actually are.

I have noticed, in general, that the type of person who reviews on Yelp is more of the wannabe critic (my calamari was soggy and water only refilled twice) while TripAdvisors are cost oriented (omg, free bread!!! or endless praising of the free in-room coffee).

[zitothebrave]

BTW maybe my favorite yelp review from one of my favorite bars

"They should call it BA-Loney's. Food is awful. The beer selection seemed good but the staff didn't have a clue on what to recommend. Even worse, the beer was flat. Guinness and even Smithwicks was flat flat flat. Never ever going again. Sorry, thumbs down."

BTW, I don't really love their food, I don't think they're an amazing on either bar food or entrees but decent. But what you have to realize this bar has like 30 taps or something like that. I've had many beers from there. None of them have been "flat flat flat" but what really makes me laugh and think he's just someone who doesn't get it, is he goes to this bar that has all kinds of craft beer, European Imports such as d'Achouffe, Mikkeller, etc. This guy ordered freaking Guiness and Smithwicks, meaning he's probably about as adventurous as a sock.

[Tapate50]

This thread is dumb dumb dumb.

I'm never going back to it. Ever.

[weso1]

Do I use Yelp? Welp... yep.

[BRule]

I gave my opinion. Yelp is a waste. It's filled with a ton of terrible people. For an example, there's a review for my girlfriend's parent's restaurant, and it's a flat out lie as they said they waited an hour for food, when their standard table turn around (from butts down to butts up) is like 40 minutes iIRC. They're a restaurant who makes their bones on turning over tables. No way did they take an hour to get pancakes to a table. Not even a rookie waiter/waitress would take that long and they don't have too many of them.

So Yelp is bad because your girlfriends parents restaurant sucks. Got it.

[zitothebrave]

So Yelp is bad because your girlfriends parents restaurant sucks. Got it.

Well considering their restaurant has pretty consistently been 4+ rated on tripadvisor, won best of NH several times, and has a James Beard award, I'd say no it doesn't suck. Their yelp score is super high too. Yelp reviewers are the worst.

Then there's this person



BTW a little TL;DR backstory, 2 women rolled into the restaurant, demanded to be seated without reservation and literally just sat at a table threatening to give bad yelp reviews if they didn't serve them.

[BRule]

It's like you don't know how the internet or people work......

[zitothebrave]

It's like you don't know how the internet or people work......

That there's a ton of dumb people who post on the internet. Who seemingly migrate to yelp. The number of reviews I've seen written about places negatively from people who've never been there is hilarious.

[BRule]

That there's a ton of dumb people who post on the internet. Who seemingly migrate to yelp. The number of reviews I've seen written about places negatively from people who've never been there is hilarious.

I can't really help you if you don't see why you're being stupid. I mean........go read any comment section or review site on the internet, which I know you already have/do. If it wasn't your girlfriend, you wouldn't give two ****s.

[zitothebrave]

I can't really help you if you don't see why you're being stupid. I mean........go read any comment section or review site on the internet, which I know you already have/do. If it wasn't your girlfriend, you wouldn't give two ****s.

Actually I've seen it with many businesses. Yelp just caters to the complainers who think they should know how a business is run. Trust me my dislike for yelp has nothing to do with my girlfriend's parents restaurant, I used one example just because I know that wasn't true, they have only a small handful of negative reviews (like 1 1 star from someone who wasn't seated and 1 2 star and a few 3s) it spawned from some awesome places I used to go to back in NJ that had a handful of people go out blasting 1s for it because of dumb **** that drove their rating down and potentially cost them money. Yelp also discourages interaction with reviewers so businesses can't publicly address the issue. Pick on another one, woman goes on a rant about not having more gluten free options at a cali-mex restaurant in NJ. Not realizing that wheat tortillas are most commonly associated with cali-mex. Essentially her lack of knowledge of a style of a style of cuisine led to her dislike of the menu selection. A bit of research and she'd realize she'd probably want tex-mex or traditional mexican where things are done with corn. But like the ignorant consumer that all too often consumes yelp, she assumed she was right.