[aerovistae]

> factual elements of the reviews

What facts can you really share though? This isn't a court situation, where evidence is scrutinized and held up to rigorous standards. So what are you really expecting? Transcripts of conversations? Financial documents? I don't really understand what kind of "facts" you would be looking for.

Reviews are all about "how was your subjective experience there." If the answer is "awful, the company treated me poorly," then that's a legitimate review. Why would you discount it?

[hn_throwaway_99]

Because there is a big difference between "awful, the company treated me poorly" and something like "I got 4 consecutive quarters of positive reviews, including a bonus and a raise, but then when there was a change in management I was let go with the reason being 'poor performance'." Something like that would let me know the company is immature with respect to how it managed employee growth.

[aerovistae]

That's a great example of a specific factual incident!

But, A.) you don't know if these "facts" are true, so they shouldn't really add much weight, and B.) not all situations come down to something so specific and citable. Sometimes, people are just really obnoxious to be around, and they're rude and impatient and temperamental and it's a daily thing and that's all there is to it, and you can't really boil that down to such a nice clean sentence as in your example.

[chii]

Just because there's some numbers doesn't mean it's factual.

Annecdotal, not factual. And both should be treated with same level of scrutiny.

[netheril96]

> Annecdotal, not factual.

Anecdotes are not the opposite to facts. They are only opposites to whole facts.

[bluntfang]

oh shit that actually happened to me! man thanks for validating my terrible experience with my last company :P