[bradenb]

While I think you mostly played this right I also greatly dislike people leaving totally binary reviews. 1 star because they had sleazy review tactics? This is part of the problem. We need unbiased reviews now more than ever. So many people aren't going to share your principles so trying for force the issue by giving a misleading rating is not a good approach. I think it would have been much better to just review it based on the product you're purchasing and if you feel so inclined put a big "DISCLAIMER" at the top that people will read first that goes into your feelings on the matter.

[smoe]

I usually only ever read the 3 out of 5 stars reviews. Unless there is a ton of it, 1 star reviews are often outliers having had a bad experience, people who clearly haven’t read the product description or having some gripe otherwise. The 5 stars often have the feel (fake or not) that they would give that rating no matter the quality of the product. Whereas 3 star reviews often point out shortcomings of the product that might or might not affect me, so it is the most useful.

[radlad]

You're implying the review is about the product. If the review is about the company (e.g. a restaurant), then a 1-star review is warranted, if you feel that a company which games reviews is a 1-star company.

I certainly do.

[ghayes]

This is why I do like the reviews on food delivery apps. You separately rate the food and the courier so that one doesn’t affect the other’s score too dramatically.

[oldkn]

Which food delivery apps do you have in mind? In my experience they are heavily engineered towards leaving only positive reviews, and as a result the range of scores is 4.0-5.0 rather than 1-5. Ubereats says things like "this review will be public with your name", and the timing of the review prompt and wording of the question all feels like it's trying to optimize the chance of a positive review.

[EpicEng]

Create a system in which people almost always defer to the highest score and then blame the little guy for trying to game it. I don't blame them at all. Nearly everyone else is doing it, so not doing it means it's harder to feed your kids.

BTW, we're the ones who created these systems.

[jjeaff]

Reviews about the company or service rather than the product are a pet peeve of mine for food. I want to know if it is good food first and foremost. I could care less if the waitress gave you a dirty look when you asked that your steak be cooked well done.

[radlad]

What if you watched the server sneeze on the food, but it tasted delicious?

You can't separate the service part of the job from a company that offers services.

Some review systems offer breakdowns to separate these two components.

[mitchdoogle]

Service is part of the experience when dining out, so I think it makes sense to include that as a factor for restaurant reviews. Of course, the platform should separate out food from service

[Ekaros]

If the top end is already a binary choice. Why not have the low end also be. We have heard how companies like Uber penalise anything but 5-star review. Even if a average ride should be 3-stars without any questions. So why not just go to the other binary end of scale when you have sub average experience?

[jorblumesea]

That's not really the point. Having companies remove paying customer reviews because they [3rd parties] don't like low start reviews just feels shady and a terrible format for any kind of ecosystem.