[aaronsw]

This is a pretty crummy article. If you read it carefully, you see:

- a woman owns a shady company

- she tries to get her friends to write five star reviews of her on Yelp

- Yelp intentionally tries to filter out these reviews so the site isn't filled with spam opinions

- the woman is upset

The real question is why there's a news story taking her side in this.

[freeslave]

I think it was a useful, informative article. Why do you say she runs a shady company? Electrolysis, as far as I know, is a legitimate hair removal technique. I understand Yelp filtering out what they may see as astroturfing reviews, but on the other hand I can certainly understand a business owner getting customers to submit positive reviews to counter negative effects of Yelp. Finally, is paying $350 a month to Yelp now considered a normal cost of running a bricks and mortar business these days? Unbelievable.

[andrewcross]

Agreed. Not to say there isn't a problem with Yelp's practices (as have been documented elsewhere), but this article does not make a good case against them.

From an algorithmic standpoint, filtering out reviews from new users makes sense. Otherwise you'll get the owner and friends stuffing in good reviews.

Just look at what the data might look like for the 17 people. -They all sign up in a period of a few weeks. -They all review this one place and nothing else. -16 of the 17 never sign back in again.

It's pretty clear that it's a blatant rating stuff, so filter it out. Again, I'm not saying that the algorithm is perfect, but it makes sense to at least filter out these reviews.

[twoodfin]

> (as have been documented elsewhere)

I don't think that really has been documented elsewhere. There have been lawsuits and allegations, but no proof, as far as I know, that Yelp has offered to compromise their reviews for cash. Yes, they give business owners willing to advertise some editorial control over their listing, but the extent of that control is fairly well-understood and not much more nefarious than Google's text ads. Correct me if there's documented evidence otherwise.

Instead, we get article after article of business owners complaining because their Yelp reviews suck and their obvious attempts to game them have been thwarted. But that's exactly what Yelp should be doing. They're useless if they can be gamed. They're also useless if it becomes well-known that they're pay-to-play, but again, I don't think there's actual evidence of that. They'd have to be pretty stupid to take that course.

[kaizenfury7]

>> Just look at what the data might look like for the 17 people. -They all sign up in a period of a few weeks. -They all review this one place and nothing else. -16 of the 17 never sign back in again.

Looking at the 17 filtered reviews, 16 of them are 5-star reviews from people with 0 friends and less than 5 reviews (mostly only have 1 review). There's also a 1-star review from a person with 0 friends and 1 review.

It seems like to me that their filtering algorithm is working pretty well.

[crusso]

> The real question is why there's a news story taking her side in this.

You also have to wonder why HN upvoted it so that it appears in the top 5 threads.

The news story is probably just looking for a sensationalist headline that will get them hits.

What's our excuse? :)

[hack_edu]

Linkbait titles combined with the lack of ability to downvote stories. Even though I think restricting the downvote is a good idea, it contributes to this problem quite a bit.

And don't even get me started on the lack of ability to vote or comment on YC companies job posting spam (the reason for which I also understand)... I've spoken with a handful of these companies that end up listing multiple times, and even they have expressed interest in votes/comments simply to get feedback as to why their listings don't seem to work.

[brianjyee]

The article says she asked her customers to post genuine reviews. I don't know if that's true but if it is, I see nothing shady about asking your customers to post reviews. There is definitely a conflict of interest on Yelp's side, but I don't see a good solution to the spam problem.

[tptacek]

Both things can be true: that Yelp has and exploits a conflict of interest, and that this article chose a pretty bad example of a business harmed by that practice.

[qdpb]

Yelp specifically mentions that this would lead to blacklisting of comments in their help, for the reasons of resulting bias (you only ask customers who are happy, you might provide a discount or preferential treatment etc).

[bguthrie]

Yes, it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that Yelp is filtering fly-by-night reviewers "for no good reason."

[chris_wot]

The unfortunate thing for Yelp is that there is a cornucopia of stories of similar things - but often it's because folks say they didn't pay Yelp for further advertising.

I'd never use Yelp for reviews. Either they are glowing when they shouldn't be, or they are rubbish when they should be glowing. Who would want to use a site like that?!?

[Cyranix]

I didn't pick up on her business being "shady" -- what exactly indicates that?