[personZ]

Our immediate response should be to post negative reviews

"Activism" reviews are what make most online reviews useless. Please don't do that. And those who already have today do nothing but undermine their own reputation.

While the ridiculous penalty claim is outrageous and likely illegal, and their behavior on Yelp is unacceptable, everyone should always take a moment to understand where they're coming from[1]: In this case their gripe seems to be guests who did not specifically select the hotel, knowing what it was about, but instead had the hotel selected for them as members of a wedding party. Their issue is those people then evaluate and rate the hotel based upon it not being another type of hotel.

It's kind of a fair gripe, isn't it? If your normal business suffers because of a secondary business, you need to reassess costs of the second business. Now threatening a fine is hamfisted and simply stupid, but I understand why they want to do something.

[1] “Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.”

[Thriptic]

If the hotel is receiving consistently negative reviews from wedding parties which are unfairly harming their business, then they should stop allowing people to book weddings there. That would seem to be a far more legitimate solution to the problem.

[hawkharris]

Please take a look at my response to danielweber. I'm not advocating that people post fake reviews. I'm saying that we should point out only what we know: some of the other reviews may be disingenuous because of the $500 fine. This is a public policy posted on their website. It's a simple matter of fact, not opinions.

[personZ]

You specifically called for people to post negative reviews. How can someone review something they've never experienced?

Regarding the other reviews being disingenuous or skewed, note that this policy only apparently applies and has ever even been stated for wedding parties. Are wedding parties big users of Yelp? Is it a credible use case for a general hotel?

Imagine that you're a sushi place and everyone loves your fishy goodness. But then you are called to be the primary caterer of a conference center event, leading to dozens of terrible reviews by people who don't like fish. Should their "I don't like fish" reviews be placed side by side with people looking for a sushi place to eat? Is that useful for users of yelp? As a sushi eater, no, that would be terrible noise.

The solution is of course to simply stop serving a niche food at the conference center, just as this hotel should stop doing weddings.

[hawkharris]

How can someone review something they've never experienced?

I'm calling for people to comment on the facts of a public policy posted by the hotel. No more, no less. If you interpreted this as a call to post dishonest or mean comments, you were reading into it the wrong the way.