Online Reviews. Can you trust them?

This morning, there was a very interesting discussion on one of the TV morning shows about food blogging and customers reviews in general, as there are undercover people writing over-the-moon reviews for which they have been paid or bribed by those business or brands they are reviewing. 

The discussion is extremely relevant for us, users and regular reviewers of Urbanspoon, Yelp, Tripadvisor, Imdb, Rotten Tomates, or Blogger, just to mention some of the most popular reviewing places out there.

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When I told a friend that I was posting my blog's posts on Urbanspoon, she told me about a well-publicised case of customer's abuse and untruthfulness, which really gives the bad name to any reviewing place. These sort of isolated case adds to many people's suspiciousness about any reviewing sites. Then, there are other elements I think also contribute to this distrust: 

• Isolated cases of online trolls.
• Many reviewers slash or praise businesses without making clear why.
• Many reviewers mix in their head what they like with goodness.
• Many reviews are not based on objective criteria.
• Many reviews are one to five lines long. That is especially a problem when the review is nasty.
• The tone of the reviews is somewhat suspicious to the reader: Too grandiose. Too nasty. Too insubstantial. 
• Many reviewing places offer just a like/diskile button, or five-star rating, which is unfair and misleading because a three-star can mean 6/10 to 7.5/10, which is a whole world of difference in rating for a restaurant, book or CD. 
• Most reviewing places do not demand the use of personal photos to show they are real people, so people suspect that those people without a real photo are hidden trolls or liars.  

The thing is that most reviewers do review with the best possible intention, mostly for fun, and are real -in the physical way- lovely people. We all want to be helpful and share our experiences, promote those businesses that do the right thing and have a great customer service, and pinpoint the sins of those that do not do so. After all, we are paying for those services and products. However, we have a responsibility, especially when rating a restaurant, café, shop or business place. Any place has good and bad things about it, so mentioning them is just fair.  

On the other hand, I feel that the reader has a duty of care - care of his/her brain... to use it. You need to be conscious that reviews are always personal, affected by our personal tastes and character, and that you have to read a few to get the enlightenment you are seeking for. In fact, most people do so while using Tripadvisor before travelling overseas, still forget to apply the same approach when reading reviews of a camera, restaurant or book on a reviewing site. 

I agree with one of the invitees to the TV show about the need of a code of ethics for professional reviewers. Personally, I think this is important even if you are are an aficionado - Ethics are always relevant in life for whatever you do.

After munching my thoughts, I have come with my Decalogue to be a Cool Ethical Reviewer (CER):

1. You have a set of pre-established criteria that you apply to the product or place you review. If your criteria is your taste, that is perfectly fine. If your criteria is telling what you were doing today, that is perfectly fine. Just do so and do not pretend otherwise. 
2. We all have our likings and passions, and we think they are the best because are ours. This psychological bias affects us all us, so we have just to be aware of it and tame it when writing. The fact that I like junk food does not make it good, does it?  
3. You say at least a good thing about a place you do not like.
4. You do not review your own business, or your mum's, or your brother's, or your cousin's or your dearest friend's. That is unethical and unhelpful.
5. You do not review your boss' business. That is unethical and unhelpful.
6.  You do not accept gifts or invitations by businesses to review positively. That is unethical and unhelpful. Accepting invitations to dinners is OK as far as you know yourself and know that you are going to feel OK openly criticising anything bad that you see. That is never ever simple or easy.
7. If you suspect that the business is giving you a special enhanced treatment to write a positive review, do no write a review at all. After all, other customers are having a very different experience, and theirs is the norm.
8. Try to avoid reviewing restaurants after the first visit. If you do so, update your reviews later on. I have some examples of restaurants that gave me a bad impression in my first visit, to then prove to me that that day was the exception. And vice versa! 
9. You write a review that is decently written, structured, and that says something about the place. Sounds obvious, no?  The use of colons, semicolons, spacing between paragraphs and numbered or bullet lists do help. 
10. Try to think about what you would like to know about that particular business, which sort of questions would you be asking, and then reply to them.

This list is also to remind myself of my duties as reviewer in those days in which my plume runs wild or is too lazy! 

My main sin  is the lack of concision and my constant editing of my texts, but I prefer  to be precise to consise. It is just a personal option because, well,  this is my blog!!!

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A fair review is good for the readers, because it gets them to know valuable information about the place they are going to visit, or tell them that a place do exist. 

A fair review is good for businesses, because they can get an honest feedback from customers and a highlighting of things that need to be improved. 

A fair review is good for the reviewer, because it gets you a reputation, an that is always very rewarding at a personal level. 

Reviews and Reviewing sites are needed. Reviews are useful. Reviews and reviewers can be trusted. All the ones I know are! There are some nutties out there, but that happens everywhere!