This is a really interesting point, unfortunately the counterpoint to this is that a complicated rating metric is not successful either. People don't want to spend ages filling in some huge questionnaire and if you start trying to introduce complicated systems of combination star ratings like the zagat ones for example, it just bamboozles both reviewers and readers, and still has the same issues as a simple 5 star rating does - it's too rough a tool and tries to decide in advance on a procrustean taxonomy into which all decisions are forced.

I think the most useful reviews are textual ones which set out the interests and prejudices of the writer (sometimes inadvertently), and elaborate on why they like or don't like this particular place/thing, which can give you clues about their lifestyle, tastes, and even whether they were hired by the company to write this review in the first place! I'm always suspicious of reviews which say something is great and then list several selling points as if they were read from a brochure - not many people write like that without prompting and it's a good way to find fakes.

Unfortunately another problem as outlined in that article is that even if you managed to completely represent the views of others, you'd find that many of them were simply uninteresting to you, as they are based on false premises or different tastes. That's where social rating systems become more important; where you can decide whose ratings you trust (not necessarily friends), and use those to make decisions - I still think you need the complexity of written reviews to really flesh out people's opinions though. We have a few ideas on this over at coolplaces, but have not yet had time to take them anywhere. Trust does require that you identify with a person's tastes, and also that you know they are real, so using a network of like-minded people built up over time can help mollify the concerns you have about yelp reviews.

Thanks for the great article linked, I've not had time to finish it but it really does cover this subject in depth from a different perspective.

Yelp has looked at using collaborative filtering to improve recommendation accuracy (this technology could handle the spaghetti case you mentioned), and it looks like someone (probably an intern) published a paper on it. http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2009/Fennell.pdf

Looks like they didn't have sufficient data 3 years ago, but I imagine the prospects might be a little better now.

What a great quote.

I have a similar pet peeve with brownies. There are three major types: Cake, fudge or chewy. I do not prefer any type of cake brownie.

Could you substantiate that claim? I did a few Google searches, and I find your remarks to be, well... just wrong.

As far as I can tell, there was a class action lawsuit against Yelp, which was dismissed, and a couple of other lawsuits from single business owners. I would imagine that any company the size of Yelp is going to get sued a few times, and I imagine a lot, if not all of those, are just bad small businesses.

Are you just scurrilously slinging mud, based on a single headline you read sometime in the past?

I find Yelp to be quite useful, and the people who I have met that worked there were good, hard-working souls.

Well put! Don't forget to mention that Yelp has never turned a profit.

I imagine you don't trust any major review company then. The BBB must be a bunch of scumbags too, if your metric is what a google search looks like when attaching the word extortion to their name: https://www.google.com/search?q=bbb+extortion

And Obama is a liar: https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+liar

And Romney too: https://www.google.com/search?q=romney+liar

Search engines give you what you search for.

Probably the fact that soliciting fake negatives is a more direct route to damage them.

Granted, not exactly something that would restore your faith in Yelp...