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Blog | Victorian Chick's Qualified Defense of Yelp

While recent criticisms of Yelp are to some extent valid, it remains a largely positive experience for reviewers and readers alike.

Returning to the Palisades after nearly two weeks in the Midwest, I found a stack of clippings from my mother, including Sandy Banks' LA Times critique of the "crowd-sourced" behemoth Yelp, increasingly under fire as an "extortion scheme" :http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/local/la-me--banks-yelp-backlash-20130423.

I joined Yelp on August 31st and have amassed nearly 170 reviews, roughly half of which cover restaurants and bars in my three main cities: Los Angeles, New York City and Santa Barbara/Montecito (victorianchick.yelp.com). Unlike Facebook, which can become vicious (particularly on political pages), Yelp is mostly upbeat. This is not to say that some Yelpers are not both gratuitously mean and unethical.

However, spotting a crazy person who uses Yelp to vent personal misery is not difficult. When you click on a profile of a Yelper with 80% 1 and 2-star reviews, it is immediately clear that the person is troubled and unreliable.

Similarly, a Yelper who can't spell, punctuate or form grammatical sentences to save his life should not be regarded as a credible source. In the age of spellcheck, there is no excuse for writing embarrassing prose. And some people are just plain dumb. Ignoring such people (on and off Yelp) is one key to a happy life. 

The problem is that we have a literacy crisis in this country. People aren't critical readers or thinkers and lamentably, good people providing worthwhile services suffer greatly from scathing reviews by the crazy, stupid or mean. The proliferation of anti-Yelp sites intended to counter the damage done by unethical or cruel Yelpers indicates the problems cited by Yelp's critics are both pervasive and real. 

Perhaps more disturbing is the charge of "extortion." I know a woman who has recently opened a fine dining restaurant in the Midwest. She has almost all 5-star reviews but her average is 4 ("I'm a fan!" in Yelp-speak) due to some outrageous 1 and 2-star reviews.

Ms. Banks takes up the "filter" mechanism by which reviews are suppressed. I do not dispute what she says, though the explanation on Yelp itself is more intricate than the one provided by Yelp's spokeswoman. 

But the "extortion" goes beyond individual reviews. When you bring up a restaurant, Yelp (like Facebook) suggests other places like the one you just clicked. If a restaurant owner wants these pop-ups to disappear, s/he can pay what strikes many as the exorbitant fee of 300-500 dollars per month. (This sum is inconsequential to my acquaintance but she refuses to participate in what she regards as an "extortion scheme.") 

As for "Elite"--the designation bestowed on prolific Yelpers through a fairly open process of nomination by self or other--many business owners consider this a part of the corruption on the supply side as it were. In large towns or small cities like Santa Barbara, Elite means nothing. In this way (and others), SB is "dead" as my Elite Yelp friend put it. In large cities, however, Yelp puts on "events" with free food and booze which he calls "parties for Yelp nerds." 

Banks does not explore these Yelp events in depth but uses Jenelle Bossette, a graduate of UCLA with a comparative literature degree and Yelp Elite with some 400 reviews, to cast further doubt on the validity and ethics of Yelp as a whole. I must admit, having been unable to find Ms. Bosette's Yelp account (she or Yelp have deactivated it) her counsel--"be specific"--struck me as banal and obvious: since when is vagueness a writerly virtue?

A commenter objected to the sheer quantity of Ms. Bossette's reviews, along with her intention to add 100 reviews in the near future, as if this rendered her reviews automatically suspect. As someone who splits time among three cities (or two cities and a big town) and travels regularly to new parts of the country where I eat and drink and shop, I disagree. I don't cook, so I eat out daily and it was no trouble at all to reach 150 reviews in roughly six months. 

More serious is the charge that businesses court Elite Yelpers. In nearly nine months, I have been approached only once with a bribe for a good review. A massage therapist read my early review of Upscale Massage (which I found through Groupon) and said simply that he needed more reviews and that he would offer me 50% or more off a massage in exchange for a positive rating.

I drafted a response I forgot to send, explaining that his message violated the rules of Yelp and that he could get in trouble for this sort of thing and should therefore never do it again. 

As of today, I have 168 reviews, approximately half of which are restaurants and bars. The rest range from beauty services to airports to museums to dance studios to hotels. I just learned that an Yelp friend intended to nominate me for Elite. I realize this means very little but it's a nice acknowledgement (along with the 56 "compliments" and 461 "notes": 238 useful, 99 funny and 124 cool) that people both enjoy and derive insight from my reviews. 

Last week, I received a note from a woman in Austin telling me that my list of ten places in Chicago "totally helped [her] plan [her] trip." I received another compliment for my O'Hare 3-star review (had it not been for the spectacular Ice bar and restaurant, it would have ranked near the detestable Phoenix Sky), saying it was a great review and that she was sorry I had so much trouble on CTA (Chicago's mass transit). 

As for "self-centered," any memoirist (including mommy bloggers with special needs or "normal" kids) is by definition narcissistic in thinking his or her life warrants a book-length treatment. Critics who write in a self-reflexive or autobiographical vein are vulnerable to the same charge. 

I myself incurred the wrath of a (frankly dim) woman here on the Patch: she objected to my review of "The Gift" and linked to scathing McNulty piece, unaware that the LA Times theater critic's takedown of Joanna Murray-Smith's controversial play had been my point of departure. Another did not appreciate my rave for Cafe Vida, which focused the intelligence and depth of the clientele, which I contrasted with the average affluent housewife in a county I personally dislike (the OC). 

Anchoring a review in a personal narrative which surveys the clientele of a restaurant and engages therefore in social commentary is perhaps "personal," but that doesn't make it "self-centered" in the sense of narcissistic and thus inaccurate or devoid of objectivity.

(Overall, the relation between subjective and objective is poorly grasped in a culture where philosophical ignorance rivals (or exceeds) historical and geographical ignorance. People haven't a clue what "subjectivity" or "subjective" mean and use the terms--generally inaccurately--to insult or degade.) 

Out of 168 reviews, only one of my reviews has disappeared: a 4-star review of Marmalade Cafe in Santa Barbara. I discovered this when I tried to update to remind customers to check their takeout orders as three of my meals had been botched (and also to warn them that the tape they play in the morning has managed to gather in a single place every horrid, saccharine love song written in the past 30 years and therefore not to forget one's iPod and earbuds). 

Predictably, my reviews are detailed and long: some inch toward the 5000 characters limit though some are half that (and even then they're longer than most). But if Ms. Banks' hypothesis that positive reviews routinely disappear were accurate, many more of mine would now be filtered or altogether gone. My boyfriend rarely writes reviews but adores the Santa Barbara Rock Gym. Much to his irritation, his detailed, positive review disappeared.  

I disagree that "superlatives" like "Amazing!" and "Best ever!" translate to "paid for" or "solicited." As a former teacher of English and writing at UCSB in the late 1990s, I can attest that if Americans are becoming poorer readers, their writing-- even at a great public university (which is admittedly more selective now at an undergraduate level than in my graduate school years)--is downright shameful. 

I wrote a Victorian Chick blog last fall about my Yelp philosophy which amount to this: Yelp is a place to share restaurants, hotels, retail outlets and other services one loves. Some 80% of my reviews are thus 4 or 5 stars. For a fuller statement, see: http://victorianchick.com/2012/09/05/victorian-chicks-philosophy-of-yelping-la-nyc-santa-barbara-and-remarks-about-wasted-political-energy-on-facebook/

In my blog, I explain that as a niece of an aunt and uncle who toiled some 14 hours a day at two familiy restaurants they owned in the Seattle area during the 1980s, I am always mindful of the effect my words may have on decent, hardworking businesspeople.

One Elite Yelper wrote me a compliment after reading the review which formed the kernel of the blog: "I agree with your Yelp perspective. Unless you were treated unethically, no need to bash a business simply to express yourself." Ms. Banks (and some of the commenters on the LA Times blog) would have you think this attitude is the exception rather than the rule. But I often read thoughtful, negative reviews which begin reluctantly if not apologetically: "I hate to write this but...." 

I rate businesses for what they are, not for what they are not. A breakfast diner isn't the Four Seasons. I frequently assign five stars--"Woohoo! As good as it gets!"--not because every restaurant merits a Michelin 2-star rating but because for what those establishments attempt to provide, they succeed across the board.

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Some of my 5- star restaurants have entrees in the mid-teens, while others charge between 20-30 dollars for an entree. If I go to a restaurant a few times a month, I will give it 5 stars even if it's not a "special occasion" restaurant like Wilshire in Santa Monica. 

For most, value matters and if a meal is perfectly executed in a pleasant environment with friendly service at a good price, I regard it as a "Woohoo!" This doesn't mean that the restaurant is Gotham Bar and Grill (a Manhattan dining institution for good reason). 

I would change one thing about Yelp: the impossibly inane stock compliments. For "You're funny," Yelp suggests: "I just LOL'd in my pants." Cringe. For "Thank You," Yelp spells thanks in a few different languages. For "Good Writer": "You've got the write stuff, baby." When I send compliments, I of course delete these embarrassing sentences intended to be cute or funny. 

But overall, while I sympathize with the plight of businesses harmed by negative Yelp reviews and have no problem with the anti-Yelp sites (as a kind of check on unethical conduct which in rare cases can end up in court, as the Washington Post reported: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-04/local/35625084_1_yelp-online-reviews-defamation), I am a fan of Yelp. I would remain a fan if I weren't soon going to be "Elite." 

And yes, as Ms. Banks concludes her slightly rancorous piece, "a cute picture doesn't hurt." While this is akin to "water is wet," good pictures are vital to social media success whether on Facebook or Twitter, particularly for a woman. Men are visual creatures and no amount of Second Wave feminist manifestos will alter this.

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