Bad reviews from bad reviewers

[Catwoman2965]

The ones that have made me laugh recently are hotels. Specifically hotels I was looking at for my upcoming overseas trip. I'm well aware that many European hotels offer single rooms, which are ONE twin bed, in a small room, with an equally small en-suite bath (if that's what you choose). I'm perfectly fine with that, as long as the hotel isn't described as having roaches, bedbugs, or anything else nasty. But I'm guessing many of my fellow Americans are used to, and expect, giant, spacious rooms like we have here in the US. Um no, and a little research will show you exactly what you'll get, unless you want to pay an arm and three leggs!

In fact, the place I chose for my London stay that got fabulous reviews, is essentially a B&B in a converted 17th century Georgian townhouse. Yes, the decor looks like maybe it could be updated, but who cares? I'd MUCH rather spend my money having fun, esp when i only plan on staying in the room to shower and sleep. I also found it interesting in the email in response to my inquiry about availability, they made it a point to let me know the single rooms ARE quite small. I'm guessing they got quite a few people bitching about how small the rooms are! Hey, i ended up with my OWN room and OWN bath, and FULL English breakfast included, for 80£ a night. And i can walk to the British Museum and other places, and the underground is like 2 blocks away.

[icmedia]

The normal default is to have weighted scores, where 10 is positive, 8/9 are slightly better than neutral, and 1-7 are negative -- it's just that a 1 or 2 HURTS your overall score much more than a 9 or 10 HELPS. e.g. a single 2 might effectively cancel out half a dozen 9's. As with most surveys, I seriously doubt they have any proper means of dealing with survey trolls.

The result of this is that an overall NP rating of over 70-75% (which realistically means 90% 10's) is considered pretty damn good, and anything above 90 is next to impossible.

Yeah; we have 2 "8" scores for the month and all the rest 10s...our rating is 71.4% when our quota is 75% or higher. One of the 8s had the above quote, one said "Good service" so I don't doubt that they thought they were doing us a solid...it's just not good "enough" in the eyes of the corporate overlords.

[Catwoman2965]

Not a business, but me personally. I sell a lot on Poshmark, basically a consignment or thrift app. You list clothes, shoes, jewelry, bags etc., at YOUR price, upload photos, and people buy them. I am very descriptive with my items. So I had a very nice, originally fairly pricy, brand new, but no tag, costume jewelry bracelet. It was matte gold, NOT shiny. Ok fine.

So I sell it. And get a 3 star review because a. it wasn't as shiny as she thought it would be. Um, MATTE is described as being " lacking or deprived of luster or gloss" which basically means dull vs. shiny. Strike one.

Then she said it was too big, but she'll give it to her daughter. Um, it was a normal size, but if you normally have issues with sizing, you coudl have asked me questions!

so I got dinged not for the actual item, and it not being described as it was, or being damaged, which it indeed wasn't but because it wasn't what she thought it was. Sigh.

Like reviews I've seen of clothing. I've reviewed plenty, and only if I thought it was poor quality, etc. But I've seen more than I can count about how it didn't fit, or look good on them. Um no, it won't! but that' doens't mean its defective!

[EricKei]

Cat - That reminds me of recipe sites where a given recipe will get "dinged" by people complaining that the food didn't come out tasting as they expected...after they made their own substitutions for half of the freakin' ingredients! And I don't mean like "sea salt instead of table salt;" I mean more like "Cayenne pepper instead of black pepper (or even salt)" -- without changing the amounts!

[notalwaysright]

Cat - That reminds me of recipe sites where a given recipe will get "dinged" by people complaining that the food didn't come out tasting as they expected...after they made their own substitutions for half of the freakin' ingredients! And I don't mean like "sea salt instead of table salt;" I mean more like "Cayenne pepper instead of black pepper (or even salt)" -- without changing the amounts!

I used to like allrecipes, but the rating system was always boinked. At least it used to have some redeeming qualities. I have completely dropped it due to the fact that it's basically turned into pintrest, but that's another issue. Back to reviews, this is one I grabbed from a popular pumpkin bread recipe on that site, it's considered one of the "most helpful" reviews. Here's the original recipe.

Out of this recipe, I ended up making a dozen Pumpkin muffins and a Pumpkin loaf as well. It is simply scrumptious!! I read all the reviews and took all the suggestions that were offered that were similar. Below is how I ended up re-writing the recipe - it turned out moist, spicy, and DELICIOUS!! My family has already asked me to make this at Christmas!! 15 Oz Can Pumpkin; 4 Eggs; 1/2 Cup Veg. Oil; 1/2 Cup Applesauce (I used sweetened); 2 Cups Sugar; 3 1/2 Cups Flour; 2 Tsp. Baking Soda; 1 1/2 Tsp Salt; 1 Tsp. Cinnamon; Splash of Vanilla; 1/4 Tsp Pumpkin Spice; 1 Cup Walnuts; 1/2 Cup Raisins; 1 Tsp Nutmeg; 1/2 Tsp Cloves; 1/4 Tsp Ground Ginger; Blended and cooked as described in original recipe.. Both placed in the oven at the same time, the Muffins were done in 40 minutes and Bread was done in 1 hr 10 minutes. While on Cooling rack, poked holes in top of muffins and bread, and poured seperate hot Cinnamon Sugar Butter combo over holes, allowing it to seep down inside. Yummmmmmmmy! Will make again and again! Thanks for all the tips everyone!

[WishfulSpirit]

It's OK with me if people post their modifications, I've used those for suggestions if I'm out of an ingredient or can't use it for some reason (such as food allergies or intolerance, roomie is allergic to shellfish and hubby creates a biohazard zone when he has milk). BUT if people are going to do that kind of online culinary collaboration, adding their own ideas and such, they should not downvote the original. They didn't MAKE the original.

I've always rated recipes highly if I modified them and liked the results (it's a "hey thanks for the idea" type thing). If I modified it and didn't like the results, I just don't post anything. My response is "Welp, that didn't work, trying this again" (or not).

[EricKei]

WS - Exactly my point Mods are fine -- hell, they're an important part of improving your cooking! Just as long as they're kept separate from the original when review time comes. Want to post a review? Follow the original instructions and ingredient list. Want to talk about your modified version? Post it as such and let others try it!

[Catwoman2965]

Cat - That reminds me of recipe sites where a given recipe will get "dinged" by people complaining that the food didn't come out tasting as they expected...after they made their own substitutions for half of the freakin' ingredients! And I don't mean like "sea salt instead of table salt;" I mean more like "Cayenne pepper instead of black pepper (or even salt)" -- without changing the amounts!

Yes, or people who order something that has stuff in it they don't like, and then complain they didn't care for the dish. Um, if i see a dish with say walnuts, or something else i despise, i simply don't order it!!! kind of a no brainer

[notalwaysright]

I don't feel like people should rate it at all unless they're rating the original recipe. I see all these recipes with thousands of 5 star reviews, and so I happily make the dish. And it's crap. Then I scroll down and find out that ALL the 5 stars are from people who completely changed the whole recipe. If they give it 3 stars but then say "here's how to make it 5 stars" that's lovely. This is why I moved to different recipe sites, so I can just make something without reading zillions of comments which may or may not be helpful.

[Sparklyturtle]

Cat - That reminds me of recipe sites where a given recipe will get "dinged" by people complaining that the food didn't come out tasting as they expected...after they made their own substitutions for half of the freakin' ingredients! And I don't mean like "sea salt instead of table salt;" I mean more like "Cayenne pepper instead of black pepper (or even salt)" -- without changing the amounts!

One of my favorites of this type of complaint was the story about the woman who asked for her sister's chicken with almonds recipe, then substituted beef for the chicken and peanuts for the almonds. Then, when the changed recipe turned out to be inedible, she had the nerve to say to her company, "It's my sister's recipe!" Her sister was not amused.

[Plague*Star]

from an actual review in the Albany, NY Times Union:

"The kitchen’s take on gumbo ($7 cup/$12 bowl) is black, thin as dishwater and tastes of nothing. No whisper of salt or spice. Submerged diced sausage is a crapshoot, alternately leathery or burnt. It’s possible the dishwasher rinsed the burnt pan from the charred pork in the side of collard greens ($3) and sent it out for fun."

There's much more...plus some debate over the wording of the review. Several people listed their bad dining experiences; I think only one was not totally negative, and it really was not positive.

http://blog.timesunion.com/tablehopp...-public-house/

[EricKei]

PS -- Eek. I could make a comment here about never eating Cajun food outside of the deep south, but...

On the gumbo: Ew. That doesn't even sound like gumbo.
On the gator bites: Chewy?...Chewy?!? Somebody dun fucked up. I love how the writer then feels sorry for the death of the animal he just ate.
On the Red beans: Pureed...? What the everloving YANKEE?!? O_O That's blasphemy! Cream/squish the beans, sure, but the sausage??

They're all overpriced, too, except possibly for the gator bites. A large app-size plate of tail meat would be within normal range at that price.

[HotelMinion]

In some measure of fairness to the customer (and I'll note that I'm in the same boat - 9 or 10 is passing. Anything else counts as a 0) they may not know that. If they're given a 10 point scale, they're likely thinking that an 8 is really pretty good.

*raises hand* I didn't know either when filling out a survey and giving them 8 out of 10. The customer service guy wrote back like, What do you mean your rim was stolen?! and I didn't write back. Later he was gone and I felt guilty for him being blamed for the mechanic's mistake, since I'm always to blame (and have lost plenty of jobs) due to our maintenance man and housekeeping. So whenever I review, which I nearly never do, I give 10 unless they really don't deserve it.

And RM I remember that post about the reviewer with the thing about hair I never see men with long hair anymore, probably because of people like her.

[smileyeagle1021]

My two favorite negative reviews were both for the same place.
There is a small theater chain called Galaxy Theaters. One of their locations is attached to the Fandango Casino, hence, it is the Galaxy Fandango.
Multiple people have complained that they won't take fandango.com (which, if you aren't familiar, is the website that Cinemark has partnered with to sell tickets) gift cards. "But, it says Fandango on the gift card, why can't you take it."... hey sweetheart, go into the casino and see how far that logic gets you.
The second great complaint for them is that they are "violating the law" by not letting you bring your gun into the theater because "companies aren't allowed to restrict gun carrying". Umm, not to get into a debate on what gun laws should be, but I can tell you what they are in Nevada, and they explicitly state that any private property owner, including businesses, can set whatever rules they want on their own property in regards to weapons. The casinos made damn sure of that, they don't want an angry customer on a losing streak with a gun.

[TheSHAD0W]

There is a small theater chain called Galaxy Theaters. One of their locations is attached to the Fandango Casino, hence, it is the Galaxy Fandango... Multiple people have complained that they won't take fandango.com (which, if you aren't familiar, is the website that Cinemark has partnered with to sell tickets) gift cards.

Actually, sounds like one or the other could file for violating trademarks...