There used to be a small blues bar directly across the street from the main entrance to the National Zoo in DC, appropriately named the “Zoo Bar” (now closed). My friends’ band had a regular monthly gig there for years and years and just out of curiosity one day when I was on Yelp I looked them up and there was some idiot who wrote a bad review of the place because apparently they were incapable of flagging down a waitress and they weren’t pleased with the wine selection. This place was an obvious dive bar and this bitch wants to peruse the wine list?! I wrote a glowing review of the bar, then mercilessly mocked this and other similar reviews.
Have you ever written a good review just to offset a bad review from some idiot who was too stupid to understand the restaurant/business/product?
I once stayed in a lovely little hotel in NYC. Before booking, I read the reviews, which were overwhelmingly positive. There were four or five extremely negative reviews.
After my trip, I went back to the review site and re-read the negative reviews. They seemed to have all been written by the same person, and they really didn’t make sense. The hotel was criticized for failing to provide services that logically they never would’ve promised. One review ranted about remodeling work that interfered with outside access – if you were driving the wrong way down a one-way street.
I wrote a positive review and also pointed out the errors in the negative reviews.
I usually reverse the order you gave; mock the bad one (or at least point out why I think its bad) and then give my honest opinion if its glowing or just well above average.
Once I wrote a positive online review of a chamber music album recorded by a quartet of women, to counter a review by someone who trashed it (he was offended because the women were attractive by what he deemed “Western” standards of beauty).
A local game store had kicked out some kid for breaking rules repeatedly and he must have gotten some friends to rate bomb the place. It was marginally amusing watching random 15 year old girls act offended over the rules for Friday Night Magic: The Gathering but probably less so if you owned the store. So I left a glowing review because it really is a good and unique place in the area.
(Yes, 15 year old girls can play M:tG. These ones did not and especially not at this location)
Yep. I’ve done it a few times on Yelp, when I thought someone was being a tool (The food was too hot! I didn’t like the pictures on the wall of the restaurant-one star! I don’t like Italian food!).