Maybe Yelp is Not Quite So Evil

In November 2013, we celebrated my daughter’s 4th birthday at a place called Under the Sea. My wife and I thought that the facilities were good, but the poor customer service really ruined our (i.e., the adults, not the kids) experience. The staff was rude and unhelpful, as I stated in my review under my username of String T. (as in “String Theorist”). Additionally, I pointed out that the 5-star review provided by Jasmin A. needed to be discounted because she was an employee and therefore violated a Yelp content guideline for community reviews which aims to prevent conflicts of interest among other things.

Shortly after submission, I was shocked to discover that not only was Jasmin A.’s 5-star review prominently displayed as a Recommended Review despite its violation of a Yelp content guideline, my review was demoted to “not recommended” status but could be accessed by clicking on a link toward the bottom of the page. As a new Yelp contributor, I did not know it at the time, but Yelp explains how it programmatically categorizes reviews under “recommended” status. My review clearly did not pass muster despite it being an expression of my honest opinions and compliant with all of Yelp’s contributor guidelines. I felt at the time that Yelp was evil for its policies that resulted in censorship and bias.

Fast forward about 4 years. About a week ago, I had a surprisingly pleasant experience at a hole-in-the-wall barber shop/salon as well as a nearby hole-in-the-wall donut shop, so I thought I’d give Yelp another try by writing a couple of positive reviews. They were both immediately listed as Recommended Reviews. No drama there.

Out of curiosity, I went back to my original review of Under the Sea to find that it had been promoted to a Recommended Review and had been voted as “useful” by 19 people and “funny” by 3 people. I am not sure what triggered the re-classification, nor do I know when in the last 4 years it occurred, but nevertheless I wondered if maybe Yelp is not as evil as I had thought.



Then I noticed a little icon indicating that I had unread notifications. When I clicked on the icon, here’s what I saw:



Apparently Jasmin A. messaged me on 11/23/2013 to request a discussion about why I was so dissatisfied with the customer service. On 5/1/2014, after not receiving a reply from me (since I had not logged on to Yelp, nor do I recall receiving an email notification from Yelp), she blasted an angry response to my comment that her self-promoting 5-star rating of her employer was in violation of Yelp guidelines and was therefore unethical.

I took a screen shot of her messages and posted it to the Photos section of the Under the Sea page on Yelp to illustrate the kind of employee she was. I also reported her to Yelp, and about a week later, I received the following reply:



I thought the response by Yelp was appropriate and reflected a good-faith attempt to optimize the experience of the community it serves. I also felt that issuing a warning to Jasmin A. was appropriate, as a termination of her account or other similar action may have been too severe for the offense. In any case, I hope she learns that nothing good can come out of being rude and offensive. So maybe Yelp is not quite so evil after all. What do you think about Yelp?