Seattle Weekly has pointed out some strange things going on over at The Stranger.
A whiny review of Thomas Street Bistro, a new, pint-sized Capitol Hill eatery, disappeared from The Stranger’s Web site shortly after it was published in the Jan. 3 print edition.
…Even more mysteriously, the restaurant—which writer Chris McCann dubbed “sad,” calling the food “depressing,” and saying it “reminded him of our very limited capacity for transcendence”—then started running quarter-page ads in the very paper that had panned it two weeks before.
Thomas Street Bistro co-owner Adam Freeman says The Stranger agreed to give him “a deal” on advertising—and immediately yank the story from the site—after he complained about the review. Freeman had previously run ads in the paper. (He has also been an advertiser in Seattle Weekly.)
When queried, the newspaper stated they didn’t feel like it was a fair review because it “went against our editorial policy of waiting at least three months before doing a formal review of a new restaurant.” However, Seattle Weekly did a bit of research, and found “that the Stranger’s 3-month “policy” is either newly invented or a complete fiction.”
Since the story broke, The Stranger has now re-posted the original review.
Wow. No wonder our washed up restaurateurs are ending up in Seattle. There is a lot more information at the Sea
ttle Weekly. Well worth a read.
Yesterday, a friend told me about a sales pitch he overheard for a web directory type company, a la CitySearch. One of their selling points was a restaurateur could have negative public comments removed. Apparently the conversation went along the lines of “If you get a negative comment, just let us know and we’ll investigate. Usually they are removed” nudge nudge, wink wink. “We are not like Citysearch.”
Now I understand restaurant owners disliking Citysearch. I think most of the comments are garbage – the frequently come across like someone on a private vendetta. I was having dinner at a bar one time, and listened to the employees talking about their campaign to discredit a competitor by posting negative comments about them on Citysearch. On the rare occasion I visit the site, the first thing I do when I see a comment that seems suspicious is check how many other restaurants the writer has commented on. If there is only one or two, I don’t pay any attention to it.
Negative comments on highly trafficked sites definetly have an impact on a restaurant, so there should be some way of monitoring them. But on the other hand, should a restaurant be able to have anything negative removed? If so, shouldn’t there be a note on the site saying so? I’m not comfortable using any site that allows such editorial controls, but I understand why it is a big selling point.
We tend to have higher caliber readers and more controls on PFD, so phony comments aren’t so much of a problem. I don’t think I’ve deleted a comment in at least four months, and never at the request of a restaurant owner, but still, this has me thinking…
I’m putting up a poll. Should restaurants be allowed to delete negative comments? Take a minute and vote. It should be interesting.
I voted no; the system will always right itself. Meaning, unmerited or planted negative comments will be ignored and die (this, by the way, is the best way to deal with trolls: give them no air and they will go away; trust me, it works); same with positive.
But the exception makes the rule: if someone is serially posting, say, porn (and the restaurant doesn’t like that, which most wouldn’t) on a citysearch-like site, or 10,000-word screeds in favor of Lyndon LaRouche and mentioning, by the way, they disliked the pudding; or where it is clear the person is mad, I would ban the poster, as she/he is doing nothing to advance the dialogue.
But remove a negative review to spare the restaurant’s feelings? To generate ads? Where does this end? The idea of all restaurants at all times being given only positive reviews renders the review system meaningless. We’d simply find another a way to disseminate truthful information.
Which you’ve already done.
Voted no as well. Regardless of what some may think of Citysearch, it has a large audience which can provide enough information (including the lies) to help guide users in the right direction with insight on what to expect.
To even ask negative reviews be removed seems short sided to me. Expectations would be higher than they already are & no one would be able to sastify them if all the reviews were nothing but positive.
Citysearch also has “reviews” written by the restaurant’s PR company. There are the puff pieces written by shills, in addition to the vendetta screeds. And yes, I have seen my own legitimate negative reviews on there removed.
You can remove spam, you can have length limits, watch out for crackpots, without censoring legit reviews.
Let’s face it: even the most well-run establishments see the “customer from hell” who can’t be pleased, who will always find something wrong with an evening’s experience. Unfortunately, those types of diners usually like to go home and share their disappointment with the world.
Unless there’s a traceable pattern of abuse, the restaurateur has to hope, as Ms. Rommelmann stated so well earlier, that the system will right itself, the numbers will speak the overall truth. NO censorship.
That being said, I am amazed that folks are still shocked at the idea of reviews for sale. Of course it’s wrong, but if newspapers will print absolutely anything to sell a paper, why wouldn’t they print absolutely anything to sell an ad?
Having grown up in a big, beautiful, bustling and completely corrupt city back east, the greasing of palms was and is considered a minor and necessary business expense. For restaurants, this means buying a health inspection ( or buying peace and quiet from corrupt inspectors who dabble in extortion), a liqour license, clean linen twice a week, early delivery of fresh produce, and yes, a good review or two. To expect it wouldn’t happen out here in the enlightened Pacific Northwest is naive. The only surprise here is the clumsiness of the folks involved in this latest chapter of a very old story.
I had to laugh at Devilchef’s post, recalling growing up myself in a big bustling East Coast city, and my dad, an Italian-American city kid, knowing the way doors were opened: with the palm, and something in it. My best story along these lines: going to have my daughter baptized in the Catholic church where I’d been baptized, and when the priest asked, before the ceremony, in a little room off to the side, “Are the godparents Catholic?” and I had to say, well, one of the two godmothers was Jewish, the other, half-Jewish, and the priest’s jaw sort of dropping, and my father (who’d gone to Catholic grade school at this very church) saying, “It’s okay, Father,” as he palmed him $200 in cash.
That none of us believe in god adds another twist to the story.
I just received an e’mail from Citysearch today, saying they had to delete a negative comment from a restaurant I had reviewed over two years ago. I didn’t bother to see why, but is it possible that they are “cleaning out” their files?
It would be nice if there was a citysearch-like site that worked like Rotten Tomatoes.com. There could be a “cream of the crop” section for professional food reviews and another for user reviews. This would also allow for links to full reviews and related articles. Readers would get a better grasp of the restaurant’s overall status, and take away some of the guess work associated with citysearch’s reviews.
>Should restaurants be allowed to delete negative comments?
Only if readers (potential customers) can delete the glowing comments obviously from the owners, staff, and their mothers.
My site is more for drinkers than foodies but this topic hits home, as I sell advertising and have a large amount of editorial and user submissions.
BarFly receives a vast amount of shill reviews (they often write negatives about their competitors, tricky ones guys), as well as the vendetta reviews from passive aggressive customers. If shills continue after a warning, I blackhole any future reviews. That way, I don’t waste my time even reading what they wasted their time typing. It’s a small victory of sorts. Other times, I catch the serial complainers and delete them in one stumbling stroke. That’s always fun too.
I do inform advertisers that while advertising gives them premium placement in front of highly targeted eyeballs, it DOES NOT give them immunity from negative opinions. To do so would mean losing the user base they are advertising to in the first place. I don’t mind destroying my liver to score another advertiser, but I draw the line at cutting my own throat.
Despite this, it is nearly impossible to be totally unbiased. When an establishment complains about the negs, I do look it into it in a more expedient fashion if it is an advertiser. Often, there are indicators such as a consistent pattern of reviews that pass the two finger sniff test. In some cases there have been ownership changes or operational changes that have nullified past problems, rendering old reviews irrelevant. And then, sometimes I’m feeling lazy and don’t delete anything, because sometimes the customers from hell write such obviously petty missives that it gives the other reviewers a chance to call them on their crap.
Really, I could care less about what other sites allow. If the Strangers and CitySearches of the world choose to allow restaurants to dictate editorial, it’s their own screwing if they suffer reader backlash. I won’t lose sleep over it either way.
The reviews, positive and negative, should time out after an agreed-upon and reasonable period, say 6 mos or a year. That allows an owner to respond to a pattern of complaints and invite diners back.
I would also say that, since this really is serious stuff, anonymous reviews be prohibited and maybe even signed ones should be checked out, at least in the case of someone who frequently posts. If you own a restaurant, you know what a dent a couple of planted negative reviews can put in your business.
And since I too come from A Back East Corrupt Big City (Cleveland), this stuff sounds painfully familiar. That’s one big reason I came West, hoping for some inherent integrity. I know, go ahead and laugh!