people that YELP are scumbags

i feel like that's a commonality with a lot of big not-quite-message-board not-quite-social-network "community" sites actually...

Is this true? I'd love to see some forum discussions by Yelp cultists.

http://www.yelp.com/talk/sf/category/Site-Questions-and-Updates

schef, I think that the strongarm-via-negative-reviews thing, while it may be the case, has no substantive proof behind it. There are some folks unhappy that they happened to see negative reviews pop up, but how many folks approached by Yelp didn't? The other side of the coin, "pay-for-positive-placement", isn't substantively different from Google, at least how Google did it a few years ago.

justine a. says:

Hi Everyone =D

Like many people, I was curious on how to become a yelp elite. My problem is, when I type "Yelp Elite" into the search box, it brings me a bunch of conversations about yelp elites but no direct link to how to become a yelp elite.

While on search, I found the website direct link: http://www.yelp.com/elite

Hope you find it useful on your mission. Happy Yelping =D

(I'm a hospitality major and we had a discussion in class about yelp elites and I was curious on how to really become one. There are rumors that you need 300+ friends, x amount of reviews, etc. So I wanted to find out how to actually do it. Also, it would be nice to place on my resume yelp elite =D especially being a hospitality major and maybe some day being a concierge or travel agent.)

I think I may be wrong about this Yelp-not-a-cult thing.

Yeah... I had no idea about this dark underbelly side of Yelp. I always thought it was just a good place to get restaurant reviews :/

I don't know why I just put a side-ways ambiguously feeling smiley there. I blame all those forum messages I just read.

I had no idea that there were hospitality majors.

That's a special Yelp-major.

schef, I think that the strongarm-via-negative-reviews thing, while it may be the case, has no substantive proof behind it. There are some folks unhappy that they happened to see negative reviews pop up, but how many folks approached by Yelp didn't? The other side of the coin, "pay-for-positive-placement", isn't substantively different from Google, at least how Google did it a few years ago.

― ----> (libcrypt), Tuesday, February 24, 2009

ok but it's not just negative reviews mysteriously popping up left and right but the positive reviews disappearing that is a skeezy issue here -- i mean it's pretty difficult to prove those negative reviews aren't just asshole flacks for other restaurants etc just showing up to badmouth other businesses too! and quite frankly seeing the ppl who just yelp regularly on the ny site with things like "i can't believe this bbq restaurant would not serve me seitan -- 0 stars" it could be idiots who've just joined posting to every single place they've ever felt slighted by to up their review stats.

whatever, i mean i think the majority of human beings take yelp reviews with about as much OMG RESPECT as one would approach, say, amazon reviews so i don't think it'll ultimately hurt anyone but it is really uncomfortable imo. but i mean in my experience every business product google has absorbed recently has turned into a shitshow full of incompetence so you know not a surprise really. there isn't anything anyone can do about it but it makes me even less likely to patronize yelp for more information about some restaurant that i've read about in a more "reputable" source first. themoreyouknow.jpg

this new cult info is hilarious tho!!

sum that up in like, two sentences.

yelp sux. a lot.

yelp sux! but lol cults ppl r weird

themoreyounabisco.jpg

schef yr otm with the comparison to amazon reviews, but they also have the charming personal touch of youtube comments

also, the immediate response snap-judgment factor of... well, youtube comments

Yeah... I had no idea about this dark underbelly side of Yelp. I always thought it was just a good place to get restaurant reviews :/

― Mordy, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i just use it to find restaurants nearby

haha just saw that rottenneighbor thing posted upthread

spent about 2 minutes looking around and decided I probably wasn't gonna find anything better than this

okay re the cult shit, i wrote a handful of reviews on the l.a. yelp page awhile back and this yelp rep kept writing me over and over again, and these are the messages that remained in my inbox (i wrote reviews using the "face is everything" guide to the internet):

------------------------

I writing you mainly because I have this kind of awesome new job for a company you may have heard of. It's called Yelp. I have only had this job for two weeks. But it's a nice one. And my job is essentially to make sure the best writers/people are the ones who are active and happy and all that jazz.

So yeah. Basically this is just a note to say: you are one of the best writers in LA right now. I am happy you are writing. Please keep doing so. But if you choose to come out from the shadows, it would be cool to actually meet you at a happy hour or something! Bring a friend, bring your girlfriend (or boyfriend, if you are a lady, or a boy who likes boys) or just bring yourself...but they are generally fun.

------------------

I just read one of your reviews that would have been perfect for the Review of the Day, but there are a lot of things that go into the ROTD picks, and its some weird algorithm that is sometimes full of shit, but I'm pretty sure that one of the factors is having a real photo (don't tell anyone that info came from me. But yeah.) So great writers like yourself will never find themselves on the front page.

------------------

I wanted to let you know that you have been nominated for Elite status! I would love to pass on the nomination to HQ for approval, but one of the requirements is that you use your real first name and a pic. It'd be cool to put some actual elite yelpers in the Elite squad. Plus, you get a hoodie! Ha. No, but really. A HOODIE.

I don't get it...who was sending you those messages? where did you write your reviews originally?

The sentient YELP system was sending those messages.

i feel like that's a commonality with a lot of big not-quite-message-board not-quite-social-network "community" sites actually...

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Tuesday, February 24, 2009 6:56 PM

FAP?

...

ps the real problem with protection rackets is they don't scale, though I guess being able to put all but your top local goons in a call center in Manila is "progress." yay internets!

Wow, those emails are frightening. "Haha. If you tell us your real name you'll get a free hoodie. Haha. Isn't that great? A hoodie. Just tell us your real name. Haha. Tell us your real name. I'm not fucking kidding. What's your real name?"

yeah it was really weird. i felt like i was being roped into something and after awhile i decided my gut feeling was right and i bailed.

I'd have bailed on the guy just for the typos in his corporate email. LURN TO SPEL YOU FULE.

okay is there a non-creepy, non-corrupt yelp-type-site out there? cause the basic idea behind the site isn't horrible

That is a pretty weird thing going on with omar...

A friend of mine started the site just over 5 years ago and I helped him out writing reviews (I think I have written like 50 reviews a year).

I don't think the site is much different than ILX imo. There are some serious weirdos who you would never want to be in the same zip code with and then there are some pretty cool people too.

I have never got a hoodie though, not that I would wear it. I don't go to the parties either. I treat it as a handy restaurant review site that you can filter people's reviews who you think are knowledgable or share the same tastes as you.

Oh and as Alex in SF was referring to about the East Bay Express... it's a pretty horrible stab at journalism... you can usually count on no named sources which is what they center most of their provocative expose's around.

(i wrote reviews using the "face is everything" guide to the internet)

<3

^__^

oh and the rep who was writing me was writing me more often than that, i felt like she was trying to flirt with me in order to get me to put a photo up and become an "elite". i dunno, i think the site was started like any other but it's kinda turned a little lame. at least the l.a. version of the site. i'll still use it as a reference, natch.

yeah that's weird that they wouldn't respect your anonymity. if you want to PM the name of the person I can fwd to my bro as an FYI.

as a restaurant directory yelp is great but as a place to read reviews it mostly just makes me think that much higher of frank bruni

like im all for the democratization of publishing and criticism or whatever but for the most part there are good reasons why jonathan gold is winning pulitzers and getting published and mott_the_hoople420 is not

nah it's cool i don't want to get anyone into hot water. i think l.a. yelp in general seems to have a very O_O aspect that isn't specific to one person tbh, if the message boards are any indication. sf seems more sane (at least it seemed so when i was browsing around there before my recent trip).

SF Yelp is reasonably useful as long as you don't get into reading negative reviews (or maybe any reviews.) If you do that it just makes you think 50% of the population is crazy as fuck.

Yelp would be a lot more useful if reviews were multiple-choice.

okay is there a non-creepy, non-corrupt yelp-type-site out there? cause the basic idea behind the site isn't horrible

I don't believe a single site can really be helpful. At least for restaurants, I just Google on the name and quickly paw through the Yelp/CitySearch freaks and Chowhound snobs that show up in the results. Usually the best experiences I have are with places that have the most polarizing results ("ugh! terrible place with spicy food and no vegan menu" "brilliant dishs that you'll never find elsewhere - best meal of my life!")

Pizzeria Delfina strikes back.

http://www.7x7.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog_w275/images/delfinatee.jpg

man i dont mean to keep bumping this thread but every time i go on yelp my blood pressure goes thru the roof, people in this world are SO STUPID, especially people who live in cities and have access to the internet, i would be willing to make everyone illiterate, forever, if it meant that no one ever wrote or read a yelp review ever again

btw i am now of the opinion that youtube comment discourse is of an order of magnitude more intelligent than yelp review discourse

fucking yelp

ohhhkay i guess i link this one again here too:

http://alexbalk.tumblr.com/post/85865391/fuck-it-it-sounds-like-its-worth-a-trip-to-brooklyn

NOTE: the tumblr author is ridiculing the yelper, not the person complaining so don't get all bitchy at my friend fyi. but seriously who the hell thinks you can call in a take out order and then just take a table!

and it makes me even more annoyed that there is like a THING, like, A YELP CLUB, and that its like a CULTURE, like people MAKE IT THEIR BUSINESS to write terrible reviews of restaurants on a website, that they dont even get paid for, and even worse, there is apparently AN AUDIENCE for these peoples bizarre ramblings, i am mad, and im not, im not going to take it anymore

and i am like a dude who makes it his business to not get annoyed at people being stupid, but

i'm beginning to think the best places can be easily discovered by sifting through all the three/three and a half star reviews on yelp

people who yelp are fucking CRAZY, even by the standards of loser internet geeks, because these losers happen to double as social climbing party dbags.

Take Sides: YELP & /b/

/b/ is actually sort of lolzy sometimes

/b/ for all time. rather read the demented msg posts of ppl who google for anime roboporn than about dbags eating