Yep. I’ve actually heard KB in-person crediting TonyC as having a significant impact on putting Bludso’s on the map.
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I seem to recall the chef from Little Jewel posting on CH to build interest while getting the place up and running; I don’t remember if he did so anonymously.
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Subsequently, the Hop Woo folk(s) used FTC to help get traction for their ventures. Though not anonymously.
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He was open about it, but it also was a different time. There used to be a strict rule on Chowhound about not allowing industry to post. I only skirted past it because I was on the supply side (when I first joined). And even then… I got an ‘okay.’
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you folks are getting all worked up and you’ve missed the point: having worked on plenty of IT projects involving designing, building and cleansing/scrubbing databases where a single bad piece of data could result in financial exposure upwards of a million bucks, it’s essential to understand that any data set’s accuracy or usefulness can only be determined by first identifying how the data is going to be used. preferring yelp to ftc is like preferring a wrench to a screwdriver.
if you WANT a wrench - or anything that you can use to bludgeon someone else, then yes, the wrench is preferable.
if you want a screwdriver, or something where you’d stab someone through the heart, or an eyeball, then the screwdriver is preferable.
yelp is a business that has chosen to cater to a particular demographic. the values of that demographic overlap with some of my values. as i mentioned before, i evaluate source and delivery as well as content for any given review - as much on FTC as i do on yelp. and i have not found that it takes that much more time to draw conclusions concerning the biases of prolific yelpers than it does on FTC, because the people whose values mirror mine tend to want to try.the same places that i do - and those who’ve read my few reviews tend to send me friend requests. that actually makes it EASIER to identify whose values align with yours vs. looking up who likes your post. i ignore all cumulative ordinal rankings (and while i would tend to ignore this particular list, i might be interested to review just to determine the criterion - and could decide to give more weight to a future list done by this person.) i also identify places i want to know more about before i even go to yelp. i do not use yelp for recommendations. i think i have a pretty good idea on the reliability of yelp in relation to my personal sensibilities and i have set my expectations accordingly.
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Fascinating. Which Bludso’s are you guys talking about? Compton or La Brea? And which one did JGold put on his Essentials?
It was the Original Bludso’s back in the day, the Compton one.
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Chowhound started out much like FTC, as a place for informed discussion. After almost 20 years of organic growth in that direction, CBS reorganized the content to make the site first and foremost a search engine.
i hammered them pretty hard on their choice to go with tags vs. allowing searches on text. there was sufficient backlash to cause them to relent and retain the text search function - i think. they could have since removed it and i wouldn’t know since i have no reason to search CH. but you can’t force fit data into a specific configuration without first determining things like how it’s going to be used and how you expect to be able to locate the data you want (your search keys, indices, etc.) their engineers didn’t understand the data at all and the self important VP that was in charge of the process proved himself to be an idiot.
if i had a chance to tweak yelp, i’d have it weight rankings if any or only selected 'friend’s or reviewers on yelp reviewed the place. so if a friend whose opinion i trusted gave a place 5 stars, it would come up first even if no one else ranked it more than 3 stars. but you’d have to balance that against the percentage of users who’d actually take advantage of that; sadly, most folks are like lemmings. i’d also tweak their search function to allow for the use of quotes. it’s kinda like writing a phone app. it can be well designed, but most people will want a re-write to incorporate functions that accommodate their own personal idiosyncrasies.
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I search Chowhound occasionally to refresh my memory about things I posted there. Their native search engine is garbage so I usually use Google with advanced operators. Some posts I know were once there were either lost when they put the site through the wood chipper or the site’s fucked up in some way that makes them unfindable.
i do that for yelp, actually. yelp takes so long that it’s quicker to find yelp pages using google.
I use Yelp primarily for descriptions of the parking options at restaurants and hours of operation. Whether or not a restaurant takes credit cards is sometimes useful for smaller places, too.
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Melanie Wong gave a solid review for the bay area . Also a fellow who was a master Chocolatier. Don’t remember his name . Along with a superior wine person . That’s all I miss on chowhound.
i’m late in this conversation but i find yelp very useful. i have also never posted a review and never will. to me it is an updated zagat guide only better. it lists almost every restaurant with it’s address, hours ,
directions, and pictures and often menus. if you want to take the time to decide if a place is good you have that option. for me (i try a lot of restaurants in a lot of neighborhoods as a hobby) i’ll try to find a reviewer with many reviews and see what places we’ve both visited. you can get a good feel if they
treat places fairly. plus i have a bunch of rules, like never trust yelp reviews around a college campus, always be cautious with neighborhood sushi places, beware when reading reviews of ethnic restaurants by reviewers of the same ethnicity; i find them are so hard on the food they grew up with.
best of all yelp is free. so get out of it what you want. most readers here are savvy enough to edit out the garbage. for me it would be a huge loss if yelp went away.
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I use Yelp mostly for the pictures of the menu, hours, credit card, etc.
The reviews are meh…food delivery app complaints, service, friends/family shilling, 1-2 star reviews with zero or little explanation, the whole “elite” thing seems like a joke.
But beefnoguy had some pretty damn good epic Yelp reviews
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Unless they’re Chinese students writing about Chinese restaurants.
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Yup. I also use the bookmark function for places I want to try.
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I save places I want to try in Google Maps, so I’ll see them when I’m nearby.
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Here’s a useful addition to Yelp!
Yelp Warns Consumers About LA Restaurants With Bad Grades
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