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Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated

(www.thebookseller.com)
97 points healsdata | 6 comments | 25 Jun 25 11:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.771s | source | bottom
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mrweasel ◴[25 Jun 25 13:16 UTC] No.44376983[source]▶
Online reviews in general are pretty useless these days. We know that sites like Trustpilot will take down negative reviews if you pay them, Amazon reviews are mostly bots and some sites have weird incentives for users to write reviews.

E.g. take reviews of business on Google, there's no link to actual purchases, but you get a star and a "Local guide level 4" or something if you do enough reviews. A family member runs a consulting business, he has a 2-star review, the only review. It's not made by a customer, just some random dude. What it looks like is that this dude just walked around reviewing business after business, based on look of their office perhaps. He's not customer of ANY of them. So now multiple business are trying to have these negative reviews removed, Google doesn't give a shit, so what are these reviews actually worth?

Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either. If you're not getting something in return, most people won't write a review, that just leave the nut jobs.

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1. rendaw ◴[25 Jun 25 14:03 UTC] No.44377478[source]▶
> Most people who write reviews aren't exactly the most mentally stable people either.

That's a wild claim!

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2. mrweasel ◴[25 Jun 25 14:13 UTC] No.44377581[source]▶
Clarification: Write unmotivated reviews.

I'd argue that most people don't review anything, unless they are somehow encouraged to do so. Sometimes they are motivated by anger, but those reviews are quickly taken down on many platforms, or they are based on completely unrealistic expectations, but then we're frequently back at being slightly unstable.

3. jajko ◴[25 Jun 25 14:31 UTC] No.44377786[source]▶
As an owner of airbnb listing, there is some truth there (although as a blanket statement its obviously not true). Its mostly Karens of this world, or simply people pissed off enough to bother getting an app and creating an account, and putting time to write down the review.

Normal folks in normal situations simply couldn't be bothered, not in 2025. The only exception is when platform forces you to do so, and then the sea of dishonest shallow blah to reach certain word count ensues. That's now you get 4.8-4.9* average review out of 5, while judging an OK but not perfect place (and no place is ever perfect since many subjective aspects enter the game).

4. const_cast ◴[25 Jun 25 22:49 UTC] No.44382503[source]▶
In my experience working as various fast food places as a youngen, nobody writes reviews for good service. Because reviews are all about state of mind and emotions. If you're happy, you go home happy and never think about it. If you're angry, you need to vent somewhere.
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5. illiac786 ◴[26 Jun 25 06:54 UTC] No.44384880[source]▶
You’re saying all 5 stars reviews are fake?
6. debesyla ◴[26 Jun 25 08:52 UTC] No.44385494[source]▶
Unless it was unexpectedly good. Sometimes I rush to write a 5 star review if a random restaurant in middle of nowhere exceeds my expectations - so more people would know of the place.

In my scale 3/5 is good (got what expected), 4/5 is very good (nice bargain), 5/5 is uniquely amazing. But I do understand that for some anything below 5/5 is bad.