You have likely noticed the dramatic changes in the review process of restaurants if you've ever visited a consumer reviews site. Websites have helped consumers find the best products and services by creating new communities and networks around reviews. The sites also make use of sophisticated filters to help users browse through different criteria. But can websites ensure the authenticity of reviews?
While these platforms claim to promote democratization, the reality is that they require an intense investment of editorial resources. Many of them depend on strong personalities for large amounts of content. At the same time, these websites need to ensure that reviews are based on actual consumption experiences. They must be able regulate the homogeneous scoring and rating.
Consumer review websites seek to accomplish this by bringing together a wide range of consumers to create an overall assessment of restaurants. Their ratings are then ranked in an order determined by average scores. They have a dual democratic purpose. On the one hand they want to make reviewing more democratic by allowing many people to participate. However, on the other they must ensure that their opinions are reliable and fair.
Participation platforms must stimulate ratings production to be able to achieve this. Participation platforms should be responsible for publishing written reviews and scoring individual ratings. That is, they must do the double work of associating a review author with a pseudonym and facilitating the production of a variety of ratings.
These strategies can be a boon for website managers as they could help to create a more democratic restaurant industry. These sites will allow for more restaurant reviews. On the other hand, they will also be able to give businesses the means to respond to negative reviews.
Whatever strategy the website uses, the goal is to increase the quality of restaurant selections. These websites can be considered not only the best source of information, but also an extension to the traditional taste-making process.
The consumer reviews website is a key extension of the participatory process initiated by printed guides. These guides are still highly selective and do not include all restaurants. Moreover, if the reviews are produced by an anonymous user, then they will not necessarily be based on real consumption experience. It is possible to make misleading or false reviews. But, sites that use algorithms to select their participants and then publish their reviews will have less distortion.
Sites like Nomao and Dismoiou demonstrate algorithmic egalitarianism. Restaurants are assigned an average score of one to five using this system. It is then given a median rating. These ratings are then compared to the average score of other restaurants to determine its overall score.