Bad tippers, ratings sites, and sock puppets
Will Ng over at MiSoapbox posted recently about waiters who blog about their bad-tipping customers. Like it or not (and lots of people don’t), everything is getting rated these days. From RateMyProfessors.com, where students can anonymously post comments about their teachers, to online ratings about lawyers, doctors, auto repair shops, real estate agents…well, just about everyone. Except meeting planners, at least, so far. Hotels, of course, have been dealing with this for a while with sites like this one.
Is this a good trend? I tend to think so, even if it’s a little scary to give all sorts of potential whack jobs the potential to smear your work. In my experience, these things tend to be self-correcting. You get one really bad rating, say, from someone who is just never happy with anything, but it’s ameliorated by other ratings by normal people. And if you deserve a bad rating, well, you need to know that, too. Just whatever you do, if you find your work being rated poorly, don’t go all sock puppet about it and create a fake identity to protest your innocence, as the New Republic’s Lee Siegel recently did. As he found out, this goes strongly against good netiquette.
This new openness does bring with it some new challenges, but I think it’s a good thing, overall. It’s really no different than the age-old word-of-mouth—it’s just that that mouth went electronic and global, instead of staying in the neighborhood.
Related Topics: Technology
September 26th, 2006 at 10:40 am
This is an extension of the reality that we already deal with. There will always be people who just dislike us no matter what, people who like us no matter what, and a large percentage of the people who are on the fence regarding what we’re about until further evidence.
While I agree that openness is great, the shield of anonymity on the web has fueled the glee of gossipmongers and toxic people who love nothing more than spew venom about other people without being found out. Rating sites and reviews would have more credibility when individuals own up to their opinions.
September 26th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
True, Jane, and I always leave my name on anything I write. If I wasn’t willing to own up to it, I wouldn’t put it out in the public sphere. You’re right, of course, about the toxin-spewers, but I think they’re outnumbered by the normal people. They don’t call me a pollyanna for nothing!
November 16th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
I think ratings sites are a great trend. Although oftentimes biased, I believe people than become more informed than they once were. Another site gaining momentum is http://ratemyapartments.com
July 5th, 2007 at 4:31 am
There’s another site out there where people can list the names of customers who leave lousy tips or no tips at all. http://www.lousytippers.com
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