Bogus/Fake place reviews

Reads 5211 • Replies 62 • Started Monday, December 22, 2014 7:26:42 PM CT

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Message Ragnampiza beers 751 º places 20 º 19:26 Mon 12/22/2014 Didn’t know how to properly send a feedback, so hopefully a new thread should do the job.. These 3 accounts all joined 2 days ago, reviewd 2 beer and 6 places, with one of them in common (The Drunken Duck, 100 score, obviously) : http://www.ratebeer.com/user/349414/places/ http://www.ratebeer.com/user/349418/places/ http://www.ratebeer.com/user/349475/places/ By the way, I noticed many, many strange place reviews (in the last few months) related to the north-east region of Italy. Hopefully there isnt a beer war beetwen publicans or bar/pub fans!
Message Ragnampiza beers 751 º places 20 º 19:35 Mon 12/22/2014 Damn, it seems worse now after a better research Again, strange accounts.. rating many different places in a single day, and (who would have guessed ?) all three of them gave a 100 to "The Drunken Duck" http://www.ratebeer.com/user/311045/places/ http://www.ratebeer.com/user/345447/places/ http://www.ratebeer.com/user/311045/places/ Am I just being paranoid or is this really weird ?
Message DietPepsican P beers 1592 º places 63 º 19:49 Mon 12/22/2014 So the question: Is The Drunken Duck(Italy) truly killing it?
Message AcctError62185 places 1 º 20:44 Mon 12/22/2014 Where exactly is it my son is there I can have him stop in and see if its near bologna

Message JoeMcPhee P beers 12090 º places 543 º 21:04 Mon 12/22/2014 What is it with Italians?
Message ContemplateBeer beers 2092 º places 154 º 13:07 Tue 12/23/2014 How do we know that these reviews are fake?
Message Lowenbrau P beers 5864 º places 432 º 13:23 Tue 12/23/2014 Lots of fake places reviews around. If you know a little your local beer scene you can easily identify them.
Message ContemplateBeer beers 2092 º places 154 º 13:52 Tue 12/23/2014 Originally posted by Lowenbrau Lots of fake places reviews around. If you know a little your local beer scene you can easily identify them. What if the reviews are textless, or contain little text?

Message Ragnampiza beers 751 º places 20 º 13:52 Tue 12/23/2014 Originally posted by ContemplateBeer How do we know that these reviews are fake? Well, I can’t be 100% sure of course, but they are at least suspicious. As I tried to explain yesterday, the 3 profile linked in the first post, have just 2 beer reviews and 6 place reviews, which is already kinda weird. They never entered this site again, and all 3 of those gave a 100 to that pub. 2 of the 3 profiles linked in the second post, are even more strange, because both entered 33 place reviews.. exactly 33 both of them. And obviously there is the usual 100 to The Drunken Duck. Originally posted by Lowenbrau Lots of fake places reviews around. If you know a little your local beer scene you can easily identify them. Exactly, I agree. Since there aren’t many active Italian raters, it sure is news worthy when dozens of place revies are entered withouth a proper comment and all of them have something in common. By the way, I’m sure the pub in question doesn’t even known the existence of those reviews.. maybe there are just many excited beer lovers who want to promote their local pub, at least that’s what I hope
Message sebletitje beers 11868 º places 491 º 15:11 Tue 12/23/2014 From what I have seen of the Drunken Duck, they are very solid in terms of what they offer. I’ll tell you they know about RB. They brought some of the most outstanding beers at regional festivals. Not sure if those reviews are legit or not, but my guess is that the fact that you can rate w/o entering text adds nothing in terms of having a clear account of the reviews.
Message ContemplateBeer beers 2092 º places 154 º 16:38 Tue 12/23/2014 Originally posted by Ragnampiza Originally posted by ContemplateBeer How do we know that these reviews are fake? Well, I can’t be 100% sure of course, but they are at least suspicious. As I tried to explain yesterday, the 3 profile linked in the first post, have just 2 beer reviews and 6 place reviews, which is already kinda weird. They never entered this site again, and all 3 of those gave a 100 to that pub. 2 of the 3 profiles linked in the second post, are even more strange, because both entered 33 place reviews.. exactly 33 both of them. And obviously there is the usual 100 to The Drunken Duck. Originally posted by Lowenbrau Lots of fake places reviews around. If you know a little your local beer scene you can easily identify them. Exactly, I agree. Since there aren’t many active Italian raters, it sure is news worthy when dozens of place revies are entered withouth a proper comment and all of them have something in common. By the way, I’m sure the pub in question doesn’t even known the existence of those reviews.. maybe there are just many excited beer lovers who want to promote their local pub, at least that’s what I hope While all of that would seem to make a compelling case, none of it is illegal on our site, as far as I know. They could be friends who visited the same places, had shared experiences, and decided together to rate the places the same numerically. Do the reviews seem bogus? Absolutely, but by what standard do we decide a place rating is bogus when only a numerical value is required?