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Comment by InitialLastName | Hacker News Reader

I think the worry is retaliatory reviews. I've been in a situation where if I left my host an honest review, I expected to get a nasty review in return.

It's honestly a problem with all of these bi-directional rating systems. As long as they make it at all possible for the ratings to leak before both parties have rated, there's a strong disincentive for any party to leave an honest rating.

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Airbnb switched to a "double blind" review system several years go, so you only see the other person's review after you've written your own. If you don't leave a review within two weeks, the other review becomes public and you no longer have the option to leave a review. I did a search to see if there was any press about this, couldn't find much but there's a bit about it here: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/building-for-trust-503... "The result was a 7% increase in review rates and a 2% increase in negative reviews."

My reason for not writing a negative review is because before staying at their place we exchanged phone numbers and other things, and now I don't feel comfortable writing a negative review and possibly having a confrontation. YMMV but I avoid writing negative reviews despite the 'double blind' review system.

Always contact them through AirBnB. You should be treating it just like contacting random strangers for sex on Craigslist, potentially dangerous. There's no reason to give a random stranger your personal contact details.

I thought that you couldn't see what a host or guest wrote about you until you already wrote your review. That's the way it's been for me, anyway.

TBH I haven't used AirBNB in a long time (too many small hassles + one big bad experience), so it's hard for me to say at this point.

I do know that similar systems (Uber, at least) have had issues with leaky reviews leading to retaliation. It's hard to implement a system like that, especially when your users have safety, money, and comfort on the line.

Works great with the double blind system Airbnb uses

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