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Comment by dm2 | Hacker News Reader

What a horrible policy, it won't end well for them.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/union-street-guest-house-hudson?sort... 10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g47931-d490934-Revie...

Their website navigation is a very discrete image map in the middle of the page, http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/ obviously this was someone's first website.

It's probably not legal, if it is then it is unenforceable in court, even if it was in their terms contract.

Here is the page with their $500 review fee policy: http://www.unionstreetguesthouse.com/events_weddings.shtml

I don't condone leaving negative reviews if you haven't stayed there, but if you do be sure to note that you have not stayed at the hotel and are just commenting on their policies to warn people, unless that is against the review sites policy, then don't do that.

View on HN

Nice:

If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere in the area and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500. fine for each negative review. (Please NOTE we will not charge this fee &/or will refund this fee once the review is taken down). Also, please note that we only request this of wedding parties and for the reasons explained above.

> for the reasons explained above

Being lazy and not reading it myself: do they attempt to adequately explain the policy other than "we'd like to be able to be dickish without getting bad reviews" in "the reasons explained above"?

(edit for those only reading this far: it appears that they do, see the replies to this post for detail)

"Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our Inn, your friends and families may not. This is due to the fact that your guests may not understand what we offer - therefore we expect you to explain that to them. USGH & Hudson are historic. The buildings here are old (but restored). Our bathrooms and kitchens are designed to look old in an artistic "vintage" way. Our furniture is mostly hip, period furniture that you would see in many design magazines. (although comfortable and functional - obviously all beds are brand new) If your guests are looking for a Marriott type hotel they may not like it here."

I actually kinda see where they're coming from. I'm sure they do get complaints from people who never stay anywhere besides upscale chain hotels. But obviously this is not the way to address the issue. It's mean and ultimately self-defeating.

A piece of paper asking guests to keep this in mind when giving reviews would suffice.

A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much more likely to actually receive a negative review from me.

A company that threatens to fine me for giving them a negative review is much more likely to actually receive a negative review from me.

And a company that actually fines me would be much more likely to receive a chargeback, formal complaints to any relevant regulators, or even for that kind of money a small claims suit.

I'm not really sure how they expect to win with this policy, particularly since they're presumably about to get more negative publicity than every bad review they ever avoided and searching for them on-line will probably lead to dozens of critical comments forever now.

I agree. If they are offering something unique and unusual, it is their problem to ensure that the guests are educated. And, guess what? If guests don't like it, they need to change their strategy and modernize.

Yes this is true, but this is the wrong way to do it. I have stayed at many places reviewed badly by people who just do not get it. Like I stayed at a wonderful rustic place in Maine [1] but there were quite a few reviews complaining about the rustic nature and giving them one star. As a human being I can then read these reviews and decide that the people rating it one star were expecting that this should have been some 5 star modern hotel or Sandals. This happens with restaurants too as some people do not take into account the cost/location of a restaurant in reviews "I have had better burritos in San Diego, zero stars!" when reviewing a Tex-Mex place in New Jersey.

Bottom line is that people are smart enough to filter out bad reviews.

1. http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g40525-Boothbay_Harbor_Mai...

> Bottom line is that people are smart enough to filter out bad reviews.

The problem is that the software generally filters first - e.g. "show me the 'best of'" or "sort by top rated". If you're looking at a selection of hundreds of items, I don't know that your statement holds.

It's the "scalar fallacy."

In a nutshell, the scalar fallacy is the false but pervasive assumption that real-world things (hotels, sandwiches, people, mutual funds, chemo drugs, whatever) have some single-dimension ordering of "goodness".

When you project a multi-dimensional space down to one dimension, you are involving a lot of context and preferences in the act of projecting. Just sayin'.

This is a general problem with reviews. If it’s written text it’s often possible to figure out whether a certain criticism is valid for you personally.

Some people are very sensitive to wait times, I’m just not at all. I can always discount all reviews complaining about wait times because there isn’t enough useful signal there. Sure, even I don’t want to wait three hours for my food, but most people seem to complain way before that and that’s just not relevant information to me.

Contrary, when people tell me what a great experience they had with the staff and that the owner came to their table and chatted with them I know I should probably avoid that restaurant because I just can’t stand any staff or owners acting like they are my best friends immediately.

So, sure, for written reviews it’s often possible to see whether a criticism is relevant for your own personal tastes, but all those review places also implement star ratings and those are used to display and filter the places you are shown in the first place. So you might not even see a place you like because it got bad ratings based on (completely valid, by the way, I’m not saying other people have to also be as tolerant of wait times as I am!) factors you personally don’t care about.

This affects other places as well, for example apps in app stores. I’m not sure how to solve this, to be honest, but that seems like a cool problem to tackle. I’m imagining Netflix-like personalised lists of restaurants or hotels you might like, not these dumb global star ratings.

Does this already exist somewhere? I feel like it should. Surely someone must have already tried that …

>when people tell me what a great experience they had with the staff and that the owner came to their table and chatted with them

This tends to be a part of a broad cultural expectation. Americans tend to equate "good service" with [fake] niceness and obligated smiles and cheeriness. Some other cultures are different where good service means simply doing your job. I can't count how many times people have gone to other countries and complained about the "poor service" and "everyone is rude here" not even considering cultural differences.

The US has gone insane in that respect with obligated "niceties."

Now when I go to Walgreens they say to me after any transaction "be well." Seriously? Like I believe the cashier ringing up my candy and soda purchase personally cares about my well being and health? Or that it is adding anything of value to the transaction?

> Now when I go to Walgreens they say to me after any transaction "be well." Seriously? Like I believe the cashier ringing up my candy and soda purchase personally cares about my well being and health? Or that it is adding anything of value to the transaction?

Its a corporate slogan with tie-ins to Walgreen's marketing and branding. Like most aspects of branding, its not designed to operate at the level of rational thought and analysis at all. Its more like the use of corporate colors and logos on retail employees uniforms, but in auditory rather than visual form.

Doesn't make it less obnoxious. (to me)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_a_nice_day#.22Have_a_Nice_...

Perhaps they could have sent a gift voucher to the wedding couple for every negative review, including a message that you wanted a "vintage" inn and we provided the best service we could, but your guests weren't happy. It could probably guilt the wedding couple to request the guests to take the reviews down. And, perhaps led to a positive story on HN instead.

Paying people for negative reviews probably isn't the best strategy.

Maybe in a larger sense Yelp is working.

The people paying for the rooms are unhappy with them. They leave negative reviews. Perhaps the next wedding couple doesn't dig into the reviews and just skips over that place in favor of somewhere the guests will enjoy more. So the reviewers end up benefiting future would-be-customers, albeit indirectly.

If the hotel doesn't like this dynamic they can simply refuse to book wedding parties.

And that's the reason (in my opinion) online reviews are borderline worthless. Everyone has different expectations and preferences. Also - a lot of people are completely unreasonable. Unreasonable people are more likely to leave a negative review than a reasonable random joe to leave a positive review.

I stayed at a hotel where the reviews were almost all negative with comments like "the furniture was outdated and the TV was a CRT."

What to I care about in a hotel? A clean bed to sleep on and a shower. That's it. I stay at hotels just to sleep in and wash up.

My apartment building rents out its first floor for events, often to weddings, and I've also noticed there's a tendency for guests to review things that really have nothing to do with us: how the event was organized, how the band sounded, whether the cake was good, and so on.

That doesn't mean, obviously, that we try to fine anyone for those reviews. We trust people reading reviews will realize when complaints don't make sense, and have good reviews that outweigh the bad.

Actually, that I can understand.

If we were in an understanding world the guests who wouldn't normally go to a place like that (and won't/don't enjoy it) but are because it is part of a big event like a wedding, would not leave bad reviews on that basis on the understanding that it is what the bride/groom/others wanted and they are happy.

But we are not in such a world and there are people out there who will leave a bad review because they went to somewhere they would never like on its own merits and don't like it...

I can't say I like their way of dealing with it and can see why people are up in arms, but I can see the problem that they are trying to protect themselves from.

If anyone tries to say we suck, you're gonna pay. Otherwise, we might actually have to get better at our jobs!

  10 negative Yelp reviews have been posted today (so far), ouch...

What's Yelps policy towards such fake reviews? Obviously most of those people have never been to that place.

I went through and read them all and they don't exactly seem "fake" in that the reviewer doesn't claim to have visited to the location. They are all complaining about the policies and attitude of the place, which can pretty well be gleaned from reading the policies on the site.

So you think it is valid to leave a 1 star review for a restaurant, because you don't like the menu posted in their website?

What's the proper response to those handful of restaurants that scam tourists who fail to read the menu charging outrageous prices? If only there were some online site I could find out of a business is a rip off before I patronize it.

A more accurate analogy: you read the menu and notice in the fine print at the bottom that they will charge your credit card an extra $25 if you post a bad review of your meal.

So you get on Yelp and post a review warning others of the practice. Doesn't that seem like a legitimate use of a review site?

Technically, yes, you didn't utilize the service, but that doesn't mean you have no qualifications to comment on the business's bad policies.

"I drove to the repair shop, they insulted me with ethnic slur, and I got mad and drove away." Would this not be a legitimate and useful review?

   Doesn't that seem like a legitimate use of a review site?

I could just as much consider it a warning to post that their wine selection is bad. Might be important for people who care about that. If you see it that way then you will ALWAYS find something you can spin to make a 1 start review without ever having interacted with the business.

If I walked into a restaurant and the owner threatened to kick my ass if I posted a bad Yelp review and I decided to leave without eating, would I be qualified to write a review about their practices? I didn't eat at the restaurant. There was no business exchange.

I'm reviewing the business' policies and warning others of something I find distasteful. In your example, what if I read the online menu and found some fine-print stating they cook their french-frys in orphan tears? Maybe I find that distasteful and want to warn others of such a practice.

None of these people walked into the business. I doubt any of them are planning a wedding reception, if even in the target geographic market.

This is a standard internet lynch mob. They are always vile, reprehensible things, with real humans as victim. But pile on, everyone.

And my point went entirely over your head. If someone finds the business policies reprehensible and wants it to be made known, they have a damned right to let it be known. One doesn't just have to purchase a product or service to be allowed to comment.

No, it didn't "go over my head", though if that notion gives you more comfort, have at it. You brought up an absurd anecdote that is baseless and has zero applicability to this issue, but that you think props up your notion. Don't bring up absurd anecdotes if you don't want them deconstructed.

Let me say again, and this relates to the sibling comment to yours -- none of these people piling on the internet circle jerk torch mob had any interest or engagement with this business. They weren't en route to book their wedding party when they discovered this. They're just trying to feel good by joining a misled, destructive, abusive mob.

It is bullies, pure and simple. Some restaurant I have zero concern about put up a misled threat, in a plain and obvious location, to try to make sure that wedding parties didn't mislead their guests, so now we all must rail about "free speech" and attack someone's business. The employers of people.

Yeah, I'm perhaps a little too mature to see that as constructive for anyone. It is vile.

This has happened so many times before. And after there is the realization that it was all profoundly silly and destructive.

Well, browsing to a hotel's website, prepared to purchase a reservation is virtually the same as walking into a business, is it not? People don't physically go to a hotel to reserve a room, so the hotel's website could be considered a place of business, practically speaking.

This is what has happened to most of the reviews, not sure their criteria, most likely a human at Yelp has been notified and is looking into this posting. http://www.yelp.com/not_recommended_reviews/union-street-gue...

This appears to be from someone associated with the hotel in question: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=igHDMTIuS5wYBi0KZ0jt...

It's at about 90 negative reviews posted today on Yelp.

Edit: now it's at 400+ negative Yelp reviews for the day.

Surprisingly their TripAdvisor profile has received 0 negative reviews today.

Just thought I'd pop in a point out that fines in a contract are perfectly enforceable in the U.S. Liquidated damages provisions are not. A $500 fine per negative review doesn't reflect the hotel's actual or liquidated damages in any way, so the provision would pass muster in court.

For example, penalties for late payments of bills are examples of contractual fines that have been upheld by the courts many times.

Whether or not the fines at issue here are bad business practice depends on how you feel about the justification for the fines.

"It's probably not legal, if it is then it is unenforceable in court, even if it was in their terms contract. "

Could you explain why you believe this? The main issue i would see here would be liquidated damages issues, not something like SLAPP (at least in most states).

I'm not the original poster you're responding to, but it seems odd to say, "if any of your friends do <something>, you'll be fined." It would make sense if it were something physical like vandalizing the hotel while they were at my party (possibly - depending on the circumstances). But if your friend from the party comes back 2 weeks later and vandalizes the hotel, should you still be liable?

That's kind of what this feels like. I didn't tell them to write a review. They genuinely didn't like your product or service. Why am I being fined just because they booked a room for my party? Maybe my friend has a legitimate complaint that isn't about how old the furniture looks (which is what this appears to be about). What if your staff was actually very rude, or the room wasn't up to the quality listed on the web site?

It seems unenforceable to a lay-person because it puts the burden of controlling third parties we can't control on us. If I go someplace for a friend's party and the friend tells me not to post a bad review of it if I don't like it, I'm going to tell my friend to fuck off and write whatever review I want. He has no say in the matter.

So it seems bizarre that you can even legally agree to something over which you have no control. It feels equivalent to saying that you agree to pay a fine if it rains while you're staying at our hotel. (That very well may be enforceable - but it seems odd to the layperson that it could be because you can't predict it ahead of time and can't control whether it happens.) It's simply an example of the law making no sense to the people it applies to.

"Why am I being fined just because they booked a room for my party? "

Because you agreed to those terms? Just because you agreed to a crappy deal for you doesn't get you out of it. If you don't like it, don't take the deal? We are talking about wedding receptions, it's not like random hotel guests. These have real contracts, deposits, etc (and they said they take it out of your deposit).

"It seems unenforceable to a lay-person because it puts the burden of controlling third parties we can't control on us. "

This is incredibly common.

For example, almost every contract you would ever sign for selling software, etc will say something like "you agree to indemnify us if a third party sues us over intellectual property issues in your software". This is clearly enforceable in almost all cases. You have literally no control over who chooses to sue them.

As for not making sense, the law makes perfect sense in this sort of case - you may freely contract for almost anything.

Hah, now the hotel's management is claiming to news sites that it's policy was a "joke" and that they have removed their policy.

What a blatant lie, they deserve to go out of business.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101891812

Does that mean that in court everything in their contract should be considered a joke?

It has to be unenforceable in court because how would you know the guest actually posted the comment and not someone else masquerading.

LOL; they have more than 300 negative reviews so far today now.

Coming soon: The Hotel Formerly Known as Union Street Guest House

I feel bad for the unlucky bride and groom racking up all these $500 charges today.

It's at 400 negative reviews after 3 hours, nobody is getting charged anything, if they do they'll sue and the hotel will receive even more negative publicity.

Looks like it hit Reddit, that's why it jumped so quickly, http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2ckx8i/hotel_cha...

I apologize for the apparent lack of humor or the humorous lack of apparentness in my joke.

off topic, but why don't people use image maps anymore?

Accessibility (probably not so great on a screen-reader,) and SEO (not a proper link with content), I think. Of course, there may be other reasons, too.

The largest issue is that you have to re-create them every time you make a change. You have to create an entire new image, and update the coordinates for the map, which is arduous. They are also not very mobile-friendly, tend to waste a lot of bandwidth on the filler space, and you are somewhat limited in what you can do with the link shapes. It's much more efficient and cleaner to create the elements separately so you can easily update them, and they can scale better. Also, SEO as the other responder mentioned.

Accessibility was always a concern, and mobile is probably now another one. You'd have to recreate the image for mobile screens, re-map it...

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