
Awful app review trend among Turkish users - mrtksn
http://blog.appwared.com/awful-app-review-trend-among-turkish-users-this-is-why-your-app-gets-so-many-one-star-reviews/
======
diziet
On iOS, we have indexed 666,355 reviews in Turkey. Out of those, 92,853 are 1
star reviews. 13.93%

On iOS, we have 32,296,341 reviews, with 3,448,351 being 1 star reviews.
10.67% one star reviews.

Let's see if we limit it to reviews in the last 2 months:

16.47% negative in Turkey (65,154 total reviews) 12.05% negative in the US
(1,960,283 total reviews)

(source - internal [https://sensortower.com](https://sensortower.com)
analytics)

It's a bit harder to separate reviews between countries on Android, but we
have 7,862,505 recent reviews indexed in the last 2 months on Android, and
780,997 of them are negative (9.93%). I will try to run a query with language
detection, though that might take a bit of time~

~~~
smilliken
I'm seeing a similar number for iOS:

    
    
        Rating         % All         % Turkish
        1              09.6%         15.2%
        2              03.5%         04.4%
        3              06.5%         07.0%
        4              16.6%         14.5%
        5              63.6%         58.7%
    

(Source: data from MixRank's iOS intelligence)

There's definitely a bump in 1-star reviews in Turkey.

~~~
pliny
Could be accounted for by apps with poor localization.

~~~
nickff
So these apps have approximately equally good localization for every other
language, except Turkish?

~~~
msherry
I get that you were being flippant, but apparently Turkish is unusually hard
to localize for: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/whats-wrong-with-
tu...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/whats-wrong-with-turkey.html)

~~~
phaker
This post is a little like programming pop science: an entertaining read, but
greatly overstates some small result. The only Turkish-specific problem he
mentions is case folding of ı/i. This is a problem unique to Turkish, there
are other problems in case folding, like eszett (ß/ss) in German but these are
much less likely to trip you up.

The US date format (m/d/y) is used virtually only in US, most other places use
d/m/y or y/m/d. \--
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country#Map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country#Map)

Re dots for thousands separators -- the world is split about roughly evenly on
this, with all of europe (except for Great Britain and Ireland) using commas
for decimals dots for thousands separators. --
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Hindu.E2.80.93Arab...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#Hindu.E2.80.93Arabic_numeral_system)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
"This post is a little like programming pop science" That's Jeff Atwood for
you.

------
Jun8
Maybe it's a Saturday night thing but the discussion for this part mostly has
comments that rival the ignorance of the OP, e.g. "The sad fact is that most
people are awful", "you could block that country from your app", all based on
simplistic anecdotal analysis given in the post.

Before you arrive at such a sweeping conclusion, you should perform at least
_a little bit_ of statistical testing, e.g. see diziet's analysis on this
page.

Two further comments:

1\. The behavior mentioned in the post does seem to be a real thing, as
evidenced by the many entries in the Turkish zeitgeist site eksisozluk:
[https://eksisozluk.com/yorumum-gozuksun-diye-1-yildiz--
41109...](https://eksisozluk.com/yorumum-gozuksun-diye-1-yildiz--4110946?p=1),
the first entry under this heading is dated 11/13/2013 so it seems to be a new
meme. Also, the entries suggest that the behavior seems to be focused on
Google Play rather than the Apple Store.

2\. This shows a significant drawback of Google Play's selection of comments
to display. Looking at the selected comments for the same game on the Apple
Store ([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wheres-my-
water-2/id63885314...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wheres-my-
water-2/id638853147?mt=8)) I don't see this kind of 1 star ratings.

~~~
clarky07
You wouldn't see these ratings on the Apple Store unless you are in Turkey (or
changed your device's region) because Apple separates app store ratings. US
devices only see US ratings. Turkey only sees Turkey ratings.

EDIT: Also, Apple doesn't display ratings like Google does, so there is
clearly no reason for them to leave reviews like that.

~~~
wyager
That's clever. It accounts for cultural differences in rating systems.

A 3/5 isn't a good rating in any country I've lived. A 5 is good. There isn't
really a rating for "exceptionally amazing". But I'm sure somewhere, a 3/5
means "pretty good" and 5/5 is reserved for exceptionally positive reviews.

~~~
flurdy
May be my Norwegian upbringing or that I now live the UK, but when I like an
app I often give it 3/5 stars, which to me is "not bad" (which means "good" in
the UK). 5/5 would be amazing life changing rating and I don't get that
excited by any app. I have give 4/5 to a few apps that is installed on all my
devices.

So the problem with world wide rating is that are so different depending on
your location and culture (and age).

Although I only install apps that have 4.5 star rating so I am being
hypocritical...

Anecdotal tangent: A long time ago when I was in school in Norway, grades was
marked on sort of 1-5 rating. (LG=Not very Good, NG=Quite Good, G=Good,
MG=Very Good, S=Exceptionally Good.
[http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaktersystemer_i_Norge#Grunns...](http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaktersystemer_i_Norge#Grunnskolen))
As I was usually among the best I mostly got a grade in the range of MG ie a
4. The top rating was practically impossible and I only got that on a few
occasional tests but never on a full year's grade. MG+ was the more likely top
grade to aim for. (They have since changed and expanded the grade system)

When I then moved to the UK in my last years of schooling, grade A seemed to
be handy out all over the place. I do remember having to have meetings with
the head of the year to be put into the best Maths set even if my average from
Norway was not of the top grade and trying to explain that top grade in the
two countries was not equivalent.

~~~
ronaldx
I think the purpose of the rating system motivates how people rate. Since the
App Store appears to give importance to mean average data, I am given
motivation in that direction:

If I think the app is good, and other people should download it, my rating
makes the most difference if I award a score of 5.

If I think the app is OK but not worth downloading, I can most effectively
indicate that by scoring it a 1.

If I want people to read my review (as Turkish reviewers have observed), I
should perhaps rate it a 1 as well.

So, if I want my reviews to have an observable effect, I should (perhaps) rate
everything 1 or 5.

(Or, I could decide what rating I want the app to have, then rate it a 1 or 5
depending on which direction I need to move it)

The motivation initiated by Apple here is bad - by simplifying everything to a
single figure average, we lose all the nuance that you are trying to give with
your Norwegian-style ratings.

~~~
eru
> (Or, I could decide what rating I want the app to have, then rate it a 1 or
> 5 depending on which direction I need to move it)

You just re-discovered strategic voting. And that's why the rating system
should display the median and not the mean. For the median, you can skip step
two: just vote what you want.

------
Crito
If you are going to take user reviews seriously, you have to account for the
possibility that a significant portion of the general population _may_ be
comprised of idiots.

People misusing the star system is a problem, but the _real_ problem is that
we are forced to care when people misuse it.

(To correct _this specific_ problem, I would recommend low-tolerance
hellbanning. If a positive review is accompanied by a one-star rating, that
user's ratings and comments will never be seen by another user again.)

~~~
robertjwebb
Are developers on the play store allowed to delete reviews? That sounds like
something that would be really easily abused (i.e. delete all bad reviews of
your bad product).

~~~
jheriko
There is no option on the developer console for this afaik. If there is it is
not prominent or easily discovered.

However, I saw a small burst of bad reviews on an app I used to work on a few
months back - all of those reviews including the developer replies are now
'missing'.

Its possible they merely flagged the reviews and Google got rid of them
because they were rude. Possibly the OPs removed them because the developer
got in contact to ease their pain somehow...

------
dkural
I am Turkish, I live in the US and run a startup. I conducted a small
experiment (n=3) among my cousins living in Turkey aged 8-14: They don't
understand that 3rd parties make these apps not tied to the device; and they
definitely don't understand that the rating (in general) would impact someone
making this app financially. Huh.

~~~
gkya
So you say that you asked a bunch of questions to a couple kids and concluded
that the whole population of Turkey are idiots? Let me tell you, your cousin's
reactions are quite expected, but I doubt yours are.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method)

~~~
Gigablah
Before you get all uppity about the scientific method, I suggest you read
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_to_conclusions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_to_conclusions)

~~~
gkya
Even without the context of my comment, this still makes a great read. Thank
you. BTW, I have to admit that I have misinterpreted the comment, my
apologies.

------
picardo
Turkish users want their reviews to be seen. This sounds narcissistic to us,
but for a lot of people being asked for their opinion of a product is a big
deal. Rather than condemning the users, we should look for ways to improve the
UX of the Google Play Store.

There could be cultural factors at play here as well. When I was growing up in
Turkey, every so often there would be a fad that picked obscure artefacts of
American culture and turned them into articles of social prestige. Cheesy
American soap operas, songs and actors would suddenly and inexplicably become
national sensations that everyone had to know. I assume something similar is
going on with the Android Play Store reviews. Having your review on the
frontpage of an app had become a point of pride, so much so that users are
subverting the system to get there.

~~~
ezrameanshelp
What's interesting is that Google Play will already automatically surface the
reviews from anyone in your extended circles.

------
gfodor
It's kind of weird that they want their comment to be at the top, but the only
thing they say in their comment is that they want it to be at the top. You'd
think if they were looking for exposure, they'd use the exposure to do
something other than talking about how they wanted exposure.

~~~
baddox
First.

~~~
smoyer
I didn't even know that was _ALLOWED_ on Hacker News! All this time I've been
going back to SlashDot when I needed to post that, and I could have been
claiming first posts here.

~~~
baddox
I suspect it's not normally allowed or encouraged, but I think it is uniquely
relevant and appropriate in this case.

~~~
smoyer
I wasn't seriously suggesting otherwise ... It was supposed to be funny (and
to subtly make the point that we really don't want that here).

------
bagels
This makes me wonder... are there locales where 1 star might be taken to mean
a better review than a 5 star review?

I realize that's not what's being claimed here, though.

There's no intrinsic meaning to how stars correlate to quality is my thinking
here, but perhaps only due to familiarity do we think that more stars is
better and not worse.

~~~
userbinator
Here's a comment which suggests that at least some of them are thinking 1 star
is the best:

 _Kubilay Tekin: I hadn 't gave 1 star just because I want my comment gets
shown on top, I actually think that the game is aweful aqws.w.wew..ws_

(I've seen this phenomenon before - there are quite a few who associate 1 with
_first place_ , hence surveys and such often have the [1 = worst, 10 = best]
next to each "rate xxx on a scale of 1 to 10")

~~~
tempestn
I don't think that's what that comment suggests. The commenter is
acknowledging that some people give one star just to have their comment seen,
even though they think it's a good app, but that he personally is giving one
star because he thought it was indeed awful.

~~~
userbinator
I saw it as that he is giving 1 star because he wants the comment to be seen,
but actually thinks it was awful (implying that he wouldn't give 1 if it _wasn
't_ awful). Either way the grammar certainly taxed my parser...

~~~
cowls
You misread that. It says "I hadn't gave 1 star just because I want my comment
gets shown on top"

He is saying he hasnt only given 1 start to be at the top, he actually does
think the app is terrible

------
pacala
[http://nlp.stanford.edu/sentiment/](http://nlp.stanford.edu/sentiment/)

> Good, a very good game! I gave 1 star so that my comment gets seen.

++ very positive

> The game is an example of how a good game should be! Don't bother that I
> gave 1 star, it's because I want my comment gets seen.

++ very positive

> Super! I gave 1 star so that my comment is shown first but I actually liked
> the game.

0 neutral

> I hadn't gave 1 star just because I want my comment gets shown on top, I
> actually think that the game is aweful aqws.w.wew..ws

\- negative

~~~
andrewflnr
Maybe star ratings should be removed in favor of text reviews with "ratings"
based exclusively on sentiment analysis. Has machine learning reached a state
where that's practical? If not, will anyone hazard a guess on when it will?

~~~
eru
Just offer both, and weigh them behind the scenes however you feel like.

------
rwallace
WTF? Why is this bug report getting spammed with talk about Turkey? The bug is
that the system displays one star reviews first, creating broken incentives.
Assuming that the code works (i.e., doesn't work) the same way in every
country, the country has nothing to do with it. The system needs to be fixed
to use a more neutral display order.

------
rytis
Is there anyone else who thinks the "5 star" rating is somewhat flawed, or is
it just me?

I think, the problem is that the scale is all on the positive side, but people
are trying to use it to give negative rating. So naturally they readjust the
scale, so that it has both, positive and negative sides, by "shifting" the
zero of the scale. Now, where exactly does it go? Will 3 become 0, or is it 2
for some people, or maybe 4?

I know it's way too late in the game, but why can't the rating system be just
a simple "good", "bad", "it's ok", or maybe even: :-(, :-|, :-)

~~~
Crito
I am not enamoured with the "5 star" system, but I have to say that I like it
more than the standard 5-choice system that explicitly labels the choices as
positive or negative: _Strongly Disagree, Disagree, No Opinion, Agree,
Strongly Agree_

I _despise_ that sort of system. None of the choices ever seem to be
appropriate for what I think or feel.

Star systems avoid inspiring this frustration in me by giving me the freedom
to imagine labels that I think fit how I feel or think.

~~~
jnbiche
>Star systems avoid inspiring this frustration in me by giving me the freedom
to imagine labels that I think fit how I feel or think.

And in statistical circles, this is called survey bias (rating bias).

If you think a 4 is "awesome", and another person thinks that it means "pretty
good", and this effect is widespread, it will result in a biased survey that
is difficult to interpret.

------
rdtsc
Interesting.

Is it for mixed reviews as in total reviews worldwide and Turkey or just for
Turkey. It seems it is just for Turkey.

Maybe they are just more honest and say why they are giving 1 star reviews. Or
maybe they are dishonest and really think the game is terrible but in the
comment chose to say something else to seem nice? Is there somehow a
disproportionate presence of Turkish Android app developers and since they are
competing with you they are just messing with author's head.

Looking at the game review in the app store (presumably the US version) most 1
or 2 star reviews seem valid (and don't see a particular trend with names, to
mean they are certain ethnicity).

A guess it would be good to browser other apps' reviews from Turkey. So I took
a look at Cut The Rope. Very popular game, indeed.

Looking at US reviews, looks good.

Turkish:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zeptolab.c...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zeptolab.ctr.ads&hl=tr)

Hmm, well I can't read Turkish. So I opened Google Translate and started
translating a few top 1 star review. And yap, same pattern.

===

Mükemmel Çok güzel harika bir oyun gözüksün diye 1

\---

Excellent Very nice people to see a great game as one

===

===

Gerçekten cok guzel bir oyun hem zeka açıcı Gercekten cok güzel

\---

Really a very nice game're really nice and intelligence opener

===

Someone might want to help, but even with Google Translate it looks like they
are giving it good reviews as text but 1 star as a score.

The crude and seemingly insensitive way is to just prevent Turkish reviewers
from commenting. Or even better hellban them and never account for their
score. The would correct this pretty quickly I would imagine.

Now I would really hope someone from Turkey to explain if there is a cultural
or social reason for this. It just seems to strange and odd.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> The crude and seemingly insensitive way is to just prevent Turkish reviewers
> from commenting. Or even better hellban them and never account for their
> score.

Maybe don't provide a guaranteed way to appear in the displayed comments? I'd
expect this to spread outside of Turkey pretty quickly.

~~~
katharsiss
This is pretty sad for other Turkish people, who seeks proper reviews and know
proper rating mentality. It is like hell for me. I translated an app to
Turkish and wanted to check if there is any translation related comments. It
blew my mind. There was 1 review in terms of new translation pack. The rest
was 1-star reviews. I started to downvote these reviews (thumb down), but I
guess no one cares enough to vote up or down useful reviews. There has to be
another way. I guess voting anonymously will be the solution. Thanks to
Google's Google+ integration, some stupid attention seekers want to show their
full name on apps' first pages.

------
jnbiche
This is really odd, particularly considering that Turkey is by far one of the
friendliest places I've been in my many travels (well, at least many travels
when I was younger).

I question whether they're aware of the grief that their reviews are causing.
In any case, it's still pretty inconsiderate to tell someone (numerically)
that you think their work sucks, even if you don't really mean any harm.

All in all, probably an extension of the whole "cursing/attacking/belittling
someone on the Internet doesn't count" phenomenon.

~~~
katharsiss
They don't think that they are hurting developers, firms, etc. I saw a comment
like this: "Hey dude, don't get me wrong I loved your app, it is really fun
thank you; but I am giving 1-star just to be seen".

I guess they don't comprehend stars' purpose. When they are searching apps,
they just scroll down to the comments. Stars are not a way to judge the apps.
Also, with the Google+ integration, they enjoy their full name is being seen
on an app's page. Weird.

~~~
eru
Turks are friendly in person, and warm and welcoming. But in general, they
don't seem to have as much of a general concept of civic duty. Eg they just
litter, because there's no visible victim, and they don't see the guy who has
to pick up the trash.

(I lived there for a few months.)

------
sprite
I hate the iOS review system. People rarely leave a review if the like the
app, but as soon as they have something to complain about they will leave a
bad review. Also most people if they have an issue will automatically leave a
bad review instead of contacting the support email to get it resolved.

What's even more annoying is people that write things like 'Best app ever' and
then give it a 3 or 4 star rating instead of 5.

~~~
GhotiFish
> Also most people if they have an issue will automatically leave a bad review
> instead of contacting the support email to get it resolved.

because most people are used to working with big products. Even me, a
developer, this is the first time I considered that you could in general email
support and not get some patronizing useless robot. It makes sense now that I
think about it, since so many of the apps are made by small sized development
firms or even just lone wolfs, there's a good chance I could get a human,
maybe even another dev!

In general, that would never happen with a large and well known product. Faced
with that, people take the only outlet they feel with maybe change something.

The best app ever part. Well...

People always exaggerate, _ALWAYS_.

:)

------
zrgiu_
We had the same problem, but with Russia. Ours being a paid app and our
reviews being in the low 1000s, every 1-star rating was hurting us badly, so
we removed Russia completely from our distribution. We added it back a month
later and things went back to normal, but that's definitely something that we
shouldn't need to have done.

~~~
jnbiche
Was it the same "awesome app but 1 star so I'm on the front page?". Or just
widespread 1 star reviews solely from Russia?

------
xcyu
Maybe Google should do sentiment analysis on review text and compare with star
rating then rank the review to be less visible if the two contradicts too
much?

------
greenwalls
If you aren't generating any revenue from Turkey you could block that country
from your app.

------
whizzkid
As a Turkish, I think i know little better what is going on here;

It is the high school kids that they think it is cool to mess up with big and
serious systems in their stupid way. It is fun for them to mess up rules which
I think is the same for most of the teenagers around the world. They try to
break things, don't listen teachers, don't go to school.

They think that they should be doing what they want instead of what others
want them to do.

The outcome for the turkish teenagers irritating behaviour showed in Google's
Play Store. That is all what i can see.

Aren't we all tired of these kids actions around us sometimes? :)

------
aestra
People's review habits in general are bizarre. I have read reviews like "I
haven't gotten a chance to use the product yet" with a 3 star rating. One
wonders what exactly they are reviewing. Or recipe reviews are the weirdest,
every one of them say "I change blah blah blah" to the point where its a
completely different recipe then they review their recipe, like that's somehow
appropriate. I can understand making one tweek to suit your taste but don't
change the whole recipe and think thats what you are reviewing.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
When I FIRST released a paid game on the Android Market, after my first dozen
5-star reviews I was devastated by a 1-star review, the content of which was
"I can't review this game in only 15 minutes."

And that user then promptly refunded the game within the (then-new) 15 minute
window.

And (surprise!) someone ended up uploading a "cracked" [1] version of my game
to warez sites shortly thereafter. Talk about adding insult to injury.

[1] I used a sneaky way to detect "cracks" in my game that involved, in part,
letting the hacker _think_ they'd cracked it: The game would query Google to
see if they'd paid for it, and if not, it would throw a "Sorry, you don't own
this game" dialog up. There were scripts around that would remove the standard
Google DRM, though; instead of fighting that, I LET them "hack" it, and
afterwards it wouldn't bring up that dialog any more. But then the behavior
reverted to being identical to the free demo (first 30 levels free, then you
had to buy the real game). It was "hacked" almost a dozen times, and never
once did anyone figure out how to get past the second layer of protection.

~~~
TillE
How did you detect that the DRM check was removed?

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Short answer: I looked at the SHA signature of the .class file (where all the
compiled classes' bytecode is stored) and checked it against a known signature
stored in an encrypted data file.

And the best part was the encryption on ALL the games' data files was based on
a key derived from the binary executable (the .so file), so if anyone were to
hack that executable, the game wouldn't run at all. I should have thrown up a
screen that let people know that it was a cracked version, and where to get
the real thing. And I DEFINITELY should have changed the Flurry code; my "paid
game" analytics were completely shot after the cracks were released. Duh.

A serious hack attempt would have broken it, no question; there's no
unbreakable DRM, after all, and I wasn't even using serious encryption (I
decided it didn't matter: A typical attacker is not going to attack the
encryption mathematically, they're going to decompile the binary to get the
key AND algorithm, so as long as it can stand up to trivial attacks, it's
strong enough -- connecting to a known encryption algorithm might actually
make it EASIER for them, since then they'd have known function names and
parameters). I just wanted to raise the bar.

------
_s
Mere speculation: Isn't this just a result of the mixing of "Helpfulness"
feature and the black-hat marketing / reviews purchasing?

As in now those selling "Reviews" for your app; something like $100 for around
fifty 3 to 5 star reviews can justify their price by stating their reviewers
have consistently ranked as being "Helpful" and always on the "front page" of
any app review? And what we're seeing is the reviewers working for these
black-hat intermediaries trying to up their overall review "weight"; whereby
I'm assuming google takes into account your previous reviews (and their
helpfulness) with how long your review now stays on the front page (much like
comments staying on top of a HN thread).

Or it could just be a typical fad akin to wanting the personalized car
registration of "A1", being top/first etc.

------
anigbrowl
The sad fact is that most people are awful. I fully expect this trend to catch
on elsewhere, it just happens to have got started off in Turkey.

------
Avalaxy
When I read the title I thought: "well, must be an issue with
internationalization (see Turkey test)". When I read the actual article I just
thought "w..t..f... This just doesn't make any sense, who came up with this?".

------
cLeEOGPw
They are just exploiting the flawed rating system. If users are encouraged by
the system to give bad reviews I don't feel that they could be blamed. Google
should think of other way to display review comments.

~~~
fzltrp
They could perhaps implement meta reviews, which let users rate reviews. Note
That:

* perhaps the ratio of misleading ratings isn't necessarily high enough to render the system ineffective (iow, it may be just noise), but in order to know that, it appears to me that the meta review would be necessary.

* it wouldn't stop people from trying to game the system (which lead to the idea that even if meta review was there, its effectiveness would have to be tested, maybe by using... a meta meta review?)

~~~
clarky07
Apple has done this for years. "is this comment helpful" and then the reviews
can be sorted by most helpful in addition to recent. i'm pretty sure most
helpful is the default as well.

~~~
fzltrp
I guess this wasn't too far fetched an idea. Google engineers must have
thought of this before me as well, which means that they must've a good reason
to not implement it. I wonder what it could be.

------
sepeth
Abusing something is like a cultural thing in here. Sorry :(

~~~
moocowduckquack
Is pretty funny in a law of unintended consequences kind of a way.

------
chmike
I guess people should be able to rate comments. They would fight on comment
rating and less on app rating. If the idiots are just a minority, this should
fix it.

------
robmcm
Perhaps you should only be allowed to give an app a 1 star review if you
delete it.

Re-installing it should remove your review.

------
kyberias
There's also a phenomenon in IMDB where Turkish movies get voted exceptionally
high on many categories.

~~~
fsniper
Turkish users like to manipulate votes and have some high self esteem to be a
superior in doing anything. So if some thing is Turkish rooted and be or seems
to be better than competitors they have pride. So to have more pride and
fulfil their self esteem they try to manipulate every voting system.

In this case, the self esteem is their comment is better to bee seen then
anyone else's so why not manipulate the system? It's some kind of hacking
culture but in a bad motive.

------
f4stjack
And does this surprise you, op? I think you have seen ample evidence of so
called "troll" comments garner more attention and clicks in ekşisözlük. They
are doing this, because they want attention and google provides an easy way to
do it. You don't even have to write a provocative content, just click 1 star
and you are on the top of the world.

A community, be it a virtual or a real one, has its trolls, e.g. misusers. If
you promote such a behavior, albeit unintentionally, increase in repetition of
such behavior is very expectable. The thing to do in my humble opinion is
rethinking this feedback mechanism and rebuild it in the content quality's
favor.

------
lifeisstillgood
this is simply the first shot in our generations new problem - how to gather
review globally in a useful and fair manner.

"stars ratings" is simple - and in fact too simple. Rating based on likes of
friends is the next (current?) evolution - but that has some terrible
drawbacks for fairness and socially beneficial ends, after that? Probably
based on actual usage, as most social sciences have given up on self-reporting
as a methodology and started using observations.

But it's going to be a hard slog - and personally a slog I would prefer to be
done openly and not behind closed commercial doors

------
shimfish
Do 1 star comments really go to the top or is the problem here that these kids
_think_ they do? Isn't it more likely it's just the most recent reviews that
are getting shown first?

~~~
causeisunknown
1-star comments really go to the top...

------
jds375
Is this strictly limited to Turkish users? I have a feeling that if we were to
consider apps in other languages we might find it's just a general problem
amongst all users.

~~~
jfoster
It could just be that the trend started amongst Turkish users first and the
language barrier could be inhibiting its spread to other locales. This article
having translated and explained the review ranking behaviour might speed
things along.

------
newyankee
This reminds me of the case where an Indian politician's facebook page was
found to contain a lot of 'likes' from Turkish users.

[http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rajasthan-chief-
minister-a...](http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/rajasthan-chief-minister-
ashok-gehlot-accused-of-buying-facebook-likes-from-istanbul-390210)

The city where he was most liked changed from Jaipur to Istanbul which helped
detect this.

------
ipityonme
They are mostly 9-14 years old kids. And yes, they are selfish, spoiled,
senseless a bunch stupids. Do not think i am using "a bunch" phrase to de-
emphasize this situation. There are 6.5 million 9-14 years old kids live in
Turkey and i can guarantee that, half of them can do this shit. So google must
do something before developers get more damage from this stupidity.

------
Mindless2112
YouTube already realized that the 5-star rating system doesn't work [1]. Based
on the histograms I see on the Play Store, it's seems like they should realize
it too.

[1] [http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-
domina...](http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-
ratings.html)

------
darkhorn
Another awful app review trend among Turkish users
[https://itunes.apple.com/tr/app/cloudsearch-reverse-
phone/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/tr/app/cloudsearch-reverse-
phone/id586594379) They give 5 star in order to get 3 free credits. (Also this
app uses CIA app's database which is free)

------
jrockway
To be fair, I'm not sure it has ever been a good idea to take advice from
random strangers on the Internet.

~~~
shiven
Not sure that still applies as aptly in the emerging world where (nearly)
everything is being advertised, explored, researched and ordered online.

Good or bad, the crowd is relying on its emerging "wisdom" more 'n more.

------
kingkawn
In America either something changes our lives or we want the creator to have
their house taken away.

------
darkhorn
Turkish users "crack" reCaptcha [http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/01/comments-
back-on-recaptcha-...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/01/comments-back-on-
recaptcha-was.html)

------
darkhorn
Also the term "yorum" in Turkish means "comment". So it does not completely
mean "review". In other words, there is no equivalent translation for the word
"review".

~~~
katharsiss
"inceleme" may cover "review". it is used to be like this in turkish websites:

"Galaxy S3 incelemesi" "Samsung SyncMaster 2333 incelemesi"... etc.

Turkish users are used to the word "inceleme". Yorum/comment is like: ah yes I
liked, fuck this sucks. A yorum/comment may not include why do you like it/why
does it suck, etc.

------
sandeshd
I guess Turkish users will get blocked by app developers after looking at this
ridiculous attitude. Btw they helped Google to find this bug, good job Turkish
users.

~~~
shultays
It is not really a bug, 1 star reviews get an intentional bump in priority
which is expected since "THIS APP BROKE MY PHONE, 1 STAR" is more important
than "Just another breakout clone, meh. 3 star"

------
minusSeven
This is like :
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-04-16/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2003-04-16/)

------
hrasyid
Interesting. Any idea for another way "helpful comments" can be identified? I
mean, presenting bad reviews _is_ helpful in most cases.

------
coralreef
As an iOS dev, you get a lot of crappy reviews based on really dumb, inane
things by users.

People are very quick to give 1-star reviews without hesitation.

------
algomir
hi i am from turkey and i can say do not take seriously turkish reviews with 1
star. these are absolutely rubbish. some people in turkey just want other
people to read their comments in anyway

i am also an android developer and i do not know why they are doing this shit.

IGNORE THEM.

------
wcdolphin
I wonder if it is isolated to Google Play, and if so, if these are actually
human accounts?

------
_random_
Better than "I would give it 5 stars if it was free" type of comments.

~~~
criswell
"I would rate these jeans 5 stars, but they were delivered a day late so I'm
giving them 1 star."

------
jeffehobbs
That's nobody's business but the Turks.

------
mkramlich
I once did iPhone app development. I'll always remember one app in particular
that I shipped. A retro game. We'd see lots of "reviews" in the App Store
where the user would leave comments like, "great game! loved it. but I really
wished there were more playable levels for the 99 cents I paid. So I could
only give it 1 out of 5 stars."

ad nauseum

~~~
ben1040
I've seen plenty of reviews along the lines of "This free app does everything
it says it does, and does it extremely well. But it doesn't do <unfeasible
thing that would matter only in some obscure use case> so until it does, 1
star."

------
avighnay
Ha ha! It gave me a good laugh :-)

~~~
avighnay
oops sorry, I thought it was funny that people can be so eager to have their
comments appear but I missed the seriousness

------
jblow
This article seems naive. Probably people are being paid to rate apps down.

~~~
eridius
If they're being paid to rate the app down, why does the review itself claim
the game is good?

~~~
yock
Plausible deniability?

------
morgante
What do you expect from Android users? In general the Google Play store is a
far more bizarre and spammy atmosphere...

~~~
coolnow
"What do you expect from Android users?"

Sigh. What did i expect from a web designer? /s

~~~
morgante
> Sigh. What did i expect from a web designer? /s

I'm not a web designer...

~~~
flebron
"I design and develop websites at MasterMade or write at Newly Ancient."

From your website.

~~~
eropple
Well, he said 'or'.

