
Why We Created the Yelp Elite Squad - frankdenbow
https://medium.com/@nishrocks/why-we-created-the-yelp-elite-squad-b8fa7dd2bead#.sv0bi9k4i
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tristanj
Was it just me, or is the tone of this article really off-putting? It seems
like the author is praising how Yelp did everything right and all their past
decisions are Just Great. There's no mention of any missteps the company made.
The reality is that startups make mistakes, and Yelp is not an exception. It's
like the author is telling a rosy story of the company past and omitting all
the bad parts.

Jeremy Stoppelman, the co-founder of Yelp, has a much more modest story of why
they started Yelp Elite.

"[W]e had at the time one marketing person who was like, ”Maybe we should meet
some of our users that are addicted Yelpers now. . . . They’re in San
Francisco; we’re in San Francisco, it can’t be that hard to meet up.” And I
thought, ”That’s a great idea, let’s look these people in the eye.” . . . We
had this first meeting; it was this really social bunch that came out and met
up with us for drinks, and we’re like, ”Wow, this is really interesting.” [The
meetings] sort of spun out of that. We did our major event [at] Armani Café.
It was really successful. People had a great time. . . . So it just seemed
like, ”Hey this really fits and makes a ton of sense, so let’s just keep doing
it.” And so we kept doing it, and it got bigger and bigger and now [we’re] a
little notorious for it."

(Quote sourced from the 2011 HBS case study on Yelp)

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tomcam
Was strangely out of kilter to me as well, for the reasons you mention.

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resu_nimda
Is this anything other than a massive puff piece/Yelp marketing material? I
could only read about how amazing and revolutionary and game-changing Yelp was
(and just how gosh-darn cool this brazen squad of elite tastemakers is [yes,
we are referring to Yelp reviewers here]) so many times before giving up on
finding an interesting insight.

From what I gather, they needed people to participate (because this is a
_social_ website, not just 1s and 0s, you see), so they created a community-
based incentive program. Groundbreaking.

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jinushaun
I think it is written by a former Yelper. That would explain the tone of
writing.

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DanBC
wait, did Yelp just call me a knuckle-dragger?

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protomyth
I would imagine that is why the nice graphic[1] has a "Confidential: For Your
Eyes Only" red stamp on it. Well, when you are part of a "New Urban Tribe"[2],
I guess you should feel superior to everyone else.

1) [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*XMPIYnig9xlHII4bh...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*XMPIYnig9xlHII4bhM2q4w.jpeg)

2) "The brazen quality of this new urban tribe spoke to the power users who
contributed weekly, if not daily and hourly, to the site." from the article

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minikites
No word on their elite extortion squad:

[http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/yelp-downgrades-
restaurants-r...](http://kitchenette.jezebel.com/yelp-downgrades-restaurants-
rating-after-it-declines-to-1730885786)

> Instead, they’ve declared that legally, Yelp is entirely allowed to extort
> restaurants. In case you’ve forgotten, almost exactly a year ago, the Ninth
> Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Yelp was well within
> its rights to extort restaurants. As above, Yelp desperately and frantically
> claims they don’t actually do this because to admit to what they’re widely
> accused of would be to pull back the curtain on the shell game that many,
> many restaurant owners believe is Yelp’s core business model. The first part
> of the above statement is thus simple PR sleight of hand; the lawsuits have
> been dismissed, but not because they’re not true—because legally, Yelp is
> perfectly free to engage in whatever extortionist practices it feels like.

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opticalfiber
Actually, the ruling stated that there was no evidence of Yelp behaving the
way they were accused of. It went on to say that, even if they were, it would
at worst constitute hard bargaining and not extortion.

I worked at Yelp for two years as a software engineer. I have seen everything
there is to see: the code, the databases, etc. There is no extortion table.
There is no extortion code. Businesses like to make this claim because it
generates sympathy and attention. It's just not true.

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mikeash
Why would any of it show up in the code? As I recall, what Yelp is accused of
is making fake bad reviews that go away if you give them money. That could
easily be a manual process done by sales people.

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opticalfiber
The sales people don't have access to the content moderation systems. As far
as it showing up in code, I was just making the point that there is no file
containing something like

    
    
      if business_has_paid_extortion_money:
        show_good_reviews()
      else:
        show_bad_reviews()
    

... which is how people seem to think it works.

There is also no code to allow manual review ordering. They are sorted
according by an algorithm with a variety of inputs including who you are
friends with, who has Elite status, etc.

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mikeash
I've never seen anyone say they think it's automated. As for sales people not
having access, who does, and how do you know they don't abuse it?

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swagv
Somebody saw that South Park episode on them.

