
Why Google won't let you leave a review for Jiminy Peak - CamelCaseName
In Dec. 2018, Jiminy Peak posted this [1] employee letter, telling resort employees (often &lt;18 years old) that they would be terminated unless they worked during a state of emergency, and no accommodations would be provided.<p>The picture of the employee notice was posted on Reddit and Facebook in the following hours, leading to outraged comments from thousands.<p>Some of those people took to voicing their complaints in a review on Google Maps, and their review count soared from 822 to 1,100+ and their score dropped from 4.4 to 3.7.<p>Then, the next day, Google froze their reviews and began deleting everything after those 822 reviews.<p>To this day, their reviews remain frozen.<p>How did Jiminy Peak get such a quick response from Google while other establishments have had to shut down after a controversy that left their reviews devastated?<p>Will Google re-enable reviews at some point in the future? For now, Jiminy Peak has locked in a great review score.<p>Did Google notify reviewers that their content had been deleted? Will it reappear at some point?<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;Z0LZPhi.jpg
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yellow_lead
I can only assume Google doesn't want their reviews brigaded by publicity
incidents like this.

While I don't think Google always knows best, it does bring up the question of
if you were building a review site (i.e yelp or otherwise) if you would permit
such brigading. Personally, I think it would be difficult to tell between spam
and brigading, so it's best to take this approach.

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hatboat
I agree with the sentiment that review bombing should not be a way to voice
criticism, but the unfortunate reality is that it is used extensively. The
line from the article which questions how Jiminy Peak managed to get a
favourable Google response when others have been destroyed is a salient one.
This becomes yet another method by which the large tech companies exert
control through their monopoly on information.

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Zelmor
Bombing Steam/Gmaps is not how you should voice your opinion. That is not the
intended use of the platform.

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0_gravitas
I need to disagree here, what good is a review section if you can only post
certain kinds of views about the product? What would the intended use be? I
personally think the downfall of review sections in general is the score
system. I believe the score systems sort of undermine the reviews themselves.
Yet, I obviously understand why they are used and that they are 'useful' for
people.

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muzani
That's true, but very often review systems are not designed for bombings and
fall apart there.

The best design I see for this is something like Steam, which has "recent" and
"overall" reviews, which are more resistant to bombings but also allow them.
If the publisher screws people on a DLC or IAP, people would want to know, but
in some cases, it's just emotional exaggeration led by someone else.

