One of the most baffling, rewarding, at times maddening, and at others just plain hilarious parts of the job here at MenuPages is sifting through the user reviews. Some might even say that they are the lifeblood of the site, influencing eager potential diners, and adding a dash of Web 2.0 to the site. As the person who gets to see ALL of the reviews that come through, we have begun to feel that they offer up a pretty good cross-section of the psychology of MenuPages users (not to get super heavy or anything).
You see, dear readers (and possibly dear reviewers), for all the valid, well-written, and pithy reviews that come in, we also have to deal with a fair amount of sexism, racism, shills, and general vitriol. That’s why it is refreshing and exciting to see a legit and avid reviewer come up through the ranks. Someone who appears to eat out a lot and know their stuff. Someone who gives out fair scores (and not all 5s and all 0s). Someone who keeps their language clean, adheres to our reviews policy, and seems like their only motivation is to inform fellow users, not sink (or promote) a business.
And so, with all that out of our system, we would like to make it known that if you stumble upon a review authored by “raven,” it is about as close to the real thing as one can get. This prolific reviewer has written no less than forty three reviews, all of them for different restaurants, all of them with even-keeled thoughts and ratings. It’s up to you to decide whether you agree with the mysterious “raven,” but do know that “raven” cares, “raven” is real, and “raven” has A LOT to say about Philly restaurants.
Oh, and feel free to insert all the “That’s So Raven” jokes that your heart desires. (We’re particularly fond of this gem from Zach Galifianakis: “do you ever do something and then think to yourself: That’s So Raven?”. Because YES.)
[Photo: sigh, no - not this Raven. via Sharetv.org]
