I'll preface by saying this: I'm not against Yelp. It is a wonderful concept, similar to what helped build BarFly. It is far too bad that it has got to the point where I end up stereotyping all Yelpers as self-entitled glory whores.

You might wonder why I should care what Yelpers write on Yelp. The truth is, I don't give a damn what they do there. But when Yelpers come to BarFly and disobey our rules, I have a problem. It happens...frequently. Read onward for the most recent example.

Take this review of Candy, posted to Yelp by Elite Yelper Lily. J PrincessKitty on November 4th, 2009.

omg!
Stay away from this place!!!!
This place is filled with over the hill Ed Hardy wearing sleaze buckets and haggard devices trying to regain their youth! Pathetic!

Apparently, she is incapable of reading her own advice, because on Jan 20th, 2010 she wrote about Candy again.

OMG!
The Eastern European Bouncer inappropriately manhandled me last night!!!

My friend's date wasn't aware that the booths were reserved and sat in one which was empty but was connected to a booth full of sleazy guys. All 5 guys got into our friend's face yelling at him (honestly I think they were just pissed because our friend was with us 2 girls & they were a table full of guys). So my friend and I got in the middle of it trying to defuse the situation.

Just because we didn't buy a table the bouncers yanked the 3 of us out. The bouncer who grabbed me was completely inappropriate, he was very rough twisting my arm and flung me around; which overboard since I was not being physical at all! I was just trying to defuse the situation for my friend because I feared that he was going to get jumped by a group of drunk guys. I'm only 5'4 and the overgrown bouncer was at least 3 times bigger then me, he had no right to put his hand on me.

The entire thing was handled inappropriately!

When my girlfriend went back to report the door manager she was confronted by the bouncer who attacked me; the bouncer reacted chauvinistically, cussing us out, saying that "the bitch deserved to it!"

As we were walking away he was flipping us off as he continued to verbally attack us.
Classy!

When I called the manager to tell him about it he just said that he would have a talk with the bouncer. That's it?! *urgh* What he can do to fix it is to make sure me and my girlfriend gets free food and drinks there from now on. They are lucky I did call the cops and I haven't sued them!

So first, they choose to sit next to sleazy looking guys. Then when sleazy guys do something sleazy, they are SHOCKED and APPALLED! Then, she is upset that she was asked to leave a table that they DIDN'T pay for.

Finally, the real kicker. In a review that she wrote AFTER she wrote a review saying never to visit, she demands free drinks and food for every future visit to this place she says to NEVER visit. I don't think she has thought that cunning plan through.

She is 100% propogating the notion that Yelpers are a bunch of demanding, vindictive, self-entitled extortionists. Her profile even reads "Will Yelp For Food". Class act, for sure

Also, she is an illiterate asshole.

So Why Do I Care?

You see, I have rules about posting reviews on BarFly. You have to read them before you hit the submit button. Here is one of them:

#4 Where you 86ed for being a complete douchebag? Are you the perpetually unsatisfied bitch? The bartender's psycho ex? Are you copy & pasting the same review from/to Yelp, Citysearch, etc? Then you undermine the value of user reviews. Don't waste your time posting.

Funny, how, upon waking up this morning and checking the approval queue, that this same review from Princess Kitty was in here, timestamped Jan 22nd.

Now, I don't have time to go checking every absolutely all reviews for compliance. And sometimes I let stuff through because I know our users will call others out on their bullshit. But when fantastic claims of manhandling and lawsuits and demands for free drinks are made, I do a little more investigating, and the first place I check to make sure it isn't a copy and paste job? Yelp. And her review was posted on Yelp on Jan 20th, two full days before it was submitted to BarFly.

In conclusion she is either illiterate, ignorant, or thinks that we at BarFly are totally inept at our jobs.

Thank you, Lily J Princess Kitty, Elite Yelper, for making me work harder today in your futile attempt to score free food and drinks.