Pal,

I am amazed when I see people that still have the threads on vents or pockets sewed shut. Many of them I feel have expensive clothes and should know better.

And yes the one star rating because of ordering the wrong item gets me too.

That’s a great one about the pockets. I read 1star reviews too and see similar comments that have nothing to do with the product's performance.

My favorite 1 star reviews are the ones that say something like ”this is the best (name the product) I’ve even bought!” Did they read the reviewing instructions? Do they think 1 star is better than 5 stars?

I’m one who often keeps pockets sewn shut intentionally. If I know I won’t use the pocket then I don’t cut the threads. I find clothes often have a more flattering line and get less wrinkled around the pocket in the wash if they stay sewn shut. I hate to iron and am glad for anything that will flatter my figure.

On my summer shorts with sewn pockets on the butt, I keep them sewn and also cut out the pocket fabric itself. Sit flat on my rear.

One of the only complaints we’ve gotten about our Airbnb is that they couldn’t walk directly to the ocean out the front door. Mind you we have the word bluff in the name (Eagles bluff cottage), the description says something like ‘on a bluff overlooking the ocean’ and we provide aerial shots showing the cliff. And it’s a five minute walk around the corner to get down to the water. People are so weird. My husband likes the recipe reviews where people don’t like the recipe but they subbed chicken for turkey, yogurt for potatoes, and elmers glue for mayonnaise and somehow it didn’t taste good.

HA! Hallett, I’m with your husband. Those recipe reviews always crack me up. I think the one being reviewed ought to remove those. They are useless. My other favorite recipe review is a 5 star that says ”haven’t made this but it sounds delicious!”

Kendrah, I too may keep pockets sewn shut. It's the people that complain about no pockets or wear the jackets with the vents still tacked shut.

I have kept the pockets sewn shut on my dress coat so they don't sag, and sometimes keep the breast pocket on a blazer sewn shut as well. But we know it is an option.

I regularly see (usually men, but some women) with the basting threads still on the back vents of coats, basting threads on sleeves, and the cloth label on sleeves that is meant to be removed.

Reviews at all levels can be amusing and often based on ignorance or inexperience. That's the main reason that I actually read the reviews rather than relying on the star rating. I appreciate purchasers who take the time to post reviews about poor product performance with the negatives clearly described.

Negative reviews can be super helpful. When I was buying furniture for my previous house, which had a very small porch, the negative reviews all described the set as small. Perfect! I’ve also seen reviews like ‘pedestal table really heavy’ Great! I don’t want it to fall over.

I always read 1-star reviews because they are unintentionally funny. People are crazy.

I read this in the NYT and saved it:

Also in The Post, Alex Falcone identified the onlne review sweet spot: ”We all know that one- and five-star reviews are useless; those are just crackpots and bots. Three stars are cowards, obviously; if you can’t be bothered to have a courageous opinion, I can’t be bothered to read it. And four stars are for liberal arts majors who had a three-star experience but grew up with grade inflation. But a two-star review, that’s a thing of beauty. Somebody who goes through the trouble of logging into an app and typing full sentences on a keyboard to give a place exactly two stars has a story to tell.”

You can usually tell reliability of a rating by length, grammar, spelling and punctuation. Too short or too long at 1 or 5 position are both suspect, as is the use of too many exclamation points or words in all caps.

But I am not sure whether, when something is is too small or too big, or too heavy or not the color one expected that it deserves a really poor review if there is nothing wrong the quality of it over all. Most of the time this information is given.

I prefer the information about fit to be unlinked to a rating of the product quality.

Negative reviews are useful if you see a repeated theme between them and can judge that a product truly has a fault. Nordstroms is great in this regard. Some tried and true pieces that come out season after season, then are made by a new manufacturer and the reviews are all over the changes, the low quality fabric. Things like that have saved me from making bad purchases.

Sometimes when we are on the road looking for a place to eat, we will check out the Yelp comments. Among the things we look for is when was the review posted? 12 months ago? Things change. And how consistent are the comments.

There are always some idiots. I also hate that some places, like etsy, restrict your ability to review a product after so many days. If I buy something and it works great for 3 months and then fails I want to be able to let others know that it failed a few months after purchase.

I also always look at the number of reviews along with the star rating. 5 stars for a restaurant with 3 reviews? Friends and family???

I was out of town, looking for a breakfast place a few months ago. I was in Ephrata PA, The Pancake farm had a 4.6 rating and 1.4K reviews. The population of Ephrata is 13K. We went in, ordered, ate and were ready to leave when my friend noted that I hadn't complained about anything. (I tend to be a bit fussy when it comes to food and restaurant service.) The food was well prepared, the service was great and the prices were reasonable. I had absolutely nothing to complain about.

I almost always only read the 1 and 2 star reviews. Especially when looking at resorts/hotels. I know what the good reviews will say. I need to see what the bad reviews say. And yes, there are ridiculous ones. Just have to ignore those. Or the ones where the person clearly doesn't understand the star system. They will give it one star and the comment is I LOVE IT. IT'S PERFECT.

The most ridiculous one I ever saw was on Yelp for a restaurant. They said the food and service were excellent but it was too far from their house.

Um, what? You gave them a bad review because you don't live close? WTF is wrong with people?

Has Yelp redeemed itself? I used to use it religiously whenever looking for a place to eat out of town. Then DD told me there was some sort of mini-scandal over the reviews being unreliable. I can’t remember the details, but if you google for info, it certainly seems that Yelp is involved in some shady practices.

“The most ridiculous one I ever saw was on Yelp for a restaurant. They said the food and service were excellent but it was too far from their house.”

This reminds me of a person reviewing glassware; they gave it a 2 star rating because although the product was beautiful and in perfect shape, there was too much packaging !

My favorite yelp review was for a meat and three in rural South Carolina. It said something like ‘don’t look in the kitchen or bathrooms but the food is delicious’ They were right on all counts.

One of my favorite 1-star reviews for a restaurant titled "Worst meal ever" was a diatribe against the restaurant.

The bottom line was one of the diners (party of six, something like that) had an umbrella stolen from the vestibule of the restaurant, where there was a sign that said they were not responsible for items left there.

The entire party of six wanted their entire bill comped in recompense for the umbrella and was upset when the restaurant would not do it.

I read 1 star reviews because that way I can know whether they are valid or not - often they are not, but sometimes they are.

The CPAP supply company that I am forced to order from deserves minus star reviews, and so it is not necessary to read the one star reviews, but everyone seems to have the same problems with them that I do.

I did read some one star review of the memory foam mask that I wear (which I like and prefer), and most of the comments were not valid - at least from my point of view. For some people, the mask simply did not fit their face, but it does fit my face - some people complained that they were unable to wash the memory foam, but that is the nature of memory foam, and I do not have a problem with that.

How about reviewers who comment on the "best" or "worst" color ever—but fail to mention which color they purchased.

Oh I agree that 1-star reviews can be valid and helpful, particularly if there are a number of them pointing out the same flaw or quality issue.

But they tend to be the weirdest. People rarely go off the deep end with a 3-star rating.

I just read reviews of an emery board with fine and light fine sides. One reviewer wrote: it is the same as rubbing your nail on a plain piece of paper and expecting it to file your nails. Another wrote: it was so harsh it was difficult to even use on toenails.

Wow, those are wildly different 1-star experiences.

This reminds me of recipe reviews. Allrecipes is the worst in this regard. The typical review:

"I made these cookies for my kids this week. We didn't have chocolate chips, so I used raisins and had to substitute olive oil for the butter. Just kind of blah. Kids weren't fans."

@bbstx not sure about Yelp doing shady stuff, but we routinely use it for restaurant reviews when away from home and it has been very reliable. We ignore anything that only has a small number of reviews. We assume those are all family and friends. If the restaurant has a decent number of reviews, we've found it to be accurate.

I also scan reviews for patterns, grammar or canned sounding praise as well as the laughable one star issues (" It was great, perfect size, well made but only came in gold and I wanted silver" or "I didn't think it would be so small (with size clearly stated in 2 or 3 placed).

I've always taken reviews with a grain of salt, but I'm up to at least a pinch of salt after having a problem an item we ordered through Amazon. It had an obvious electrical problem so I and returned it. I posted a review because it appeared to be a fire hazard and something to be addressed. The seller sent us a replacement that was worse than the first. Then, after I said no thanks, they sent a different model. They said they would send me gift cards if I would change my review of the original product. I refused, so they offered more gift cards. I blocked them and reported the seller to Amazon. As far as I could tell, Amazon did nothing.

This is random and it probably ties in with the Lent post but since someone mentioned the A place...

Since last September I have taken my lunch to work. But we don't always have a plastic container, since we don't have many, and I felt like I was using too much foil or plastic bags or whatever because some things need to be separated anyway. So I bought a compartmentalized stainless steel sandwich + box. And I just got a glass 2 qt bottle with a silicone sleeve and make my own tea rather than buying plastic jugs. Those were specialty items so bought directly from vendors.

So I was thinking the next logical step was to have a set of utensils and a plate 1) so I don't keep using plastic utensils and 2) if I need to heat anything, I have a plate. So I looked up single place settings and single utensils + plate, and they are available. But at Bezos's place, at Walmart, Target, and so forth all places I am no longer shopping at. Luckily we have an IKEA and someone in my family also needs to go.

It's extremely hard to find some things if you eliminate Azon and Walmart. And Azon, I will bend over backwards or do without rather than shop there anymore.

Pal -- the item I spoke of was a couple of years ago. I am trying to reduce my dependence, but sadly, it has become the only place I can find somethings. Or the alternative is the other. That includes things like eye drops my DH has been using since his surgery. He tried some others first, but had problems with his eyes. I'm going to be campaigning with my HEB to try to get them to stock them and a couple of other items I used to buy there, but they seem to be cutting options more and more lately. For something like his eyes, I'll have to give the A some business. I wish we had an IKEA closer.

I know, it's practically impossible.

I grew up in a rural town, and by the time my parents were elderly, the Walmart was literally the only place to get a number of things or the only place that had an assortment of choices of things, and there were people who went nearly every day. Now a lot of those people are probably as dependent on Azon for some things.