The parent's non-specific "many moons ago" puts the date of such naivete long in the past, when Chrome was also adding a plethora of abusable APIs.
There was a kind of "if we don't expand the web platform, native apps from walled-garden app stores will take over" discourse at the time, from all browser implementors — less so from Apple, which could hedge its bets with the App Store.
Racism as we know it has only been a thing since the days of slave trade and colonization, probably as a way to rationalize it. The early day and medieval empires (Roman, Mongol, Inca, etc.) were very much not racist given how they had to federate many different populations and coerce them into living together.
It doesn't mean there weren't any in-group dynamics or discrimination though. Race simply wasn't the focus. People would discriminate based on things like religion instead.
What you are calling racism is just a form of tribalism, which is a normal human condition and has been since the beginning of known human existence.
Fortunately we don't have to stay at that level and can over come it to an extent, but claiming it wasn't a thing in medieval and other empires is factually incorrect.
What do you mean by racism? Discriminating against people based on their race? I think the reason we've forced ourselves not to be racist is because it's morally wrong.
That doesn't mean anything. They can and will change course depending on the circumstances, and the community could agree with them depending on what the circumstances are, effectively making it a non-issue.
No, it does mean something, in that it affects Microsoft's entire product strategy (i.e. deinvesting in the browser). I don't see Microsoft changing course on this.
You are exactly the intended use case. If you write a bad review every time the system will soon ignore you. If you seldom write a review but bad is the only kind you ever write, each will carry some weight after a significant "cool-down period".
In other words, we successfully encode the difference between "wow, juhzy only complains when its really bad" vs "ignore juhzy, they complain about everything." This vs. the more naive and destructive "5 bad reviews and you're out" we seem to do too much of now.
I suppose it should work the other way too. Someone who always "5-stars" everything should be ignored as well.
The point is that the system right now seems to have a negative bias and is able to do so because of a glut of providers which it burns through like an expendable, renewable resource. (Which morally sucks because they are real people with real lives.)
Your * is very insightful. Implicit in my suggestion is the fact that the service is able to count how often you use it vs your +ve and -ve reviews.
When I say "seldom" I of course mean "uses the service often, but seldom complains". The unit of time in this exponential weighting is not chronological, but uses of the service.
Some people can complain about anything. (When I'm in a grumpy mood, I certainly will. Puppies? Too wiggly. Sunshine? Too bright!) When I read a review, my goal is to find out what I would think of the place or thing. The reviewers I look for are balanced and thoughtful, able to point the good points about something they hate and the bad points of the things they love.
I have a very smart friend who apparently has never liked a movie. If one comes up, he will have a complaint about it. If you see one at a theater with him, before the credits have finished rolling, you'll be getting a list of his issues. It's exhausting. And it means I'll never listen to him on the topic of whether a movie is good.
It's the classic stopped clock: it's right twice a day, but you can't know which times, so why look at it?
If the ratings scale is 1-10 and all of your ratings are 1-5, does that mean you only give reviews to things in your 1-5 range, or does that mean everyone else's 10 is your 5?
From a perspective that is external to your inner monologue, I have no way of knowing. Even if your criticisms are valid, I know too many people who seem to never talk about the positive parts to know whether you're just perpetually unimpressed. Or, more likely, you're the type that never talks about the nice parts. I'm guessing this because of your comment elsewhere in the tree that specifically asks why one should compliment when something is doing what it's supposed to do. (The answer is that people usually look at reviews for confirmation that X is as advertised.)
Or there's actually nothing redeeming about the subject of your review.
So yes, taken in context I would end up throwing your opinion away. In practice, I don't check every reviewer's review history, but maybe that would be a useful signal to see.
No, but it shows that you only care to share in the bad, not the good. There is a tint to your worldview and it'd be useful for others to see that when weighing what you have to say.
For the record, I rarely leave reviews. When I do, though, it's only for the exceptionally bad or the exceptionally good.
I'd argue that the bias is a natural consequence of two interacting effects, neither of which necessarily represents a "tinted worldview": a skew in quality distribution and a minimum threshold for information value.
It's hard for a product or service to exceed its expected value by more than a fraction or small multiple, while it's easy to cause misery well in excess of a dozen or even a hundred times the expected value. I believe that's more a reflection of it being easier to destroy vs create rather than a reflection of psychology. Combine this distribution with a heuristic to only report deviations from expectation in excess of a minimum threshold and the "average review score" will reliably undershoot the actual quality.
That's only a problem if you want to interpret the average review score as an absolute measure of quality, though, and I don't think anyone really does. Most of us are more interested in communicating and informing our decision processes than in passing moral judgement, and if our goal is to optimize communication then we should expect negative reviews to dominate the discussion because they're inherently capable of more meaningful excursions from the mean.
I agree with your overall point: it would be fantastically useful to be able to contextualize reviews against reviewer psychology. That way I could ignore both shouting from negative-nellys and forced positivity from those who feel compelled to balance the universe :-)
>if our goal is to optimize communication then we should expect negative reviews to dominate the discussion because they're inherently capable of more meaningful excursions from the mean.
In reality, however, it seems that positive reviews tend to dominate. Using Google Maps reviews as my barometer, I hardly ever see any place rated less than 4.5 stars. So, I tend to think to myself "4.5-5 stars: might be good. 4 stars: probably okay. Less than 4: maybe steer clear."
Though, in practice I disregard reviews, take a plunge, and then decide on my own. Often I find myself in conflict with the average majority opinion.
Why would I write a good review? If I go to a place and pay I expect to be treated well; being treated the way I expect is not noteworthy (or "reviewworthy")
Your response sounds flippant, but I am with you, except I don’t see the value in writing reviews at all, good or bad. I have no stake in whether another person is persuaded to patronize or avoid a place. Moreover, I doubt any online review I write would have any impact on the business itself.
If I have a specific complaint for a place close to my heart, like a coffee shop or restaurant or local shop, I’ll talk to the manager, privately and calmly, and be on my way.
I'm not trying to change your process, but just letting you know that that process is not the same for everyone, hence it'd be useful for others to know your "tint."
It's interesting that your main criteria is how you feel you were treated, though. Discussed in the article:
"Restaurant reviews in which people sound traumatized by perceived injustice don’t tend to comment much on the food — it’s usually the perception of being treated rudely or uncaringly that seems to have pushed people into processing by writing out their feelings in a public forum."
I think it's normal. Poor food may mean many things and most of them are not malicious. But being treated rudely or uncaringly? You deserve your bad review.
>Poor food may mean many things and most of them are not malicious.
I honestly feel the same about poor service. I'm usually accommodating and understanding, but I'm no monk. Of course there are times when I feel either the poor food or poor service merit some mention.
Most of the time, however, I think "they're human, going through human things. No big deal."
Most people look at reviews to see whether the thing actually is what it claims to be, so reviews saying that it is in fact what it claims to be are useful.
Doesn't mean you have to, just means that it'd be more helpful to others if you write "it actually is what it claims to be" reviews.
Because the world is not divided into good and bad, and I care about the 'why' of a rating much more than I care about whether it's positive or negative.
I try to cover up as much as I can. Sunglasses are a good idea.
Regarding sunglasses in Berlin, police stopped me on my e-moped recently and forced me into a restaurant bathroom to do a pee test for drugs, and they told me the reason was that I wore sunglasses when riding and thus looked suspicious. I wear then to protect my eyes from dust and bugs. I was absolutely sober, and going home from church. My takeaway is, Berlin police want your face.
"why would someone abuse this" shows an incredible naivete. Anything that can be abused will be abused.