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London's top rated restaurant on TripAdvisor exposed as a hoax

TripAdvisor Gets Totally Punked When Fake Restaurant Is Rank...
Brindle multi-colored station
  12/10/17
180
electric point
  12/10/17
...
gay garrison multi-billionaire
  12/26/17
180 so were pathetic strivers poasting 5 star reviews or wha...
yellow ticket booth
  12/26/17
...
cerebral cyan theatre fat ankles
  12/26/17
Lmaoooo
federal locale twinkling uncleanness
  12/26/17
Holy shit
exhilarant set
  12/26/17
180 fuck foodies
Internet-worthy lemon shrine
  12/26/17


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Date: December 10th, 2017 8:30 PM
Author: Brindle multi-colored station

TripAdvisor Gets Totally Punked When Fake Restaurant Is Ranked No. 1

Chris Bethell

Behind the scenes at the photo shoot for the Shed at Dulwich.

A writer in London has punked TripAdvisor in the most extreme way possible, creating a fictional eatery that became the city's top rated restaurant.

Lifestyle and food writer Oobah Butler wrote on Vice.com that he thought there was something fishy with TripAdvisor when "restaurant owners would pay me £10 and I'd write a positive review of their place, despite never eating there."

"Over time," he realized, "their fortunes would genuinely turn, and I was the catalyst."

So he set out on the ultimate fake, to see if he could reach TripAdvisor's No. 1 ranking with a restaurant that doesn't even exist.

VICE Theo McInnes

Oobah Butler atop the backyard shed where he lives in South London.

This past April, he renamed the backyard shed where he lives in South London the Shed at Dulwich. He created a website and logo, listed the restaurant as "by appointment only" (thus avoiding giving the address), named dishes ever so trendily for moods and concocted pictures of fake food...

ChrisBethell

This dish from the Shed at Dulwich looks appetizing...

...using materials like bleach tablets, painted sponges, shaving cream and, um, his foot.

ChrisBethell

...until you see what it's made of.

The Shed at Dulwich debuted on TripAdvisor in 18,149th place, London's lowest rated restaurant. But based on reviews by Butler's friends, before long it had risen through 10,000. Then, he wrote, "seemingly overnight, we're now at #1,456." The phone began ringing off the hook for reservations; Butler responded that the restaurant was booked solid for weeks.

"The appointments, lack of address and general exclusivity of this place," he wrote, became "so alluring that people [couldn't] see sense. They’re looking at photos of the sole of my foot, drooling."

By the end of August, a mere four months after its debut, the Shed at Dulwich was ranked No. 156 in London. Then the prank snowballed in unexpected ways. Potential suppliers started asking to send free samples. Potential workers contacted him about employment. A town council asked the restaurant to relocate to a redeveloping neighborhood. A production company wanted to feature the restaurant on in-flight videos.

All the while, mind you, there was no actual restaurant.

Finally, on November 1, 2017, the Shed at Dulwich, "a restaurant that doesn't exist," Butler wrote, had become "the highest ranked in one of the world’s biggest cities, on perhaps the internet's most trusted reviews site."

TripAdvisor did eventually figure this out and remove the listing.

What does TripAdvisor have to say about this? "Generally the only people who create fake restaurant listings are journalists in misguided attempts to test us," says TripAdvisor spokesperson Tara Lieberman.

She goes on to say that "this 'test' is not a real world example." I find this befuddling because, at least in this case, it's become very real world.

"Most fraudsters are only interested in trying to manipulate the rankings of real businesses," she adds, "so, naturally, that is what our content specialists are focused on catching." This, I suppose, is how the Shed at Dulwich slipped through in the first place.

TripAdvisor features listings for more than 7 million businesses, Lieberman says. These are regularly updated, and the site welcomes "our community of travelers and business owners to notify us of active businesses that are not listed on the site and of any details for a business that are incorrect." That community is upwards of 455 million monthly users worldwide.

There's also a helpful video explaining how TripAdvisor screens out potentially fraudulent reviews. It's well worth a look.

Bigger picture: even assuming that the overwhelming majority of TripAdvisor reviews (and, let's hope, those on other sites) are legit, there's one element that's been forgotten. Back before user-generated content (as it's known in the biz) became the norm, it was the job of actual food critics to visit actual restaurants and bring actual experience and knowledge to evaluate the food, drink, service, ambiance, etc. Travel writers worthy of the name still do much the same for sights, lodgings, entertainment venues and, yes, restaurants.

Although I've been writing about travel and food for nearly two decades (for Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet and more) - which I guess could make me old school - I'm not one of those who pooh-pooh user-generated content. Just the opposite: I actually find many of the reviews useful, including on TripAdvisor, and I'll often look at online reviews as another tool for my research; there are un-useful ones too, but that's for another story. And, like it or not, user-generated content is the wave of the future.

Still, there's no substitute for that seasoned eye to guide readers toward educated choices of how to spend their money and something even more precious, their time.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2017/12/08/tripadvisor-gets-totally-punked-when-fake-restaurant-is-ranked-no-1/#1acf712f2c23

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#34885903)



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Date: December 10th, 2017 8:38 PM
Author: electric point

180

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#34885951)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 8:04 AM
Author: gay garrison multi-billionaire



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35008875)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 9:10 AM
Author: yellow ticket booth

180 so were pathetic strivers poasting 5 star reviews or what

Worth clicking link to see the picture of the egg on his foot

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35009064)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 9:17 AM
Author: cerebral cyan theatre fat ankles



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35009092)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 9:12 AM
Author: federal locale twinkling uncleanness

Lmaoooo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35009070)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 9:19 AM
Author: exhilarant set

Holy shit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35009097)



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Date: December 26th, 2017 9:19 AM
Author: Internet-worthy lemon shrine

180 fuck foodies

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3824318&forum_id=2#35009098)