Disappearing posts [Site]

2010 Sep 21
Just curious as to why Pej Daddy's lovely posts on the New Dubrovnik disappeared? There were some nice photos there and there was nothing negative in the reviews themselves.

2010 Sep 21
In his remaining comment there, he writes: "backlash against pics from unappreciative users!"

So, I'm guessing he was offended by getting multiple thumbs down.

2010 Sep 21
That's too bad. I saw his photos and was hoping to go back when I had a moment to read the reviews. Pej Daddy takes such lovely photos I'm not sure why someone would give them a thumbs down...

2010 Sep 21
The only reason I can think of for thumbs down is that the captions were repetitive and sounded car salesmanlike in Pej's "kool-kat" style. Were I Pej, I would have left them up to give people a chance to counter-vote. At least that way, he'd know if his supporters outnumber his detractors! :-)

2010 Sep 21
Oh the drama and the SOUR GRAPES! Yeesh. Methinks someone's ego needs a time out.

For the record no, it was not me that flagged any of his stuff negatively (*), though I have often found his "reviews" questionable in that they were rarely reviews. It was usually just some bit of whimsy to accompany the photo.

(*) other than the once or twice I spoke about in another thread here in the forums when he made politically-charged comments in a whimsical fashion without any support for them. But it has been at least a few months since I've flagged anything of his.

2010 Sep 21
First casualty of the Thumbs Up/Down? I wonder if it will prove to be more capricious than the Gold member inappropriate flag.. ;-)

2010 Sep 21
I'll put my neck out on the line. I thought about it a long time, and finally decided to give the posts my thumbs-down.

My choice stemmed from the fact that I didn't feel that they were reviews: I felt that they were pictures of food by a (totally fantastic) professional food stylist, and came across to me more as an advertisement than a recounting of a positive eating experience.

Pej: I absolutely love your reviews, and love that I can *feel* how much you enjoy yourself when you take pictures of what you're eating. I'm far from a detractor, that's for sure.

In this case, though, I couldn't tell from the posts whether any of the food photographed was also tasted by you. I feel that an important part of posting a review here is to say whether the food was good or bad.

And given my past (numerous) visits to New Dubrovnik, I'm willing to bet that if I ordered the exact same dishes, I wouldn't get anything like what was shown.

If a review doesn't say how the food tastes, and doesn't indicate how the food looks, is it really a review?

Ultimately, I decided that the combination of "not a food review" plus "borderline misrepresentation of the product" was enough for me to give it the thumbs down.

Apologies if this rubs people the wrong way, and double apologies if I'm off the mark with my decision. I'd be more than happy to discuss things further if there's something that I've misunderstood.


2010 Sep 21
Ego aside - these are forums & discussions on food which would be pretty boring or overly technical without any "flair". Pej has his own style, and frankly he's probably the only person on this site who regularly posts quality shots of food from some of the best restaurants in town, respecting & displaying a lot of chefs hard work... this is something I'm sure many potential patrons & vendors appreciate, perhaps the sour grapes came from a competitor, or someone who just doesn't like Pej's style? I'm not sure that much critiquing should be done from people who do not contribute in the way he has.

2010 Sep 21
At the risk of putting my neck out, I have to agree 100% with Momomoto's comments. Every single word, and the tone too!

2010 Sep 21
Yes, that expresses exactly my feelings in more detail momo, though as noted I did not thumb them down just the same. Though to play devil's advocate - the "buzz" allows us to "comment" on restaurants and dishes, not to "review" them per-se.

So while Pej rarely wrote a "review", could it be said that what we wrote was in fact a "comment"? Hmmm, I dunno ...

2010 Sep 21
Semantics aside, if a food photo is not representative of a real product and is not accompanied by an explanation then it deserves a thumbs down even if it is beautiful. P.S. I didn't contribute any thumbs down in this case either. I'm hesitant to do so at this point. :-)

2010 Sep 21
I don't disagree with your comments Momo, I live right down the street from the restaurant in question and have never been served food as beautiful as in the photos. However, I don't doubt it was in fact food photographed from ND. So this comes down to style v. substance...
His style is essentially a photographic review. There's a difference between disliking his style and disliking his review. It's infinitely more useful if I know WHY someone has agreed or disagreed with something.

Edit: consider that a recommendation to improve the site, if you implement a method to promote/demote someone's review, it would be good to know why, or at least give users a chance to discuss. You see this on other sites where discussion takes place on people's reviews of comments, ie, Gizmodo.

2010 Sep 21
I cannot comment on that aspect FF since I rarely ever look at Pej's stuff anymore and did not give any of it a second glance (or even a first one) this time - much as I love New Dubrovnik. i.e. I cannot opine as to whether or not it was representative, since I did not look at it. But if that were the case I would probably have to agree. But now I'm curious - if he took a picture of food he was served there, how could it not be representative? Do we think it was set up with them ahead of time or something?

2010 Sep 21
Incidentally, I don't think any of Pej's posts got more than 2 thumbs down before he removed them. Given the size of the audience, 2 is statistically meaningless. It behooves us all to have a thicker skin when posting things on the internet.

2010 Sep 21
That was going to be my next question - just how many thumbs down does it take before a review is blanked out?

2010 Sep 21
Just saw Chimi's latest comment after posting mine - concerning his last sentence, this thread already got me thinking of something someone posted the last time we had it out, that it would be useful when marking something as "inappropriate" if we could also comment on why. Would change the site a fair bit - would make it very busy for one thing. But it is a good point. And I guess Chimi is right that it is a photographic review. Not my thing really, but quite arguably valid for this site (as long as he really took it there and it was not something set up ahead of time with staff)

2010 Sep 21
2 thumbs down? Ahem. So we're back to my comment about someone's ego needing a time out? :-P

2010 Sep 21
"But now I'm curious - if he took a picture of food he was served there, how could it not be representative? Do we think it was set up with them ahead of time or something?"

Zym: if I remember correctly (can't say because the posts are deleted), it was acknowledged expressly in the first post that it was a shoot set up and photographed with/by a food stylist. That's what led me to think that it's not even food that Pej was personally served.

Chimi: I don't doubt that it was food that came from New Dubrovnik either. I do, however, doubt that food that I would be served at New Dubrovnik would look like that. To me, that's an important distinction.

2010 Sep 21
Chimichimi, re: "how many thumbs down does it take before a review is blanked out"

I came up with a dirty formula for that... something like: blank out the review if the thumbs down are more numerous than twice the thumbs up plus five. We only want to blank out those comments that are uncontroversially voted down! Spam and the like...

2010 Sep 21
Oooooo, so if that is really the case, that changes things completely and totally.

2010 Sep 21
...but if this conversation re: food staging was taking place alongside his review, instead of buried in a forum which many site visitors don't read, it would be infinitely more useful, no? I'm trying to reap something constructive out of this.

2010 Sep 21
Yes, this is true Chimi

2010 Sep 21
I think it probably would be constructive to have this posted alongside the reviews, or at least part of it, and I was ready to post about it there, too, but then they disappeared.

At the same time, I'm mindful of previous discussions held in the review/buzz section that spiralled out of control, so I'm leaning towards it being better to have this discussion here.

Not that anybody is going to see it anyway ;)


2010 Sep 21
live and let live. I like Pej's pics - missed the whole buzz thing. However if he feels he doesn't want to post or remove his post because of critism so be it. If he removed it because he didn't think it was appropriate any more - fine. If he wants to put it back, ok. Lets remember we are on an open forum people don't have to contribute or get a warm fuzzy feeling if they do.

2010 Sep 21
Exactly, although warm fuzzy feelings are still encouraged. :-)

2010 Sep 21
While, I strongly enjoy Pej's pictures in general, I was among the users who posted a 'thumb-down'. My issue was with one particularly review which was pretty much a picture of a dish from the new Dubrovnik along with what was essentially advertisement for an unrelated service....

2010 Sep 21
holy emails and posts!

just to clarify, i counted 4 negs on the first post; thereafter, 2 negs for each subsequent shot.

for a little history, in all my pics, i don't mooch off anyone....I FULLY PAID for every single one those dishes + taxes + big tip + time + travel + effort. and that's also AFTER TAX MONEY in economic reality: i had to earn TWICE that and more such that just some of these cool experiences can make it all the way to your streaming LCD screens and smartphones. i enjoy discreet food papparazzi or whatever you call it first for my own R&D as i'm learning to cook different and stimulate new stuff all the time and have the luxury to invest a lot in it, collect dishes, visit the occasional cooking evening classes, farms, foraging and take images and recipes as much as i can the world over and that it'd be fun to share just a little out of generosity. i really don't have to. i really don't need to be here either. i have enough life experience that i don't need validation. so consider it a gift. when you pay your bills, you fully appreciate it and earned the responsibility. ...naturally when people get things given to them easily, it isn't treasured as much.

as many of you already know, i am just a regular joe paying customer looking out to discover new food ideas and share a little out of sincere generosity and the hope that others can also check out and try other things these places have to offer and expand the discussion. when i dine i have little or no contact with the owners or chefs and prefer entertaining the company or business i'm with as we order the entire menu in one sitting or over time or on my own wherever i go. if i do talk to staff, many can vouch that its all talk about how things are done, share tips, discovery, equipment, ingredients, stuff from my travels, where to source stuff etc... no promotion or staging or anything. and i try to be anonymous. i'm not among the foodie type that many servers say harshly critiques every aspect of their meal in public. i never say a bad word or complain to staff publicly. negs should be among the things best left unsaid, cut things off quickly and just move on.

none of the ND staff were ever involved not now, not ever and they still don't know me as taking pics of peoples' work can make them uncomfortable and puts them on the spot, i try to do so discreetly and respectfully facing the window where there is best light. i dined there and learned to take shots with cool lenses with a friend who's up and coming in photography as a hobby. i surround myself with art and beauty and i hope you do too. i included her name as we both took shots. she's not into business, she's getting into sharing and promoting as well. well, if you wanted me to say more about the food and make an essay about my schnitzel over and above already supplied hard earned photos...jesus christ you'd have to pay me. i should start charging big money now! LOL!

for the record, i prefer to let the images of a dish at a particular point in time do the talking and i don't want to review things in detail as i don't work in that industry, have no affiliation or influence with publications or events or want to have anything to do with anyone else's careers. there is no need to celebretize anyone or myself.

you have the right to your own opinion but do consider the back end costs and effort some of us generously go through and then quickly getting negged, who wouldn't be discouraged with the attitude of a precious few which naturally reflects on such a site? there are places where one will be sincerely welcomed and have more fun.

enough of my verboseness which i'll prefer it socially than digitally!

peace and be cool!!

2010 Sep 21
OK, it was fun BUT get a life people!

"I FULLY PAID for every single one those dishes + taxes + big tip + time + travel + effort. and that's also AFTER TAX MONEY in economic reality: i had to earn TWICE that and more such that just some of these cool experiences can make it all the way to your streaming LCD screens and smartphones"

P 3 J D @ D D Y, You really are a pompous little man aren't you.

In my experience little men who focus on spending big and flaunting it shine bright but burn out fast. Be very careful young man, you're not as rich as you think you are.

Now that I've burnt my OF bridge Fast Food please delete my account (sorry I'm not worried it's not my life).


2010 Sep 21
Hey! Don't disss a man unless you've walked a mile in his shoes. Pej's the most pleasant and humble guy in person totally. He absolutely doesn't flaunt as a matter of fact he hides a lot as I think that how he screens people he does business with. MAny foodies know him and he's a social party all in one except he's a stickler for no drinking, smoking, or unhealthy habits. GOSH! Personally, I think he knows a lot more about food and chemistry than a lot of chefs.

I've met him and really got to know him and I'm still surprised he's not "a young man", he just looks 20 something years young and is super fun to be with. It is absolutely beyond me to find out that he has a Biochem degree, Psychology degree and Business degree all with magna cum laude. I've seen the places in 3 different cities he's built and rents out and he's accomplished more than anyone I've met. I've worked in the service industry and met a lot and got to know a lot of customers. He could really open a restaurant but told me he'd do better sitting on stocks of McDonalds. I also really hate him cuz he's debt free and he works really hard but is a true class act as he will make time for people and cares for his family like you wouldnt believe.

XOXOX KC

2010 Sep 21
Pej - sociologist-types who study gift-giving often remark that recipients / plebes rarely (through the ages and across different cultural context) appreciate unmasked reminders of how its their good fortune to bask in the magnanimity of their providers. It kind of "cheapens" or "tinges" the pageantry and (perceived) altruism of the gift, i think the logic is.

beyond this, i'm one of your appreciators and hope you keep the photos flowing. :-)

Hotfood - since i'm in a sociology-meet-food mood, i'd suggest what you describe of PD applies to many of us. Perhaps his rant is a more focused refractory, but our dining activities, let alone "reviewing" or supplying "buzzes", implies a certain degree of conspicuous consumption. its certainly not an essential, but here we are, all talking about that very social phenomena.

2010 Sep 21
Itchy, I'm trying to understand what you're writing but it is beyond my simple mind!!!!!!

XOXO KC

2010 Sep 21
Just saying a new feature (thumbs down) shouldn't stop us from sharing the XOXOXO's. Or the hugs. Or popcorn. Something like that. :-)

2010 Sep 22
We definitely need more warm fuzzies and positive energy going on here. I've shared with Momomoto and Chimichimi privately about my thoughts and feelings after joining this site and we all kinda agreed that there needs to be more positivity and less bullying or harassment. I'm feeling its just the few that spoil it for the masses. We all got one life to live so try and keep it good and isn't our love for food all about good living or living well?

XOXOXO KC

2010 Sep 22
I find the thumbs up/down (so far) to be statistical noise, hindering my enjoyment of the site. It promotes anonymous bullying, and yes... hurt feelings. I do not think that having a 'thick skin' should be a prerequisite for participating in a site such as OttawaFoodies. I remain to be convinced that more good than bad will come of it.

Are you for me, or against me? ;-)

2010 Sep 22
Well said Pete. I agree with you.

2010 Sep 22
I think I see the underlying systematic problem. No one dislikes the photos themselves. Some are simply critical of how those photes are added to the vendor reviews in Pej Daddy's normal fashion.

If each Vendor had a photo-gallery, we could show Pej Daddy's astounding photography while still reserving the space for textual reviews. I think that would be the best of both worlds.


2010 Sep 22
Pete - I agree with you (especially on a technical level, wrt 'statistical meaninglessness'), mostly because the actual volume of thumbs up or down are largely insignificant in most cases (so far) on this site anyway - resulting in clutter. Maybe as time goes on, it will improve. I have my doubts though, the way the reviews are displayed in chronological order (rather than a 'most-viewed' or 'most-commented-on' system of displaying 'buzz'), reviews get buried pretty quickly and most people's patience when skimming a site is pretty low. This further reinforces my recommendation of a 'meta-commenting' system (and now I'm x-posting, my apologies). That said, I don't *want* to be critical of FF's efforts, they are truly appreciated and he makes strides to improve the site and any comments I make are solicited (again, I'm posting in the wrong forum here) and hopefully timely, and an honest expression of wanting to help, to guide the improvement process in what I think is the right direction.

My concern with this system is (thinking macro level) - I have to truly wonder if the viewership/reader participation of this community oriented site is negatively affected by such a system. Pej spoke out, he might have been the only one - think of those who were immediately turned off (whether it's flagged inappropriate, or thumbs down) and said 'this is not for me, people are taking/judging foodie stuff waaay too seriously', not leaving comment, query, or concern. Just my 2¢

2010 Sep 22
Let's not lose sight of the core purpose of OttawaFoodies: to connect you with good food. The ability to include photos is primarily intended to support that purpose.

The photos that Pej and his friend took at ND were absolutely beautiful! They also appeared misleading to anyone who has eaten there. Food photos that aim for beauty at the expense of accuracy have their place (flickr, restaurant ads, etc) but they do not support our core purpose.

I don't at all mind this site being used as free advertising for restaurants but I want that to be done through genuine representation.

;-)

2010 Sep 22
My $0.02.

Everyone should sit back, relax and chill out. This little foodie hobby is supposed to be fun.

That being said, this site and its users would do well to have more warm and fuzzies going around. Many older and longtime users as well as new ones that I know have been turned off by the constant bickering and cliqueyness. If you want to have 5-10 people on this site, then by all means continue, but if we're interested in sharing our love and food and sharing Ottawa's best restaurants, cooking tips, etc, then we might want to take a look at what we're saying and how we're saying things.

Peace.

2010 Sep 22
And to think, I was just asking a question.

I have no problem with Pej's photos, or his review style, other than when he's making sexist remarks and I've learnt to take those with a grain of salt.

To get back to the original issue, though, there have been other posts that were thumbed down and have been greyed out. So, why did Pej's disappear altogether? I'm inclined to think that PD wasn't a fan of the criticism and took them down, but only he can speak to that. It's a shame, because I quite liked the photos, even if they weren't entirely representative of a normal dining experience at ND - which goes back to Jagash's point about a photo gallery.

If Pej took them down because of the negative response, it's his choice, but he shouldn't be looking to us as a point of blame.

I agree that some of us, including myself at times, need to get off our high horse and share more love and less bullying. But, at the end of the day people's decisions are just that and they need to own them.


2010 Sep 22
Snoop - agreed.

LWB - I was wondering when you would chime in.

2010 Sep 22
lady who brunches, sorry, I thought that was clear from my reply: Pej took down his photos. Only the original poster and I can delete comments and I sure didn't delete his. Like I said, I didn't even give them a thumbs down myself.

Where there's an internet forum, there will be bickering. A large group of people will always contain those who disagree. And I agree on the more love thing! :-)

2010 Sep 22
I think PEJ's photos add a lot to this site. A great photo is often far less subjective than someone's review.

I'm not sure that we should have any type of thumbs up/thumbs down, or appropriate/not appropriate flag. As Pete said, there shouldn't be a thick skin requirement to be on this site. The only purpose of the flag is to weed out comments that are in poor taste? Why not simply let every user decide for himself or herself if the review/comment is in poor taste? I really don't care what other people think of a review. I read a review and decide for myself if i like it or not. It really has nothing to do with how popular the review is.

I did like the bronze, silver and gold rating. The only reason being is that it provides some assurance that strongly negative reviews/comments are not from a disgruntled employee or competitor.

2010 Sep 23
anotherlab.rajapet.net

This is an interesting opinion why social networks don't have Dislike or Thumbs Down options and something to consider. May be taking out the Thumb down option this can lead to a more positive site experience! Cut out the negativity and flaming can be a good step in the right direction. If Facebook had a dislike button, eventually people will grow upset and label the entire medium as Hatebook! I can imagine the thumbs down on photos for any restaurant or dishes can be damaging to any busienss. Few or low # of Likes implies little approval and that should be enough. I don't want to log on Ottawa Foodies and feel harassement or have that feeling of being shot down as some of us felt recently. I really wanna look for an improved experience. We all want to be friends right?

XOXOXOX KC

2010 Sep 23
Facebook exists to make money. OttawaFoodies exists to highlight the best places in Ottawa to find any given food item. Very different objectives...

Facebook wants to grow exponentially and never offend anyone. OttawaFoodies wants to maintain a very high quality of content, even if that offends some people. Growth without quality is discouraged.

P.S. I'm definitely working on the "reply to a comment" capability.

2010 Sep 23
I think that's an excellent suggestion KC.

FF, I understand the goal but is it possible that there are unintended consequences with this system? As others have suggested, the micro level of negative feedback could be preventing otherwise fantastic contributors from joining in. I've already seen a few examples of a thumbs down that seemed done more out of spite than anything wrong I could discern from the comment.


2010 Sep 23
What about making a profile option that allows you to hide the thumbs up/down? That way those with fragile sensitivities can opt out.

2010 Sep 24
Pej, please keep the photos coming. Just wanted to voice my support. I really, really enjoy them -- as well as the other photo posters' contributions on the site. They compliment the reviews quite nicely.