Concerns expressed over Northside Inn page

[Pete B]

Hi all..

I've been contacted by the owner of Northside Inn as part of an issue I had with their restaurant and here it is...can someone officially respond to him please.

Thx
Pete

---- NS...@aol.com wrote:
> Hello Pete,
> 
> I sent your gift certificate out today. I have a concern about the website.
>  You have a review from Robert Rocco on 03-06-09 mentioning that he was at
> our  restaurant and that he found a cockroach baked into his bread. First
> let me say  that we do not bake our own bread as it is done by a bakery. So
> its now my  problem and I get a very very damaging review and the notion that
> our restaurant  is not clean. This is a very very serious allegation and one
> that I will  research my options. Do you monitor these comments and what is
> your policy on  someone making inappropriate comments?
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Don Verni

[Ryan Tucker]

Given that it was posted by a drive-by one-time contributor (two edits,
but at practically the same time) and includes no substantial evidence,
I'd be in favor of removing the comment. It adds no value to the wiki,
and it appears the contributor failed to do anything with the complaint
aside from posting it quasi-anonymously on a corner of the Internet.

Thoughts? -rt

> --
> For options, view full headers. See also
> http://groups.google.com/group/rochesterwiki

--
Ryan Tucker <rtu...@gmail.com>

[Nathan Henderson]

I'm not sure I like the precedent of deleting the comment. It's not completely outrageous and while  its report does seem unlikely, it certainly is possible.

I'd recommend leaving it, but perhaps flagging it as a 'drive-by' comment so visitors can come to their own conclusions.

— Nathan

[Jay Sweet]

Oops, accidentally only sent this to Nathan.

Anyway, I want to add how I think cleanliness allegations are
fundamentally different from complaints about service, food quality,
etc. If there are ten reviews, and nine are positive but one
complains about the service, even the most credulous reader will tend
to assume it was an off night. You need several "bad service" or
"cold food" etc. comments before it becomes believable.

But if you have 9 positive reviews, and one saying there was a roach
in the bread, maybe you figure those 9 people just got lucky. Maybe
they had roach shit in their bread, but no actual roaches, right?

Hence, a single comment, to the credulous reader, becomes devastating
and negates any contradictory comments.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jay Sweet <jay....@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:57:09 -0500
Subject: Re: [ROCwiki] Concerns expressed over Northside Inn page
To: Nathan Henderson <nat...@nathos.com>

I continue to feel that unfounded allegations that would cause a
restaurant to fail a health inspection are not appropriate for RW.
It's too easy to slander someone this way, and the lack of proof does
nothing to erase the stigma.

RW should not be facilitating Glenn Beck-style character assassination
(or in this case, cleanliness assassination?). By allowing this
comment to remain, the message RW is sending is: "Hey, *we* don't
think Northside Inn has a roach problem. But people are asking the
question. We're just asking questions. And if they don't have a roach
problem, why don't they prove it by showing us the Health Inspection
Report? (the long form report, that is, of course...)"

But you know, I've never quite gotten the anarchic ethic of RW
comments I guess...

[Nathan Henderson]

Should there be a standing rule that cleanliness allegations from commenters without an established RocWiki history will/may be deleted?

I suppose that's okay but we should be up front about it. I'd assume your typical negative comment regarding cleanliness is from a disgruntled ex-employee.

— Nathan

[Ryan Tucker]

Indeed... we've had a number of situations much like this one in the
past few years, and it's getting a little bit old[1]. I'm not sure if
making it "more official" would stop it, but it'd make these discussions
easier ;-)

I think this could (and should) be elucidated on the Wiki
Community/Etiquette page, and perhaps Wiki Community/Offenses. Getting
people to read it might be a challenge; perhaps I should have the
software stick a link to WC/Etiq in the vicinity of the Comment boxes...

Here's a draft of something.

"""
The overwhelming majority of contributions to RocWiki are respectful and
informative, including comments with complaints or concerns about
businesses. However, a very small number cross a line, potentially
damaging a business's reputation and hurting their livelihood. We do
not want to "sugarcoat" or suppress legitimate criticism, but:

(indent and bold)Please do not post negative comments about pest
problems, cleanliness, or other public-health issues related to
restaurants. The admins reserve the right to remove such
comments.(/indent and bold)

RocWiki is not the proper forum for reporting immediate threats to
public health and safety. In Monroe County, you can reach the
Department of Health's food protection hotline at (585) 753-5064. For
lesser concerns, talk to the owner or the manager. Most business owners
are reasonable people, but they don't monitor RocWiki, so give them a
chance to make things better.

Those interested in researching a restaurant's inspection history can
find a frequently-updated database at the Democrat and Chronicle's web
site:
http://php.democratandchronicle.com/RocDocs/restaurant_inspections/ .
"""

-rt

[1] The first I remember (I'm a noob) was about two years ago this
month, actually, and was also the second edit from a new user. The user
in question quickly developed an established RocWiki history, however.

[Nathan Henderson]

I like it. The "RocWiki is not the proper forum for reporting immediate threats to
public health and safety" line sums up my thoughts perfectly.

— Nathan

[rch...@gmail.com]

Maybe you should also include a link to
http://php.democratandchronicle.com/RocDocs/restaurant_inspections/

Then they can look up the information on the inspections that were done. In this case they could see the 6 violations that The Northside Inn had on their last annual inspection.

[Ryan Tucker]

Indeed, that's probably the best source. It aims to be complete and
up-to-date, and has a pretty nice interface to search/browse the data.

And yes, you're right about the violations. However, it's worth noting
three things:

1) The critical violation was corrected immediately,
2) The reinspection a few weeks later found zero issues, and
3) In the context of the full list of restaurant inspections, six is not
an unusually large number.

The third point is huge. It's not something people really like to think
about, but all restaurants have violations. Shit happens[1], mistakes
are made, problems are corrected, life goes on. Singling out one
inspection from one restaurant does not provide the information needed
for objective analysis.

And that's what I like about the D&C's database... you go to it, and
wham, there's a nice big list of places you wouldn't even think would
not have thermometers readily available to verify temperatures of
potentially hazardous foods... -rt

[1] Once in awhile, it happens on food contact surfaces. Ok, I'll stop.

[rch...@gmail.com]

I wasn't trying to make a point about The Northside Inn in praticular. I just think that providing people information and then letting them decide what to do with it is important.

[Pete B]

Now that Rocco's comment has been removed, I need to change mine.

 

Who wants to contact Don Verni to follow up? Should I?

--

[Ryan Tucker]

On Fri, 2009-11-27 at 19:29 -0500, Pete B wrote:
> Now that Rocco's comment has been removed, I need to change mine.

I considered removing yours as well since the context was missing, but
figured you were more than qualified to do so :-)

> Who wants to contact Don Verni to follow up? Should I?

You've been in contact, so you're probably the best person for the job.
I've also added the proposed policy to the WC:Etiquette page. We'll see
how this works going forward...

Speaking of going forward, did anyone else notice we're up over 10k
pages? Did anyone happen to catch which page did it, or will I get to
spend the afternoon reading the database transaction log backwards? :-)
-rt

--
Ryan Tucker <rtu...@gmail.com>

[Pete B]

I'll catch up to Don-no problem. Nice note on the comment section.

As to 20k pages....Nice!

[Jay Sweet]

On a personal note, I went to Northside Inn for a couple of drinks and
some darts last night, and I can report that I did not find any
roaches in my beer or crawling on the dartboard ;p

[Pete B]

Spoke to Don..he's THRILLED with the results and efficiency of which the issue was addressed.

 

Will be dropping off some RocWiki cards at some point soon