[FORUM] What do you think of online rating systems?

Two weeks ago, there was an article at Toronto Life, "Why Momofuku’s David Chang thinks Yelp reviews are dumb", that caught my attention.

David Chang knows his fast food, so it makes sense that he’s signed on as the official Northeastern U.S. “burrito scout” for ESPN blog FiveThirtyEight, which is currently conducting a rigorous, March Madness–style search for the country’s top burrito (and, in the process, examining the relative reliability of crowdsourced recommendations versus other sources of data). Chang recently spoke with the site about his personal views on user-generated restaurant reviews, particularly those on Yelp. To put it concisely, he’s not a fan. Here’s what he had to say:

I’m just going to come out and say: Most of the Yelp reviews are wrong. They just are. Yelp is great for finding information if you forgot the address of a place. [...] But for the most part, no chef is going to take a Yelper’s review seriously, even though they might read them.

The problem with Yelpers, according to Chang? They take everything way too personally, and usually don’t know what they’re talking about.

The best analogy I can give is fantasy sports or lawn-chair stockbrokers. For the most part, unless you’re really studying the stats and you’re a former football player or baseball player and know the industry inside and out, it’s most likely that your insights aren’t that great.

My reaction, as expressed in the comments, was critical. Chang's argument leaves no space for well-informed amateur critiques, or for informed readers, and additionally seems to verge on making the fallacious argument that everyone is making one-star reviews based on a single thing that doesn't work for them.

What say you all?

[PHOTO] A street in Seaton Village, late May

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• James Bow mourns the loss of the Northlander train route connecting northern Ontario with the south.


• The Dragon's Tales notes a Saudi Arabian announcement that it will be boosting military spending by 20%.


• The Financial Times' The World blog notes growing Brazilian confidence in the outcome of the World Cup.


• At A Fistful of Euros, Alex Harrowell notes the complexities of governance and procedure in the European Parliament.


• Language Hat notes the long and changing history of ethnic identity in the Crimean peninsula.


• Language Log's Victor Mair notes from first-hand experience the complex language and script situation in Macau and Hong Kong.


• The New APPS Blog features suggestions for institutional reform in the European Union.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that, to ingratiate itself with the European Union, Albania won't accept transit fees for the impending Trans-Adriatic pipeline.


• Spacing Toronto remembers the time when Toronto's subway network was the best in North America.


• Strange Maps' Frank Jacobs notes how a steamship disaster helped erase the Manhattan neighbourhood of Little Germany from the map of New York City.


• Torontoist fact-checks an Olivia Chow speech, finding it boringly accurate and unambitious.


• Towleroad notes how a Dutch town proposed setting up a gay ghetto to call out local homophobia.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Ukrainian Orthodox Christian leaders are rejecting the Russian church's authority, and observes that the Ukrainian government is now demanding that ethnic Ukrainians in Russia receive good treatment as an ethnic minority.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto Pride 2014: A Look Back At Pride Before WorldPride"

The Huffington Post featured a nice photo essay examining the prehistory of Pride in Toronto. Charlie Dobie's black-and-white photos of the 1974 march, taken around the Church and Wellesley area, are a nice treat.

Toronto and pride have a long relationship, and while today it’s largely one of excitement and inclusion, that wasn't always the case.

The first unofficial Pride Week in Toronto took place in 1972 and was organized by the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT), according to On the Bookshelves, a website detailing Toronto's gay history run by Peter Zorzi. It was formed in in December 1970, as an umbrella organization that provided social services, education, political activism, and eventually became the organizers of Pride Week.

Internationally, the gay pride movement gained momentum during the 1960s, after the Stonewall Inn riot in New York City, when years of suppression reached a boiling point. Gay and lesbian individuals who had been subjected to laws that criminalized sodomy and were frequently harassed took to the streets to protest.

Although CHAT sought official recognition from the City of Toronto for their Pride Week, it was not forthcoming. While in 1973 mayor David Crombie extended well wishes to the event, permission to march down Yonge Street was denied.

[URBAN NOTE] "The March to Pride"

Torontoist's Jamie Bradburn has a nice post outlining the early history of the GLBT pride movement in Toronto. As soon as it became legal to be gay, people began to come out.

It was a simple poster, one that asked people to bring food, drink, and music to Hanlan’s Point on August 1, 1971. Around 300 people followed the poster’s directions to what was billed as “Toronto’s first gay picnic”—the first of a series of events held throughout the 1970s that served as precursors to the current annual Pride celebration, established in 1981.

The organizing of the picnic grew from the gay liberation movement that was rapidly developing in Canada during the early 1970s. As Tom Warner notes in his book Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada,

In the short period between 1970 and 1974, the new ideology blossomed on several fronts; breaking through isolation and loneliness; rejecting the notions of sin, sickness, and criminality that previously defined homosexuality; fighting against oppression, discrimination, and harassment; asserting pride in same-sex sexuality as good and natural; engaging in aggressive public advocacy for social and legislative reform; and building both a community and a culture based on a commonly shared sexuality. Visibility and organizing became the objectives through which liberation would be attained. “Out of the Closets and into the Streets,” “Gay Is Just as Good as Straight,” and “Better Blatant Than Latent” were among the rallying cries. It was an amazing time of exuberance, optimism, astonishing innovation, and sometimes breath-taking courage—characterized by impatience and a willingness to confront all oppressors.

One of the first catalysts for the creation of this movement was the decriminalization of homosexuality for adults 21 and over under a reformed federal criminal code. Introduced by Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau as part of an omnibus bill in December 1967, the reforms were among those that provoked his famous quote: “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” Two months after the legislation came into effect in August 1969, an ad placed in the Varsity by Jearld Moldenhauer resulted in the formation of Toronto’s first post-Stonewall homosexual activist group, the University of Toronto Homophile Association. The group’s constitution stated that it was “dedicated to educating the community about homosexuality, and bringing about social and personal acceptance of homosexuality.”

Over a year later, the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT) formed to provide social services to the gay community. It also offered assistance to anyone arrested or harassed by police, who still viewed homosexuals as “incipient criminals.” Groups with a stronger activist mandate, such as Toronto Gay Action and the Gay Alliance Toward Equality, soon emerged. While male-dominated groups tended to focus on human rights issues, female-dominated associations looked more at creating spaces free of homophobia and sexism. This period also saw the fall 1971 launch of the Body Politic, a publication whose collective (which evolved into Pink Triangle Press, current publisher of Xtra) aimed to mobilize the community to fight its oppressors.

[URBAN NOTE] "They’re queer. They’re here."

The article highlighted on the front page of the most recent issue of The Grid was an article, by Sarah Liss and Rachel Giese, examining the situations of GLBT refugee claimants in Toronto. Liss and Giese profile four different claimants, From countries as diverse as Nigeria and Russia, and place their claims in the context of a complicating situation for refugees in Toronto.

At the end of March, 30,000 Ugandans gathered at a stadium in Kampala for a celebration in honour of President Yoweri Museveni. The leader had just passed harsh new laws that require citizens to report gay people to authorities and mandate that “repeat homosexuals” be jailed for life. (The original bill included a death-penalty clause, which was ultimately dropped.) The crowd laughed and sang, waving placards that read “Thank you for saving the future of Uganda” and “Homosexuality = AIDS = 100%.”

The nation is one of the most dangerous in the world for LGBT people, its homophobia fuelled in part by U.S.–funded evangelical churches. In 2011, David Kato, a prominent gay activist, was bludgeoned to death at his home after a newspaper ran photos, names, and addresses of LGBT people in Uganda along with a banner that read “Hang Them.”

Uganda is among about 80 countries that criminalize homosexuality. In Brunei, one can be stoned to death; in Saudi Arabia, penalties include lashings, chemical castration, torture, and execution. LGBT people in Jamaica, Pakistan, Morocco, and Belize face long prison sentences. Last year, Russia enacted legislation outlawing pro-gay “propaganda,” which can encompass everything from Pride parades to writing a gay-positive newspaper article.

Canada, with its anti-discrimination protections, its recognition of same-sex marriage, and widespread societal acceptance, has become a haven for LGBT refugees seeking a new home. “We are one of a small number of countries that accept SOGI—that’s sexual orientation and gender identity—claims,” says Rohan Sajnani, lead researcher for the Canadian Asylum Working Group, which is part of the civil-rights organization Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights. “And Canada does have a good history of being a welcoming place.”

Toronto has a number of support networks for LGBT refugees, like a weekly drop-in meeting at The 519 Community Centre and a sponsorship project and advocacy program at the Metropolitan Community Church. These organizations help newcomers navigate their way through asylum-claims procedures, which culminate with an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing.

However, despite these initiatives, many struggles exist for those seeking asylum. Sajnani says the current system poses specific challenges for LGBT people. “This is a population who’ve spent their entire lives hiding who they are,” he says. “Now they’re being asked to prove they are gay. They are often reluctant to trust authority figures and are grappling with internalized homophobia and shame.”

[NEWS] Some Monday links

• Al Jazeera notes the inequitable terms of a trade agreement between the European Union and West Africa, observes that so far north Kazakhstan isn't vulnerable to Russian irredentism in the same way as east Ukraine, explores the Northern Gateway pipeline controversy, detects Kurdish-Turkmen tension in the city of Kirkuk, and looks at the Japanese-Brazilian community.
  
• The Atlantic explains why poor American women increasingly don't wait for marriage or even relationships to become parents (what else do they have to do?) and notes the successful treatment of a mentally ill bonobo.


• BusinessWeek notes that authors of best-sellers tend to be successful American presidential candidates, comments on potential problems of Russia's South Stream pipeline project in Serbia, and notes that more airlines are cutting service to a Venezuela that doesn't want to pay their costs in scarce American dollars.


• CBC notes that Scottish independence could cause change in the flag of the United Kingdom, observes the beginning of peace talks in eastern Ukraine, notes the contamination of a salmon river in eastern Quebec by a municipal dump.


• MacLean's examines the collapse of the Iraqi military, looks at the psychology of online abusers, and explains the import of some archeological discoveries in Yukon.