These days gauging the authenticity of anything has become a conundrum of epic proportions. Before a person becomes a patron of any service provider or buys any product, checking online reviews about them beforehand has become common practice. This wasn’t common in the past, and reviews were seldom found about anything.
The only thing people had to gauge the quality of any service or product by was their personal experience. This ended up in them taking a loss or both money and time. As time progressed, people started talking about their experiences more and more.
With the advent of digital technology, many platforms and forums were developed where people could share their experience with a specific product or service provider with other users. But as it is with anything else in this world, a shadow always accompanies the light.
Online reviews started as a few of accommodating the needs of the people. By seeing reviews, people could accurately judge which product to opt for and whether it would fulfill their intended purpose or not. But people with ulterior motives always find a way to bypass the system in a way that results in profit for them. Companies and service providers started hiring people that would post fake reviews on different platforms. These reviews would flaunt false information and quality of service and product. This practice started on a small scale, with only a few reviews done to counteract some poor reviews a company got. But with time, this increased substantially, resulting in our current situation. Today it has become very hard to discern between honest reviews and fake ones. Fake reviews have become a popular way for companies to increase their reach in public. There are now entire groups and companies that provide this specialized service of providing fake reviews. The majority of new ventures hire these companies to portray a fake reputable persona for their companies. A great example of such an ordeal is the current feud taking on Trust Pilot on blaming the Wikipedia editors.
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The whole story
For clarity, let me first explain what Trust Pilot is. Trust Pilot is a global reviewing platform that current CEO Holten Mühlmann founded in 2007 in Denmark. The company went public in 2021, which is a testament to its popularity. In the past, having good reviews of your company was equivalent to having five stars with the BBB (Better Business Bureau). However, recently, many scandals have surfaced about how to trust pilot to let profiles post fake reviews that have no validity.
A recent case is of post about how Wikipedia editors are biased and racist. But why would someone post negative reviews about an open soured platform? This is equivalent to people saying that a soup kitchen doesn’t provide five-star dining service. The real reason behind these reviews reveals to are much more shallow and unnecessary than you would think.
Wikipedia is a global online encyclopedia that has become the go-to place for information. The reason behind this esteemed status is that it is a platform that values only genuine and authentic information and rejects any and all types of glorification or fluff, as people call it. Although it is an open-source platform that allows any internet user to write information about any topic, it is not without its rules and regulations. It is obvious that without strict rules and regulations, the validity of this platform would never have been to grow and be established as it is today. Wikipedia has a team of vigilant editors and researchers that perform advance research about any article posted there in a swift matter. They make sure that all references and sources provided by the profile are valid and authentic by Wikipedia standards. The articles that are determined to be noteworthy and authentic are then made live for the world to see.
Having your information live on Wikipedia is the ultimate bragging right for any person, and many of these Wikipedia aspirants don’t stop to think whether or not they are worthy of being there.
Many companies and business owners want to increase their credibility by having their articles made live on Wikipedia. This would help them increase profits when people search about them. They will see that Wikipedia page and immediately gain trust in them. Such people try to make their articles live but to no avail, as usually it has been observed that these people do not have enough credibility and are not noteworthy enough to be on Wikipedia. Each time such aspirants post their articles on Wikipedia, it is declined and deleted as it clearly doesn’t fall on the guidelines made public by the editors.
In Conclusion
After trying repeatedly and having their profiles blocked, these people post shallow and vindictive reviews such as the ones found on Trust pilot. This act just goes to prove the shallow and unreasonable nature a person can turn over to in their pursuit of profit and fame. These people just want to vent about their own shortcomings without even being educated enough about what the prerequisites are of being live on Wikipedia.
