Talk:Ao Nang

Taj Palace

The following was added as a "review" of the Taj Palace restaurant. Follow or ignore as you wish. I am merely moving this here as it does not belong in the main article. I neither agree nor disgree with comments made - they are the opinion of the original poster (non-registered at IP 118.173.50.203) (WT-en) Nrms 09:21, 15 February 2010 (EST)

• Update** We unfortunately just followed this positive advice with a Feb 2010 visit and were completely disappointed. The restaurant substituted a dozen baby shrimp for the normal 3 large tiger prawns priced at 550 baht, since they had run out of the big guys. We consented to the substitution because we were still promised prawns, if a bit smaller than the giants then in larger quantity in balance, but were appalled when they charged the full giant tiger prawn price for these totally inferior and dissimilar little baby shrimp they actually served. We live in Ao Nang and buy big tiger prawns at the local market for 500-700 baht per kilo, but can easily get these little, tiny, unappetizing baby shrimp that they served for 100 baht per kilo or less. There is no comparison in quality of culinary experience between giant tiger prawns and the awful little baby shrimp they embarrassingly served. It would be like getting a dozen frozen supermarket Chung King duck eggrolls because they had run out of Peking Duck, or four little 59 cent Mcdonald's burgers since they had run out of Filet Mignon, while still charging a full $30 for the 4 little substitute Mcdonald's burgers. When politely and quietly confronted with this reality away from other customers in order to preserve whatever integrity the restaurant might care to purport, the waiter insisted upon insulting us further by following me back to the table in front of other customers with continuing lame explanations and no hint of apology. We paid their full stupid tiger prawn price for little baby shrimp just in order to leave without having to incur further embarrassing insult. Their food was weak enough as it was, being acceptable but unspectacular tourist Indian food at tourist prices, but the aggressive waiter's badgering insistence in this senseless battle only confirmed our initial wonder at his inability to take our order as directed without also suggesting several appetizers, other additional courses and side dishes and more expensive upgrades to what we really wanted. Seems to me that if you want a light dinner of Indian style garlic Tiger Prawns and Lamb curry with three orders of plain standard naan, we should be able to get that without also ordering multiple appetizers, rice dishes, and extra course, and paying giant Tiger prawn prices for little tiny disappointingly bad baby shrimp. We left full, but less than content. Would not recommend.

I choose to disagree (with whoever removed my objective input in order to retain only inaccurate glowing "owner's dream" accolades for Wiki readers...) 15 March 2010

Who is it to decide that the first positive commentary on the restaurant be retained while a more recent less positive perspective be banished to a far removed page to hide this alternate real world commentary? Who is it to decide it does not remain in the main article? Could it be someone associated with the restaurant?

It is clearly inappropriate to leave intact the positive initial commentary rendering that "food was better than most in Ao Nang, with exceptionally succulent shrimp", and to then remove an objective opinion specifically based upon real world experience that shows the way it really is rather than how the owner prefers to portray his establishment.

The second less positive commentary is a direct result of a reader visiting the restaurant based upon the positive recommendation from from the first commentary, reflecting then upon a decidedly different experience that Wiki readers deserve a chance to see. Is there not room for real world experience within Wiki to police the honesty of reporting therein? Is the Wiki to be shill for any business wishing to use it for concealed free advertising? The "update" might be long, but is so specifically to factually refute the first overly broad, positive and inaccurate claim that the "food was better than most in Ao Nang", and "exceptionally succulent shrimp".

Give me a break.

You want to retain inaccurate laudatory rhetoric of the owner’s dreams and obfuscate the truth? Let the owner’s pay for their one sided advertising. Let’s preserve the Wiki for the truth, two sided if necessary to present different opinions. I did not remove their inaccurate claims in rebuting their thinly veiled advertising. Clearly they should not be able to remove my factual response to their claims. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 180.180.197.23 (talk • contribs)

If you look around Wikivoyage, you will notice that there are no other first person reviews, as this is meant to be a travel guide, not a review site like tripadvisor. If the place is bad enough where we should not list it here, perhaps we should simply remove it per Project:Avoid negative reviews. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 10:32, 15 March 2010 (EDT)

Which I have already done, assuming it was a valid opinion contributed in good faith, despite the fact that it wasn't made in the proper manner.(WT-en) Texugo 10:48, 15 March 2010 (EDT)

• • Response 16 March 2010**

Clearly there is some problem with the system if negative feedback to inaccurate information presented is not tolerated, or if similarly a more balanced perspective is not permitted to offset unfairly positive information presented by an interested party. What is your solution to Wiki being utilized as a shill for business owners' use of the forum as free advertising medium under the guise of supposedly objective opinion, when it in fact is completely disingenuous in that regard? Aren't you making a bigger deal out of small side issues such first person reviews and negative feedback as a smokescreen to cover your real intent to protect false commentary? Isn't the integrity of information presented within Wiki a bit higher mandate than these petty issues you choose to hide behind, and not being presented in the proper manner? —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 180.180.197.23 (talk • contribs)

Who is this "you" you keep talking about? This is a collective project, so we're an "us", and that includes you.

But since you ask, our solutions are Don't tout (shilling gets trimmed away) and Avoid negative reviews (establishments that get a consensus against them are removed entirely). Feedback of any kind is certainly "tolerated", but we aim for short and snappy, so 3,000-character rants like yours belong somewhere else.

Also, you can click on the little "History" link for the page and see exactly who's done what -- no dodgy Indian restaurateurs in sight as far as I can see. (WT-en) Jpatokal 08:07, 16 March 2010 (EDT)

I'm just glad "you" eventually took off the bad information so others are not also misled.

Whatever...