Adventures in babysitting (I mean hosting)

Bizarre. Think about it logically. Or put it in one of your logic syllogisms :smiley:
which is… a deductive approach to reason and is based on deducing specific conclusions from general facts. A Syllogism is a three-part set of statements; a major statement or premise, a minor statement or premise and a conclusion that is deduced.

If you got five stars on accuracy;
then low stars on everything else;
then … how can his overall rating of you be accurate?

Go ahead, give me an “F” on my syllogism. :smile:

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Hi @konacoconutz,

I just looked at one of the longer reviews which I responded to. The original review isn’t expanded, but my response is.

By “the whole thing”, did you mean the original review?

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Yes, when it happened to me… the whole uggggly thing was expanded… his review and my response were expanded for an eternity! :smile: Not sure if that is still the case, but as you saw with the example, the response took center stage… when will then cause the curious to want to expand the whole thing, if it isn’t already.

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Fair enough. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll reply. It’s not clear what I should respond to in that whole lengthy rant, anyway. And I don’t even have a good translation.

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Hi Faheem,
I have actually noticed this before - it’s because of the foreign language. Every time I browse a listing that’s in English and there’s a foreign language review, it gets bumped to the bottom.

Don’t reply to that review - it might make it come to the top. Right now it’s buried and only 1 person out of 100 will bother to translate it.

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Be careful quoting factoid statistics to the math professor! :smiley:
I happen to agree with you by the way. No one will translate. They will just see all the other good reviews and book with him.

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Hi @Artemis,

Hmm, that’s odd. I’m fairly sure I’ve read listings where the non-English language reviews weren’t all at the bottom. But perhaps it depends on locale/country. Though, based on my limited experience with Airbnb, when something is out of whack, one immediately assumes bug rather than feature.

Currently, for example, when I try to scroll the calendar upwards, all the little images embedded in the calendar scroll upwards, instead of the calendar.

As @konacoconutz pointed out earlier, there’s a button that one can click to translate all non-English language reviews. I haven’t checked, but I expect it just runs it through Google Translate. So that definitely makes the task easier. Though I don’t see a translate button on my listing page. Does anyone else?

@faheem I am very late to this conversation but wanted to offer my perspective on the review you received. IMO, it reveals more about the guest than you and your listing - he sounds pompous, entitled and selfish. All your other reviews are great with some of them describing in great detail the attractions of your place. I want to visit myself!

The other thing that occurs to me is that he had been clearly spoiled by previous hosts who had cooked for him, driven him places etc., and so he thought he was entitled to the same “service” from others. I have had similar experiences with guests who compared me unfavourably with previous hosts who had provided a ridiculous amount (imo) of attention and extras. That is the main reason that I like having newbies! They have nothing to compare me to.

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Thanks for your perspective, @Magwitch. I’ve noticed that he has received good reviews from others. I’ve found it a little puzzling. And yes, I suppose as long as people do what he wants, he’s going to be happy. And if they don’t, he wouldn’t be. But I wonder why people would do what he wanted. Maybe they do in India, and that’s why he keeps coming? Who knows.

I do know Indians are very racist in weird ways. They fall over themselves when they see a European. And you should see them around British people. (Insert some comment about loving the hand that beats you…) That’s probably changing as the world becomes more international, but India changes very slowly.

BTW, if you are a native French speaker, can you comment on how accurate or inaccurate the Google Translate English translation is?

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My French is very rusty but with the aid of a dictionary and a thesaurus, this my version. Comments or alternative words from me are in [ ]. It’s not particularly carefully written, as if he did it in a hurry.

bad experience. We had two consecutive stays of seven days. As the days went by, the defects of this house, which nevertheless has real advantages, became burdensome. Placed in the heart of Bombay and at a competitive price, this guesthouse is appealing. However, the location has a setback: at around twenty meters from the railway lines at Churchgate and with a train every 3 or 4 minutes 6 to 23 pm, the place is quite noisy. Although the room is clean and has the minimum necessary equipment (no small fridge for example and note that the TV only play DVDs but receives no channels as it’s not connected, which makes the evenings and rainy days a little long), the living room and the kitchen are not really engaging: walls eaten away by moisture, dust that accumulates on the pile of books, newspapers and various objects (pay attention to the photos posted) which gives these two rooms a characteristic smell to say the least. To go from the bedroom to the bathroom at a distance of ten meters, you must go through the living room, so make sure not to forget to take your change [of clothes] because there’s no question of going back “in undress”. Also, be careful not to slip on the mosaic floor in the rain. The terrace could also be “more” but nothing is set out there to enjoy it (no chairs, armchairs and table see photos). In short, this house has potential but remains stewed in its own juice for many years now … shame. In line with the house, the owner is also anchored [or immobilised] in a litigious routine that eventually became unbearable. Not amenable to any requests that you may have [shorthand reference to you not allowing him to leave luggage, I think], compliance with his rules and official administrative procedures are the alpha and omega of Faheem. Thus, the reservation made, he sends you his seven-page guide (he gives you a copy again on arrival just in case) with house rules that take up three [pages]… for contemplation [not sure what he means by this!]. To facilitate entry procedures to the premises, he also sends a PDF Form C requested by the Indian administration. Incidentally, in thirty days of travel and four stays in private houses, he is the only owner who asked me to fill it in. If you are unable to return this document (including a JPEG picture of at least 50kb!) you’re in for a long ordeal which, just as fussy as the Indian administration itself, all boxes must be completed (how is it my wife has no phone number of her own, how is it that we have the same email, [make sure you] remember the hotel address or wherever you are coming from otherwise [there is a] problem). Exasperating. According to what is explained in the guide, breakfast is not served until after 10 30, no exceptions …

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Been dying to ask from the very beginning; was this originally written in one massive wall of text as shown in these language conversions?

Yes. With words missing and some odd punctuation.

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to write that, @Magwitch. It’s very helpful. So the Google Translate version wasn’t so far off after all.

Some bits read oddly. I thought that maybe GT mistranslated the “litigious” bit. No idea what he meant by that. Does it mean something different in French than it does in English?

I think he just means to look at. Perhaps there is some French nuance there that is lost on an English speaker.

Yes, it seems, in true Indian tradition, most people and places ignore the rules. I would expect nothing less. I expect that big hotels, particularly in Bombay, make guests fill in this form, though. We have had some terrorist attacks here in recent years, and I think Bombay is more than averagely paranoid now.

I did communicate with a nice Israeli girl, though. Who, when sending in her form, commented that she was unfortunately already quite familiar with it, because she had had to fill it in twice in the last few days! So apparently some people do use it.

I spent 5 or 10 minutes filling in the form for him at checkout, because he hadn’t. And asked him a few questions. He didn’t know all the answers, and there was a certain amount of eye-rolling. He went to fetch documents a couple of times.

I sent him this form to fill out months in advance. Sometimes people send it back quickly, sometimes they wait to the last moment. Often people just come here and fill it out. I wrote some notes which I send along with the form, but most people don’t look at it.

Airbnb, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t allow line breaks in reviews, so everyone’s reviews are a wall of text. There is no choice in the matter.

What an obvious thing to miss.

I did a bit more investigating and “procédurière” could be translated as nitpicking or petty.

Is “procédurière” what appears in the translation as “litigious”?

The relevant phrase seems to be " le propriétaire est lui aussi encalminé dans une routine procédurière". (French is similar enough to Latinized English that I can somewhat follow it in a general way. As I recall, I did take a French class once, at the local Alliance Francaise in Bombay. It wasn’t very successful.)

Anyway, nitpicking or petty makes sense in the context. Thanks. And the gentleman used some phrasing like that verbally too…

I know this thread seems to be wrapping up, but I just wanted to say I think you made a good call in not publicly replying. This guest makes himself look like a weirdo. Why give his review more attention by making it expanded with a reply?

When I look for places to book, or read product reviews, I can tell when a guest or customer is high maintenance and unreasonable by looking at what they complained about. This guy is clearly that type of person!

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faheem, I used the google translation as a base and just examined the parts that seemed unclear. You would need to ask a native or fluent French speaker to get all the details but my French is good enough to recognise pomposity coupled with lack of attention to any detail or fact. It reads as someone who has no concern for anyone other than himself. I would count the review as a blessing in disguise - people like him will read it and not book, thus saving you from a repeat experience.

A propos (groan) I am now thinking of developing some specific software that can automatically Airbnb-translate such reviews. In this particular case, the translation would be: “I stayed here and I am a First Class Arse”. Obviously, it needs some slight tweaking but you get the picture.

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I’m with @Magwitch with this. I read his review and by the time when he commented the books and newspapers, I was going to stop: ok, that’s his view of the world… he comes to another person’s home and comments the host’s lifestyle. (I know he wanted to point out the “dust” but then again he said the room was clean.)… and the mosaic floor, please… save us from the details François, heh!

Better luck with your next guests @fareem.
(Off topic: I’m gettingt a longer pause from the hosting now - we’ll start again in springtime).

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