Online ratings: Convergence towards a positive perspective?

Do online reviews reflect the true quality of products? Several articles, in both the popular press and the research community, have publicized that the average rating for top review sites is above 4 out of 5 stars. In this paper, we study the phenomena of review rating trends and convergence. We analyze data obtained from a popular restaurant review website, and present several models of increasing sophistication for the dynamics of the review ratings we observe.