Qype - Live and tell

Siany has spent the morning with a craving for Chinese food. Specifically sesame prawn toast. Don’t judge her - it happens at least three times a week. But after trying a couple of great places she needs to find somewhere else to get her MSG fix.

So when things like this happen, we turn to all you clever Qypers. There’s a little known forum on Qype called London Chat. It’s perfect for answering all of your questions and just chatting about general stuff and nonsense. You’ll get to know lots of other lovely Qypers and find out some more secrets about London to impress your friends with. The more people start chatting, the more helpful it’ll be.

And if you could all please share your Chinese Buffet secrets, well that would make Siany extra happy.

This week we have a chat with Tim Dickinson (or, the Timinator) about ‘warm fuzzies’, winning lots of wine and being a rocket scientist…

Tell us more about you.
I’m 39, married, and live in Ealing, London. I’m Canadian, from Nova Scotia originally, but moved to London for work in 2001. I naturalised as British a couple of years ago and so am now a dual citizen (being able to choose the shorter queue at airport immigration is a good thing). I’ve been working for an IT/networking company for just over 10 years now, but had some unusual jobs before that: I have been a rocket scientist, a nuclear physicist and a military scientist. None of those jobs were as cool as they sound.

What do you enjoy most about Qyping?
I’m the sort of person that researches places before I go. I know some other people do the same so I’m always recommending places to anyone who’ll listen (one man’s mouthy opinions are another man’s value-added info). I often write about establishments I visit on my personal blog, but Qype means people that need the info I might have to share are more likely to find it. That gives me warm fuzzies.

What makes you happy about the places you review?
I’m a big music fan and go to a lot of gigs. I don’t have a favourite venue because different places are appropriate for different acts. But I love almost all the places that bands can play for their own particular characteristics. Reviewing them means recalling experiences I shared with hundreds - or thousands - of people.

What annoys you the most?
If you mean what annoys me most about places that I might review, then cynical, purposefully middle-of-the-road lowest-common-denominator places bug me. It’s one thing if your establishment just turns out to be ordinary because you’re not that imaginative. It’s quite another if you intentionally try to make it as bland, uninteresting, and uniform as you can in some attempt to maximise customer appeal. Thinking about this, though, I’ve just realised that I haven’t Qyped the rubbish places I’ve been to as much as I have the great places. I suppose I should.

If you mean what annoys me most about Qyping in general, then that would be wildly unhelpful reviews that consist of fewer than a dozen words, like, “This place is great!”

What was the place you wanted to keep a secret?
If people suddenly start flocking to my local Italian - Osteria del Portico - and make it hard for me to get a table then I will become very angry. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. Even if I am Canadian. (Siany is guessing that link to his review hasn’t helped. Er… sorry.)

How can people write better reviews?
Obviously, helpful information is key. Don’t agonise over whether you should give the place a 3 or a 4. Tell me what happened to you there, what the decor and vibe is like, make sure the map pointer is correct, and so on.

I’m also a stickler for spelling and proper punctuation. If a reveiw is writen lik this….LOL……then i just can’t take it serouisly, no matter how glowwing it iz!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anything else you wanna say?
I found out about Qype when they sponsored a Meetup of London Bloggers, of which I’m a member. Qype enticed us to contribute by offering a case of wine to the person who submitted the most entertaining review of the pub where that meetup was held, the Camel & Artichoke. That was my first Qype review, and I won the wine. Any service that gives my gob another forum and gives me booze is tops in my book.

You might have noticed that there’s been a bit of a twitchy buzz on Qype today. That’s because there’s a few Qypers who are so hyped up on sugar and sweeties that they felt very light-headed last night. Those lovely people at Melt invited us go to a chocolate tasting and we were just too darn polite to refuse.

You can check out the reviews on the site, but we thought it was a good idea to shout some more about how fab the experience was. The picture is of Rob of Qype HQ rolling truffles. Doesn’t he look happy (there’s more snaps over at the Qype Flickr page)? We learned lots of great things and the staff are really fab. They can tell the difference between 31 and 32 degrees without even tasting anything. Pretty amazing. Though how they stay so restrained is beyond us. Siany was stealing the samples when no one was looking…

So Melt is our new favourite place. We got to take away tasty treats and we were all feeling a bit high when we left the shop. Of course we still found time to buy some goodies before we left. But there would have been some very angry wives if the Qype boys had gone home empty-handed.

So go to Melt! It’s lovely in there. You’ll probably see us lurking next to the peanut caramel and chilli chocs. Have a chat to the guys who work there - especially Keith the master chocolatier. Try not to eat so much chocolate that you feel sick. Siany did. She’s regretting it now. But she still wants more…

Tourists, how we love them. Really. But sometimes they really can be annoying. (Yes, we know we’re just as bad when we all dive onto the Costa Del Sol and mess it up each summer.) We’ve got a bit of a poll going so you can have your say. What annoys you most about Tourists in London?

If Facebook is anything to go by, lots of tourists are likely to get punched in the head if they carry on walking too slowly down Oxford Street, but surely some of you Qypers get more annoyed with people who stand on the left of the escalator? Siany really gets wound up when people stop at the top of escalators to have a chat, or read their A-Z, but that’s just her.

Don’t worry, we love everyone who wants to come to London! And we’ve even been tempted by those open top buses ourselves. But surely we can vent a little bit too? It’s just a bit of fun after all. And next month, maybe we can run a poll about what annoys tourists about London locals… we bet there’s a few things there too.

Flickr image from Brenda Annerl’s photostream.

Some of you may have met The Duck at the 1st Qype party at the Coach and Horses. If you didn’t, you may have heard about his escapades afterwards which mean he doesn’t remember getting home. With socialising mischief like that, Siany was compelled to have a chat with him.

Tell us more about you.
I am a well travelled 25 year old Womble. Meaning I’m from Wimbledon. I womble free about the place making good use of the things that I find. I am full of ideas and love making new friends.

What do you enjoy most about Qyping?
I love being able to share my experiences and tip people off about the great and poor things I find on my travels. Receiving from other users in return is wonderful too and I often check if meeting someone at a station if there is anything recommended highly nearby.

What makes you happy about the places you review?
Two things have made me happy…one is overhearing someone in one of my favourite places say how they heard about the place on Qype. The other is the owner of one of the other of my favourite places telling me he had read my review and ask me if I want a coffee on the house for being so kind….I had forgot I had written it many months earlier.

What annoys you the most?
People rating things higher then they deserve ie give it a 4 when i would offer a 2 - but it is perspective. It would be better to rate up to ten really and not being able to offer a a big fat zero.

What was the place you wanted to keep a secret?
I cant keep secrets about places I like, I love socialising too much and socialising alone is not fun really.

How can people write better reviews?
I like reviews that offer prices of things they have bought, or services received. Some people love to have a lot of information, others love to read concise reports. Reviews should also say why you liked somewhere and what sort of audience it is ideal for. If I was with my young nephew I would not want to go somewhere I would go with 5 of the boys for drinks…probably!

Get snapping people! A little while ago, Qype told you about we were giving away a fab camera! (It has lots of buttons on it and it’s far too technical for the likes of us to explain what they do.) If you still want to be in with a chance of winning, then get those fingers snapping and upload your pics by Friday.

Then sit back and look at how pretty you’ve made Qype with all your pictures. And oooh, look at all those Qype points you’ve bagged yourself too. Lovely. Hopefully the camera will be winging its way to you. Complete with complicated instruction manual.

We’re kind to our newbies here at Qype. So kind, we want to shower you in booze. Not literally though, you understand. But we would like to send you presents to say thank you for joining us.

So it’s simple, if you’ve got between 0-25 points at the moment, just get to 250 points by the end of the month and a lovely keg of beer will be winging it’s way off to your door. Hurrah!

There’s loads of things you can do to get points. Upload some photos, do some reviews of new places, write some exciting new guides about your area.

Better still, invite your friends and get them to join in the fun. Then you can all get beer and have a great big bank holiday party on us. Simple.

Don’t worry, we’re not just nice to newbies… everyone else can drink all the free booze at the party tonight.

Flickr image from Brian U’s photostream.

How do you score your reviews? Are you a harsh reviewer? Or are you more forgiving? We realised yesterday that the way you guys see our scoring system changes from Qyper to Qyper. Obviously one star is pretty easy, so is five stars, but it’s the bit in the middle that seems to cause a bit of variation. So to kick off the debate, here’s how Siany reviews her places:

So there you go. Are you more harsh than us? Do you have a different way of scoring your reviews? Or does it just depend on whether you’re typing before your morning cuppa? Tell us in the comments.

We’re getting bored again. We’ve been to all the same places and we want somewhere new! So we thought we’d have a nose around Qype to see where we can try out this week.

Places you’re loving:

And the ones you’re not so fond of:

So hurry up and join in the fun. Go to the good places and tell us what you think. Or find some new places and tell us all about those. We’re very nosy at Qype.

Isn’t it great to find a new place in your local area and then shout about it? Yeah, that’s fun. But sometimes it’s also pretty great when someone does all the work for you. That’s why Qype Guides are great. They do all the hard work, you just have to pick up an A-Z and go.

So what new guides are there for you to scout around this week?

See, you’re spoiling us. Don’t stop. It makes planning our busy social lives much easier.