4.6 stars. Great. But 4.6 from how many reviews? Posted when? By whom? Most of all: did someone rate the restaurant because the schnitzel was good, or because they thought the star meant “properly kosher”?
A rating is useful. A rating without context is a number pretending to be information. Here is how Keila displays ratings and reviews, and why we refuse to put everything into the same shaker.
Two kinds of ratings, two origins
On a Keila listing, you may come across two different things:
- An external rating, recorded from a maps or booking service. It is displayed with its source, scale, the number of reviews it summarises and the date we recorded it.
- Keila reviews, written in the app by people with an account: a rating out of 5 and an optional comment, signed with a first name.
We do not copy external review texts or their authors’ profiles. We reproduce the rating, its review count and date, and tell you where it came from. A directory rating remains a dated observation, not a live measurement: if it was recorded a long time ago, you see that immediately and can take it into account.
Why we never merge the two
It would be tempting to calculate one grand average. 4.6 elsewhere, 4.2 here: there you go, 4.4. Except that number would mean nothing. The scales are not necessarily the same, nor the audiences, and even less the moderation rules. Combining a rating recorded in June on one service with reviews written in September on another is comparing cabbages with bourekas.
So each rating stays in its place, with its label. You can compare them yourself. You are a grown-up.
Sometimes the comparison is precisely what is interesting. An address rated highly elsewhere but more debated here, or the reverse, tells you something: a new chef, a changed menu, a different audience. If we had blended everything into one average, you would never have seen that difference.
The five Keila reviews threshold
An average based on two reviews is mainly your aunt’s opinion and her neighbour’s. So we set a simple rule:
- Before five published Keila reviews, the listing may display an indicative external rating, with its source, review count and date. The first Keila reviews are visible and identified as such.
- From five published reviews onwards, the Keila average comes first. The external rating remains accessible as long as it is current.
- Without an external rating, the first Keila reviews are shown as early reviews, without pretending to be a robust average. No phantom rating to fill a gap.
This threshold does not make the rating perfect. It just stops a handful of reviews from ruling a listing. And in practice, that already makes quite a difference.
Why five rather than fifty? There is no magic formula behind the number, and we will not invent one. It is a compromise: enough reviews for the Keila average not to rest on a single evening, but not so many that the external rating stays in charge indefinitely. At five, the voice of people using Keila comes first.
Pre-moderation: why your review is not online immediately
You write your review, submit it, and… nothing appears. It is not a bug. Every new review and every edit awaits a team check before publication. We check that it describes a personal experience, without advertising, insults, discrimination, threats or private information about someone else.
A few more rules, because the community is imaginative:
- You need an account to write. Your first name is public with your review; your email stays private.
- You can edit or delete your reviews in My account, under My reviews.
- A pending, rejected or removed review, or one written by a suspended account, does not count towards the average.
- If you hide an author for yourself, it changes what you see, not the public average.
And no, we do not display “verified visit” beside a review. We cannot verify a visit without evidence of that visit, so we do not claim to.
A review is not a certification
This is the most important sentence on this page. Five stars do not say a restaurant is kosher or vegan. They say people enjoyed their meal. Or did not. That is valuable information, but it is different information. Here is the rule as written in the app:
Stars describe contributors’ experiences. They do not verify dietary status, a certificate or cooking.
That is also why a review must not claim to certify a dietary characteristic. Your “very kosher, highly recommended” is well intentioned, but kashrut is read on a certificate, with an organisation, scope and date. We explain how in how to read a kosher certificate, and how to check an address yourself in Beth Din de Paris certified restaurants: how to check. If you are wondering about the type of food, head here: bassari, halavi and pareve.
What this changes for you
When you open a listing, you can see at a glance where every number comes from. External rating: which source, how many reviews, what date. Keila reviews: how many, published after review. Dietary status: look in the evidence section, never in the stars.
Want to help? Write a review after your meal, a real one, with what you liked and what you liked less. If you see incorrect information on a listing, use Report an error rather than slipping it into a comment: corrections reach the team, who examine them before publication.
It is less spectacular than a big green 4.8. But it is honest, and saves you being misled by a restaurant that asked its entire family for five stars. We all have an uncle who has done it. It also saves you choosing a Shabbat dinner somewhere on the strength of a number whose origin nobody knows. The full workings are detailed on the method page, and the app is presented on the home page.