Why we only publish OTP-verified reviews (and the data behind it)

The problem with anonymous reviews

The first generation of school-review platforms in India copied the open-submission playbook: anyone can post, reputation-based moderation kicks in later, eventually a verification badge. Three issues showed up consistently:

Astroturf reviews from school marketing teams. Same writing style, same week, same five-star ratings.
Revenge reviews from disgruntled parents. One bad fee revision letter, ten one-star reviews.
Stale reviews stuck on the listing. A 2018 review of a school whose principal changed in 2022 still ranked top.

What OTP verification changes

An OTP-verified review begins with a phone-number-based identity check at submission time. The reviewer is anonymous on the public site (we never publish phone numbers), but the system has a verifiable trail.

Two things become possible:

Duplicate-account detection. One phone number, one account. Buying 50 review submissions becomes meaningfully harder.
Targeted appeals. When a school flags a review as fraudulent, we can ask the reviewer to confirm details — and the reviewer can also appeal a removal if their review is taken down. Both require the verifiable-identity trail.

The friction tradeoff

Yes, OTP verification reduces submission volume. In our pilot data (Delhi NCR, Sept 2025-Feb 2026, n=2,847 attempted submissions), 31% of users abandoned at the OTP step. We considered that an acceptable cost.

The submitted reviews showed: 2.4× longer average length, 1.8× higher rating-text correlation (i.e., 1-star reviews actually contained complaints, 5-star reviews actually contained praise), and a 78% reduction in suspected duplicate-source submissions.

What we do not claim

OTP verification does not make a review true. It makes the review accountable. A parent can still write a review based on a single bad term; the school can still flag it; the moderation pass still applies. What we have removed is the ability to spam at zero cost.

What we publish

Aggregated OTP-verification stats by school appear on every profile. We also disclose moderation actions: when we remove a review, the listing shows a "1 review hidden by editorial" tag with the reason category. No silent edits.

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