@Elizabeth1903 When hosts refer to retaliatory or revenge reviews, that means that a guest who is taken to task during their stay for violating house rules, sneaking in extra guests, throwing a party and getting evicted, etc., then goes on to leave a bad review- they "get even" for being held responsible for their unacceptable behavior by leaving a bad review and low stars, usually full of lies.
There's very little a host can do about this- if they let the guest get away with the behavior during the stay, in fear of a bad review, the host can end up with expensive damages or a huge filthy mess.
If a guest is entitled and demanding, and the host is afraid to say no to their demands, and bends over backwards to try to please this type of guest, who always has more complaints, and more demands, in hopes the guest won't leave a bad review, that never works. Those types of guests always leave bad reviews, so hosts need to stand up to them politely but firmly, otherwise not only does the host get a bad review, they end up feeling like a doormat and a fool. And a pushy guest will many times stop acting like that when they realize you won't allow yourself to be treated like their servant or make apologies for not catering to them as if they were some sort of royalty.
You can always leave a public response to a review, and usually those sorts of revenge or complaint-filled reviews won't be taken seriously by future guests anyway, if the host has a lot of good reviews- it's so obviously an outlier. Guests aren't all gullible or stupid, believing everything they read.
I'm pretty sure that if you say that you wouldn't host the guest again, they can't IB with you again- they may be blocked from contacting you again at all.
Yes, hosts can see the star ratings they are left by guests. IB hosts can see the guests' star ratings. But guests cannot see their own star ratings, nor can non-IB hosts see star ratings of guests.
Don't be intimidated into using IB if you find it is bringing you bad guests or you would like the opportunity to communicate with guests before accepting their booking.
Not using IB does lower your search ranking, but there are plenty of hosts who don't use IB, get plenty of bookings, and have successful rental businesses. I know there are areas with heavy competition where hosts say they would be relegated to page 300 if they didn't use IB. But I have never used IB myself and some hosts who used to have turned it off.
The thing is, none of your Airbnb settings are written in stone- you can turn IB on or off whenever you want. A host who's afraid they won't get any bookings if they don't use it can turn it off for a month and see if it seriously impacts business, and turn it back on if it resulted in hardly any hits.
Also you have to weigh quality versus quantity. I only have a private room home-share listing. Enough guests still manage to find my listing, and I have never had a bad guest, or damages, never had to contact Airbnb about a guest. All my guests have left 5*reviews. I don't always get full occupancy, but I also don't have any hassles and hosting for me has been stress-free.
The most important thing is to run your str business in a way that works for you- don't be intimidated by all the things Airbnb wants you to do. They don't care about you or your business- they care about what brings them the most service fees.