@Anonymous
Until certain extent, I think you have a point... On the whole it is not definite!
Making a pun on a quote:
"If a war surges when some country less expect it, the country has to go to war with the weapons it has at the moment, not with the weapons it wish would like to have."
If you have a potential guest, you have to read its reviews considering the knowledge you have, not the knwledge you would like to have
So if you know the language then you can make a safe decision.
If you don't, you're going to need good luck indeed. No way except for trusting on the on line translator.
When it comes to almost universal codes, such as dot (.) it easy to understand. The host is signaling that he/she did not have a great experience with the guest.
Maybe, I would not be too concerned if a guest had only one "dot" among others good reviews on its profile. However if the guest had 2 dots... Supposedly it is a confirmation that the guest carry with him/she some issues.
You might well ask the guest with 2 dots.. "Hey what is the meaning of the reviews where there is only one dot?"
Certainly the potential guest must know why he got one dot.
If he replies - "Sir, it is because I am a great guest, trustworhty person"! Well... would you believe in this guest?
What If he replied "Well Sir, I had the misfortune of asking a host to return some money because I decided to leave 2 days before checkout day. I also said to the host that I would write a good review if he accept my request or not. I think he considered it as a threat or blackmail. As for the other dot, my checkin time it was 10 am and I landed 3 am at the airport. I did not want to wait 7 hours, it would be very tiring, then I went straight to the apartment I had booked. When I arrived there I had to ring the bell more than 10 times apart from having sent 20 messages to the host. Eventually the host appeared around 4 am and said that the apartment still needed cleaning. I said to the host that I would clean on my own! It would not be a problem to me. However, before checking out I asked the host to refund me the cleaning fee! I do not know if he got angry because I woke him up in the midle of the night or if it was because the cleaning fee thing. You see Sir, I had bad luck with some hosts".
So, you see. A DOT may worth a thousand words.
However you have a point, when it comes to written text.
When I do not speak the language of some guest, I usually write the text in the review in English to make sure that it will be better translated to most of the languages.
e.g. - Some time ago, I had a guest which language I knew nothing. However the guest was used to travel and from a country from Europe! So there was no excuses based on culture diferences. The guest had already 2 positive reviews.
I wrote a review in english that went like that:
"I can not recommend to other hosts. Maybe better suited for a hotel stay."
To finish, I have to say that, the great majority of my guests are great ones! I do not have stats, but I believe that 99,9% are great ones.