Most of us have opinions about things that interest us—music, TV shows, politicians—and sometimes we even express our likes and dislikes online, at sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp. Of course, some online reviews offer useful assessments of products and services, while others merely rant and rave. The helpful ones are generally those that offer a well-supported judgment, providing evidence that ranges from concrete examples to reviewer photographs. Just saying that a hotel or restaurant “sucks” isn’t enough!

In an interesting acknowledgment that not all online evaluations are created equal, many sites now also encourage visitors to rate reviews, so effective evaluations rise to the top, while troll-like responses fall to the bottom. Sites may also provide an average rating and number of responses (as Yelp does), so users can tell whether the rating is based on a large number of responses and whether just a handful of bad ratings are pulling down an average score.

Look at an interactive version of this screen.

Courtesy of Yelp.

Source: “Kuma’s Corner.” Yelp. Yelp.com, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2012. www.yelp.com/biz/kumas-corner-chicago