Do you trust reviews?

I often go to TripAdvisor because it offers a range of comments. Also you can find information in one column which is scattered over numerous pages on the company's own website.
 Great to have a forum on the Daily Mail allowing for lots of comments on parking charges. Yes, I do think parking charges are highly relevant to what you remember about an attraction.
  That's what I look for, on any site, comments on charges, service and the basics of what you actually see. So many websites say merely, a huge variety of historical items. That's why my reviews tend to focus one one or two items you can actually see.
 On TripAdvisor I read a section of views, the five star and one star. Often I visit a restaurant regardless. And yes, I would like to know about how the place was under previous ownership. It might be opened up by the brother of the previous owner, or the manager who has bought the place from the retiring owner. I want to know whether it is just as good as last time I went when it was under the old owners. I want to know whether the new owners have improved a place my family refuse to visit because they did not enjoy it under the old owners. If the place has stayed the same, I want to see my last review, so I can recall that parking is difficult, or you need a token for parking, and the recent reviews may not yet have commented.
   As a regular reviewer I also use websites as a way of recording my life history. If I want to remember the name of the coffee bar we went to this time last year when we visited the Edinburgh festival, I can find it in my history. If the old reviews are removed, my own reviews and family photos of our birthday party are gone forever. I would be better off recording my views on a blog. Or printing a book of my blog for my own records.
   If somebody moans about the long wait at a venue that may be true and relevant to those in a hurry. But if I want to spend all evening at a stately home restaurant on my birthday then I can judge whether the long wait was important.
   If somebody complains about the price, but your boss is paying, then you need not worry about the price. If the review is out of date, but the broken item was broken two years ago and is still not repaired, you know the place is not well maintained.

For more on the debate:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3132937/TripAdvisor-forced-apologise-deleting-negative-reviews-country-house-estate-employees-asked-to.html#comments 

Angela Lansbury B A Hons, author, travel writer, photographer, speaker.