Design Advice: Police The Crowd

If you want to harness the power of the masses you also have to do a little work. Sites which create a fertile environment for user participation via reviews (Amazon, iTunes, etc) also have the responsibility to do some weeding. Look at this example from Citysearch:

Clearly user bubbafred is affiliated with the "real" independent taxi. Two entries, each on cab companies of the same name, each with very different and very vague experiences. Citysearch's lack of weeding out commercial spam accounts like this means the while site is suspect and the recommendations are worthless. As is also the case if you have ever read iTunes reviews. Both seem to be under the false impression that the user generated content has a positive effect on the experience of using the site to get the address of a restaurant or to purchase music, and both are wrong.