I have not written a zillion reviews but all that I have written have been published and one was a negative, but true, statement about the whole state of West Virginia. I always look up my intended hotels on TV before taking a trip.

TA not TV Hate when I do that.

I've posted over 100 reviews on TA and all have been published.

What I like about TA is that it is so easy to see the history of the person posting to see how many times and how long they have participated there and to get a feel for their other reviews. I don't consider at all, those reviews by people who have only posted one or two times.

What I really give weight to is information about attractions in the discusion forums.

I'm topping this old thread to ask about these new classifications on tripadvisor. It has a little green number now next to each person and says that they're "a level 6 contributor" or other various levels. What's that all about? Is it based on number of reviews? I also saw a heading that said, "Write a review right now and earn points" - points for what?

Points mean nothing. Sort of reminds me of Starbuck's badges, "symbolic acknowledgement".

<Is it based on number of reviews?>

Yes. They are always encouraging you to write reviews on TA.

No, you get points for all types of contribution. See the info on the website.

Of course, the longer you've been posting, the more points you're likely to have.

I had poked around a little on the website and didn't see any information regarding the change. Thanks for the info. Sounds kind of like Fitbit badges.

You need to read the content of the reviews rather than worrying about the number of them.

You can tell which "concerns" are legit and which ones aren't fairly easily.

And look at some of the pictures these people take and post, too. When you see a shot of the room and somebody's filthy feet in it or a bunch of luggage strewn about, that sends a message as well.

The foreign country destination forum I am most familiar with (ex-city/state-DE) has so-called experts who have spent less time in their region/city of "expertise" than many of the tourists they advise. Another expert gets most of his info from Google. How many vacations has he spoiled by misleading travelers about beach vacations in rainy season, when he has never spent a constantly rainy season in the city he is advising about (not his DE city, and where has spent perhaps 2-3 days total in any season)? Yet another expert advised a woman with a medical problem to pee on a tree in a major city. (This was left up despite complaints.) Another used to solicit young women in PMs. Another runs a B&B and guide service and is allowed to advertise, solicit clients, and represent the situation in that city as so dire as to require a bodyguard and driver (utterly untrue). The comments of anyone who complains are removed promptly.
I realize that not all the destinations forums are so rife with misinformation, but how is a user to know how misleading the info is that they are getting from these people with long posting histories? Few casual users report back at all, let alone with detailed trip reports.

<not all the destinations forums are so rife with misinformation>

Thankfully!

<how is a user to know how misleading the info is that they are getting from these people with long posting histories>

You can PM them and tell them.

PM is a great feature

I just got a PM for review done a year ago. Small place, maybe 10 tables, that I generously gave a 3 star rating to. It seems they now have 800ish reviews! 90% 5s, 5% 4s the rest 1,2 or 3s.

Since I was in the middle, asked if I thought the 95% were legit because they wanted to rent the whole restaurant for a private party. I candidly responded, Im surprised that they had over 700 customers in the past year, let alone all rating them a 5

I use the PM feature on Trip Advisor often. In fact that's how I communicate with a number of Fodor's folks.