Originally Posted by
Cloudship
The problem with something like that is you need enough people seeing it. You can post a question in one of the regional forums here, but so few people look at them that you don't get a recommendation until 2 months after you have already been there.
I am staring to think there needs to be some kind of forum to ask those questions. But, how do you keep it from getting flooded by the businesses themselves self promoting?
That's a good point, I rarely check the regional forums, especially since Chicago was merged into "Midwest". I have found a number of good restaurant recs in the Dining Buzz section, but mainly through general conversation.
You can't stop businesses from self promoting on ANY forum. But it's exactly why I never use Yelp for anything. Restaurants figured out how to self-promote and attack competitors a long time ago there. Even the old "throw out the high and low score" method doesn't work there. At least here on FT, you can have some certainty that someone with thousands of posts on a variety of topics probably isn't just a restaurant owner who signed up for a single purpose.
No answers, just acknowledging your point!