Careful when you choose a campground based on great reviews. Owners see a bad review then have friends and family or seasonal campers post great reviews and bury the bad one. I am sure that is happening and I recently made a mistake and choose a crappy campground, reviewed it and suddenly a great review came up on top of mine. Just make sure you read all the reviews and don't always dismiss the bad ones thinking the guy had a grudge against the owners.I guess there is no way to stop it and it can be a vacation killer as it was for me.

Unfortunately that door swings both ways. We know of instances where people who have had a bad time at a campground have had friends and family write up reviews in order to bury any good reviews. You said it best, though; you need to read ALL the reviews and make up your own mind about which ones are more accurate.

I thought the policy of not posting any reviews (submitted by a particular member) until a certain number have been received (three??) is specifically to prevent that type of thing. Are you saying that policy is not effective?

To the larger point, of how one should look at the reviews for any particular park, I think it's a good idea to follow the old statistical rule and throw out, or at least reduce the weight of, any really low ones and any really high ones. And of course, as you say, reading the comments section is the only way to develop a feel for which ones are credible, and/or whether the factors the reviewer focussed on matter to you. I also think that, other things equal, one should check the number of reviews each member has posted and put the greatest weight on those who have been active posters.

Without giving away all the methods we use to determine if a review is from an owner, we do feel the the rule requiring a person to submit more than one review has reduced the number of reviews from both owners and their friends. That said it is impossible to completely stop these reviews, but we do try, and we feel we do catch a lot. Actually to be more accurate I should say that the rule hasn't necessarily stopped owners from submitting reviews, but it has helped us to better identify those reviews and not post them.

Also you have made some very good points in your second paragraph. This is how everyone should look at reviews.

Texas I don't think it is necessarily the owners posting glowing reviews after the bad ones but their friends on different computers, I went to a camp ground where there had been 1 bad review and then 3 good ones I used the thought that it was just a disgruntled reviewer until I got there then I found out the bad ones were right, When I wrote them up with a bad one (I was the first reviewer in a year) the next day there was 2 praising the owner and castigating me .

Yes, that happens, and we really try to eliminate this type of review when we can. It's just that we are not always successful.

Thats what happened to me exactly. And I don't think there is much you can do.