One of the great advantages of the current information age is that we have so much more information at our disposal. Quite a bit of it belongs in a disposal.

Just like most people, I’ve come to depend on the crowd gathered consensuses of previous guests, whether for hotels in a new place I’m traveling to or with restaurants I’m unfamiliar with. The problem is that anyone can write a review — good or bad — with the goal of either inflating or deflating a business’ overall score. Family and friends usually write the former, competitors and disgruntled employees often write the latter.

But some, of course, are legit. The key is being able to tell which ones, to weed those out and make your decision on the more reliable ones. Some online sites, such as Yelp, have developed algorithms that can call B.S. on fake reviews. But some get by the computer, and some sites will let them all ride.

This article from Mashable has a few tips for those of us without benefit of a computer coded colander who want to strain out the unreliable reviews.