This is subjective...what's useful or interesting or funny or informative to one person may be absolute gargage to another.  The thing to remember here is that its a review site...one where people come to relax and unwind after a day's work - to be amused and talk with friends about things that interest them.  No use in getting worked up over something you disagree with.  Life is too short!

If this means would I come here looking for useful consumer research before making a purchase, absolutely not.

If it means are they useful in making me laugh, absolutely.

In my opinion, if you're coming here looking for accurate market research, you're wasting your time. Apart from questions of provenance of the review, most are not thorough enough (my own included) to be truly valuable to the consumer.

Users should concetrate more on leaving sincere ratings. This sight seems more of a message board with an overemphasis on the most helpful comments.

I no longer find any comments really usefull. Really, why would someone come to an OPINION site to get facts and information on different items? I'd say about 85% of comments are trash. I mean, look at all of the users who end with the letters "om". I do not care if people do not find my comments helpful. I do not care if someone was offended by it. Its my opinion. Live with it. I do not see the point of this webiste as I place to write legitimate and usefull comments. If it is, why is it called "The Opinion Network"?

I only find certain comments left by certain people useful. If you are rating a President of the United States or a very important political issue, one or two sentences just is not enough for me, and you'll get a not-helpful vote from me. I've made a few "friends" on this website, and WOW, all of them except for one are conservatives, and I consider myself to be a little to the left on some of the issues. It just goes to show that just because you don't agree with someone's opinions, they can still be useful. One of the reasons I come to this website is to read opinions that differ from mine. I've clicked not helpful on a couple of BigBaby, President X-D, or Solenoid DH's comments, but generally if the comment is well thought out and logical, I always vote it helpful. The lifeless morons who can only think of things like, "JFK sucked" or "These people are gay" really hurt the integrity of this site, but I can just scroll down and read a comment by someone else who actually puts thought into their posts.

Again, the ratings are only as useful as the poster, something that RIA can't really control. There have been a lot of lame comments here, but the only thing you can really do is just skip over the ones that lack intelligence and pick out the ones you feel are well-written. It's their opinion--I don't have to like theirs, and they don't have to like mine.

Read BIGBABY's comment. It's right on target.

Really, how many of the top 20 are the same people and rating themselves and all their alter-egos higher? I've seen some pretty stupid comments get tons of helpfuls and I don't mean stupid because I disagree with them. Example: saying that Afghanistan is very sandy does not help me or anyone else, for that matter. Why is that comment loaded with helpfuls? The only thing I can deduct is that the person is rating their own comment higher. Not a big deal, but really brings down the quality of this site. If someone is caught doing this they should have their comments removed. Play by the rules. Also, the recent comments have been pretty boring lately. A recent comment on cherries consisted of: "mmmm" Wow. That told me a lot. If you are going to write a comment, please make it somewhat thought-provoking. Saying that you hate the taste mangos and leaving it at that is lame, lame, lame.

It depends on the reviewer. I find some useful and some useless. I rate for myself first and foremost, if someone finds my comments useful, enlightening, life-altering then that's great. If they see them as useless tripe then that's fine as well. I am not here to win any useful reviewer contest. I am here because I can express my opinions on a broad stage.

The numbers are pretty helpful, but mostly, I use the comments.

Well ::sigh:: here we go again. I don’t know if it’s the full moon, an outbreak of cabin fever or what but there seems to be a rash of craziness on this forum once again - thereby rendering the usefulness of many of the ratings at least skewed a bit. Last year – at about this same time - there were some people who got their knickers in a bunch because of remarks I made in my posts. Rather than express their own ideas they instead decided to go through all my posts and click “Not Helpful” on as many as they could manage. Can’t you geniuses think of ANYTHING more original than that? I mean DickDirk and I may have some huge disagreements but at least we have the guts to identify them and face each other. I’m sure we’ve each clicked “Not Helpful” on the others remarks many times but not without at least READING it first. That would make it a legitimate disagreement and results in at least a semi-USEFUL rating. What you’re doing merely boils down to an ineffective little hate campaign by a bunch of inarticulate, gutless weenies. UPDATE: Wow, I'm really sad to report that even old DickDirk has let me down! That's what I get for assuming - I knew he was contrary but I thought he was at least honest. You really shot a big hole through your credibility when you assumed that other identity Dirk - hope you enjoyed it - sadly this forum has suffered for it.

very easy, like I siad. just so easy. easier to use than AOL! The usefullness raitngs system here is very good and I like the genarl rundown, by ahving all the possible items in the section listed by ratings, it makes it easeir to see which is rated higher and when you want to see all of the overall raitngs at once! I like this site and i like the way they have it!

I find the ratings and comments to be extremely useful. I have used this site as a resource when checking out new CDs and even cars. Users are very helpful and informative. I also plan to check out RateItAll when we start planning our next vacation, people give great tips and advice in the Travel section. It is also a great place to visit before going out to the movies, I can find out what women my age think of a specific film. Very helpful!

I agree with Movinda's comment about finding more credence in the comment text than the simple numeric rating...I have selected movies to watch based on user ratings and mostly comments.

The numerical ratings are pretty helpful, but I find the text comments to be far more helpful. The reason the ratings are helpful is because they give you a quick way to see the top items, then you can drill down on each item to read the comments.