Yelp is at the core of why the internet has a terrible reputation in the restaurant community. Since you didn't ask, here is why we 'tend to be dismissive' of the website: There is zero fact-checking or accountability; Yelpers can be bought by both the restaurants they're reviewing and, with either ridiculous posting incentives or bullying , Yelp itself; and Yelp burns the candle at both ends by giving restaurants editorial incentives to place ads. (Hat tip to our editor in San Francisco, Paolo Lucchesi, who has done an excellent job covering misadventures in Yelp.)

Commercial blogs -- the 'pretentious' ones you identify, like Eater Grub Street and Serious Eats -- are always and unfortunately grouped in with sites such as Yelp, because writers like yours, Donald G. McNeil, fail to examine and grasp the differences between the two types of sites. Your article is a massive opportunity missed to paint an accurate and realistic picture of -- and here's the one thing Eat and Tell does get right -- the growing Yelp presence on the Internet. Hope it gets you some good traffic, at least.

· Yelp Wanted [Eater SF]
· Eat and Tell [NYT]