for technical information on bikes: roadbikereview/MTBR
for camera specific nerdy stuff: dpreview
for food / recipe info: epicurious.

I like TripAdvisor too. Zappos is great for shoe reviews. I also visit Epinions.com from time to time. I love how more sites are allowing customer reviews such as Target, Macys, and I think Overstock.com always has had reviews which is nice. FoodNetwork and Epicurious, as lfr mentioned has user reviews, which I read often.

Not ordinary people, but I like Edmunds.com for car reviews.

I also like a sewing site that has pattern reviews by real people, called PatternReview.

Snopes is the authority on ultimate truth for me.

Wow.... how did that happen? Oh well, as long as I'm posting thrice, I'll toss in that in general if I want help making a decision about lawnmowers or gas grills or cars, I take the most specific word I can think of and combine it with "forum" and google it (for instance, "elantra forum" led me to several forums that helped me find a lot of information about the car I eventually bought). That's the way to find the enthuiasts and experts on a subject.

I translated a book-buying habit into a forum-assessing habit: when browsing through a dictionary, a reference book, or a cookbook, I look up something I know well and compare the [definition; facts; recipe] with my knowledge. If it matches or (best case) expands my knowledge, I feel more confident that the source is reliable on other subjects, subjects I can't fact-check.

I do the same thing when possible online: look up something I do know and see how their discussion compares. I'm sorry not to have any sites to recommend, and I especially wish I could find an intelligent discussion forum for film. The IMDB message boards are a hoot, and Rotten Tomatoes isn't hugely better.

For every passion that exists, there is a dedicated, crazy passionate internet forum. When we were researching for our cruise, it was Cruise Critic. When I was looking at purses, it was The Purse Forum. So, if I'm researching a specific topic, I look for the crazies.

But in general, it's AskMetafilter. And Snopes, occasionally.

It's easy to forget that some of the oldest, deepest, best personal advice sources on the Internet are actually mail lists, or listservs. If you're interested in jazz, nothing beats subscribing to Jazz-L, hosted at Brown University, and watching the list, or posting well considered questions there. I belong to lots of LISTSERV lists, some of which also post their back archives on related Web sites, and many, many more of which have their archives available via LISTSERV control messages. But, if you join such a list, spend a little time to learn about LISTSERV use, lurk for a while to learn about the list, and be careful what you ask for!

Jazz-L for example can be 500+ messages a day. Most people, therefore, read it in digest form. Last I knew, Jazz-L had about 6,000 subscribers, so you want to be sure you understand mailing list etiquette, and the ins and outs of formatting list control and posting messages, before just blindly posting to public lists. You can be a jackass to 6,000 people you don't know at all, pronto, if you aren't careful! And if you post something like "I heard something by someone named Ella Fitzgerald last night on the radio. I liked it. Who is this Ella Fitzgerald?" to Jazz-L, a day after you subscribe, they won't be amused. And if you ask for Jazz-L archives, be sure you've got the hard drive space... Lotsa hard drive space. You're talking gigs and gigs of text... It's always relevant to know what kind of mailing list software operates the mailing list you join, as majordomo wants control messages of different format than LISTSERV, or other mailing list packages.

And there are many, many more private lists, than public lists. Getting invited to top private lists is a "who you know, not what you know" proposition, and the very best, in any given field, tend to be close communities, that are pretty hard to crack. Really worth it, if you do. And there is a vast middle ground of semi-useful private lists, of varying depth and breadth, that you can come to know, in any topic area, if you look for them.

USENET can also be valuable, although what you get through Google Groups and other Web interfaces is a small subset of the whole USENET feed. If you get into USENET, get a real newsreader application, and a paid account at GigaNews, or some other specialty USENET provider. And read new.announce.newusers, completely, at the start of your USENET adventures. So many, who later come to grief, never did...

Eh, sorry. Looks like news.announce.newusers is in the process of being folded to news.answers.

I also like a sewing site that has pattern reviews by real people, called PatternReview.

I like that site, too. The pattern review section of craftster.org as well.

ljgenie used to be good...

kellydamnit, we're going to have to talk about sewing one of these days. I didn't know craftster had a pattern review section. I'll have to check this out.

What a great thread!

MSN Autos has hundreds of owner reviews for the most popular types of cars. It takes some clicking through to get to them, but once you do you can sort the reviews by highest/lowest rated and also by how long the reviewer owned the car. When I am looking at a used car I slways sort the ratings of even a highly ranked car to show the lowest rated and I look for common problems. Then I have my mechanic check the car out with this information.

Amazon user reviews can be used in the same ways.

I like The Straight Dope.

FlyerTalk for everything about flying. Everything.

kellydamnit, we're going to have to talk about sewing one of these days. I didn't know craftster had a pattern review section. I'll have to check this out.

We should!

Craftster's review section is pretty nice. It doesn't get the wide variety of reviews that patternreview does, but the popular ones tend to get multiple reviews with a lot of good back and forth about issues people had and resolutions.
I also like this page for historical stuff.