People generally post and discuss things they like (and care about).
People will also post concerning things they really dislike too.

Experienced porn lovers (like you will typically encounter here on Adult DVD Talk) have long histories of being burned by poor quality and falsely advertised crap, so it's not all that surprising that we will speak well of films, studios and stars that consistently deliver quality porn of the type(s) we like.

Most of us in the ADT Community already know who the flagrant self-promotors are. It is, in fact, against ADT policy for industry people to post their own reviews:
Adult DVD Talk Review FAQ

You will often see ADT regulars call out the bullshitters.
If we don't, the mods are very good at supervising their forums. And, when all else fails, Steph and Drew run a great and clean forum that is respected by fans and industry alike. They do not tolerate abuse of this forum.

You can trust the integrity of the reviews here :)

If you want something more "brutal," go to the AMRI and search for reviews by Patrick Riley

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That said, some people also don't like to give a negative review because it brings them down or some other reason. Personally, I hate to see this because I think the negative reviews are as important or more important than the positive ones. After reading a few reviews from somebody if you know what they both like and dislike, you can better tell from a review if a movie should work for you or not. If I only see raving fanboy reviews from somebody, I normally don't even check them out because I can't make a good judgement on the title. Also, I know of a few studios that pay a lot of attention to reviews looking for ways to improve their product. Wonderfully positive reviews are always liked, but well written negative reviews that say why somebody didn't like a movie (rather than just "This sucks") are loved because it gives them an idea on how to improve things. The why is the key to a negative review (and sometimes they're more fun to write because you can really let loose on somebody if you see them not giving a shit about the people buying the product).

"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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Yes, there are definitely forum posts that are essentially spam. We do deactivate people that we can prove work within the industry and are pretending to be fans. Sadly it happens a lot. Even worse when industry people come here to trash other industry people, or to argue with themselves. I have the utmost respect for the industry people who have always been honest and conducted themselves professionally.

There's a heck of a lot of information on Adult DVD Talk. Like anywhere you gather information look at the source, get a second opinion, etc.

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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Speaking as a reviewer and an industry outsider, I contribute reviews to ADT in an attempt to be informative to fellow consumers, especially with your purchasing/renting decisions.

I agree with the point about reviewers having a slight bias as to performers or directors but it is those preferences that drives the purchasing and viewing habits, especially my own. For instance, I'm not going to watch a S&M movie and write a review just for the hell of it.

I believe the reviewers do a very good job in expressing their likes and dislikes in the body of the review so as to support their rating.

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Clearly the administrators are well aware of this problem, or at least the possibility of a problem.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to reply :-)

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By the way, I think it's a good thing that many of the industry people posting in here are displaying the name of their company below the user name instead of "Member" (e.g. Brandon Iron - Platinum X Pictures instead of Brandon Iron - Member)!

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Basically it is a requirement and courtesy. Following is a quote from the intro to ADT for company reps and performers:

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