No, teachers who have never worked in a certian place shouldn't say anything negative about that certain place! If you have a personal experience of a school that has been bad, by all means post and warn people. But that doesn't extend to places you haven't had experience of! Again, how does that not make sense to you?! And if it is a positive experience, yes, I would still expect the person who actually had that experience to talk about it. Hearsay is not fact!

I understand your point regarding personal experience and for perspective teachers your correct to say that the most valuable review of a school is likely to be one that is made by an individual who has worked there. However, i don't think that you can just disregard what other posters have to say on the matter. I'll give you several reasons for this

1. Even where a teacher writes about an experience at school it is not to say that what they write is accurate and fair. You would agree with this point in regards YoungEnglishman's comments. Sometimes it falls to regular posters on this board (who haven't worked at that school) to question the person who reviews the school (both negative & positive reviews) and discover the 'other side of the story'. I'd agree that some posters on this board tend to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to bad reviews of schools but that doesn't mean that all posters do it all of the time.

2. There are also cases of posters (often not teachers but FAOs, Doses, Investors, etc.) posting deliberately misleading reviews on this board and trying to pull the wool over teacher's eyes in regards the facts of the matter at hand. I agree again that sometimes the response of other posters in immediately naming anyone who writes a positive review as a 'lackey', etc. is over zealous but the fact is that there are people out there who have and will continue to lie and cheat in order to benefit their own business/cause.

Further to both points 1 & 2 it is actually impossible to say for certain that an individual has worked for a specific school

3. I think in a previous post you said that you were the Senior Teacher at EF Dalian. If this is the case then you must have some man management experience and i would imagine that a lot of your teachers a lot of the time are complaining about something (you can tell when an FT is complaining, their mouth moves :-)). I'm sure you've found that often these complaints are small and pernickety but that in your role as the ST you are required to listen to them and sympathise, often all the teacher is looking for is a sympathetic ear. This board can act in the same way by providing a means for teachers to vent their collective frustration (You yourself have detailed some of those frustrations in previous posts) despite not having worked in the exact same school as the OP.

4. One of the best things about this board and what sets it apart from most other ESL boards is that you can write almost anything you want about any topic. You were free to write a review about your experience that contained both positive & negative aspects. You may well find that had you put that review on another site that it was either later deleted or heavily edited for saying negative things about a company who pays for advertising space on the same site. Other posters have a right to post their opinions as well. You don't have to agree with these opinions and as I said before you can always chose to ignore them if they turn into personal insults and attacks - it takes two people to continue a dialogue.

5. You can't possibly tell how a new teacher will perceive the comments on this site. I would hope that whether a review about a school is good or bad, posted by individuals who claim to have worked for the school or have never done so, that the perspective teacher reading it will not take it at absolute face value. This is the internet, you can find information accurate or otherwise on any topic you desire. It is not down to you, me or anyone to say what can and can't be written on here it is simply down to the individual as to what they chose to read, believe and take action on.