Bias in ratings?

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by TappaKeggaBrew, Dec 26, 2013.

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  1. Beersnake

    Beersnake Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,884) Aug 17, 2013 California
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Definitely could be a factor. Beers that are more difficult to obtain likely taste better, and they probably wouldn't taste as good if that same beer were easier to obtain. This general idea has been observed for wine:

    http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january16/wine-011608.html
     
    #21 Beersnake, Dec 26, 2013
  2. weeare138

    weeare138 Pooh-Bah (2,601) Apr 1, 2003 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah

    Maybe. I think the folks that tend to rate the beer are already more inclined to purchase, or drink higher end beer, and even lean towards researching which ones are the highest rated ones first, which adds more of a statistical skew. As the poster above beat me to it, the wine industry has the same trends. Wine Spectator's top 100 wine list for 2013 -- 18 of the top 20 are reds, and a large percentage of the list are robust reds.
    Looking at my own ratings, 6 of my top 10 are Belgian heavy hitters.

    If you want a true statistic, you have to get a few hundred people that know the basics about beer, and give them a variety of the top rated beers, along with non-rated swill, and an unbiased, blind rating for each one. Would make for a hell of an experiment.
     
    #22 weeare138, Dec 26, 2013
  3. mudbug

    mudbug Pooh-Bah (1,762) Mar 27, 2009 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah

    Ding ding ding ding! We have a winner! Read the reviews, NOT the score if you want to know what a beer is like. In fact, make sure you click on the ignore hads button. Hads are an empty number that tell you nearly nothing about the beer. The persons that claim they would not purchase a beer with a score less than, say, 3.75 may very well pass up an excellent beer that was "Had" by a majority of people sharing a case that was old or missused but by reading just a few reviews that rate it higher you would get a more clear picture of what it is.
     
    #23 mudbug, Dec 26, 2013
    azorie likes this.
  4. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Of course this is your bias opinion re: bias in ratings. While Reviews will often provide a clearer picture of what the individual thought of the beer, the fact is that once a beer hits a certain threshold of ratings the overall score becomes very valuable. And on a side note, it's been discussed in numerous threads that there's very little difference between Rating vs. Review scores.

    Back to the thread, which is a repeat topic that occurs a few times a year and the reason why I'm locking this down.

    Wether some one provides a Rating or Review is irrelevant. Everyone needs to remember that this is a consumer-based website and with that brings varying degrees of subjectivity (bias), all of which is based on the individual's experience, environment and numerous other influences.
     
    #24 Todd, Dec 26, 2013
    dennis3951 likes this.
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