Changes: Beer Hads, Full Reviews & Ratings

I don't use Untappd for a reason. Blending in Hads to overall scores significantly dumbs down the entire review section of this site. This is an uninspired idea that just follows precedent from other beer social sites/apps. Whatever, I'll continue to follow a select few who do write-ups I value.

 

I use the "Hads" all the time and I love it as a quick way to log my beers. Obviously, I put some thought into the score I attach to a particular beer, otherwise it would be kinda pointless. That being said, I have no doubt that people doing reviews are putting much more time and effort into scoring the beer. I like the idea of incorporating "Hads" into a beers score, but I think that it needs to either have less weighting than a review does, or be listed as a separate score.

 

All opinions matter. I think what people are worried about is that the lack of information provided by a had could lead to abuse. I can report a troll review, but there is no way to tell if a had is a troll or a true feeling of the BA.

 

Has the long-lasting "bug" for the Place review icon (blue/red) been fixed yet?

 

Agreed on the hads/gots complaint, but a few notes:

• Including hads in the score of the beer is going to skew the beer scores fairly dramatically. I'd be willing to bet the more intensely flavored beers will be bumped higher than the more balanced/nuanced beers. Think Chocolate Rain versus a German Pilsener. I realize this bias already exists - I just think this will further it since people will be more inclined to use hads at tastings/festivals. Using only reviews to make up the score is also a bit of a filter to allow GENERALLY better input on the beer.
• Including a list of recent hads scores on a beer page is pretty useless. I use reviews when making purchases to make sure the flavor profile matches what I like. This will now be harder to do.
• I would imagine you are going after the Untappd market with a mobile app and allowing multiple hads. I believe this would move hads further away from reviews, not closer to them. If I were to use this in this manner, I'd like to be able to review a beer, check into a beer, and "had rate" a beer completely separately. I'm sure you've had the foresight to think about how this will work more than I have, though.
• Also, 100 characters for a review is insane. Most of my appearance descriptions take more than that, and my reviews are not very long. I think setting a larger character requirement may allow slightly less reviews, but will raise the average quality to the reviews making them more useful which will in turn make more people use them and use your site more. The reviews on the other site are entirely useless and that's why I don't use that site to look at reviews. This may be my biggest issue with the changes. I think it sets the standard/culture of writing reviews.

 

I agree with this. I think listing just the numbers from the "hads" group clutters the actual reviews as you scroll down the page. Any consideration to making this cleaner? IMO the reason to scroll down to look at individual reviews is to read more in-dept into peoples thoughts of the beer, not to just see a bunch of numbers.

Add the "hads" to the beers overall score - I'm fine with.
Displaying individual's "had" rating - I'm okay with as long as it's separated from the actual reviews with content.
Mixing the display of actual reviews and "had" ratings - too cluttered and too much data to sift through.

EDIT: You may have just addressed my concern while I was writing my concern

 

I think the ability to view beer pages with or without the hads inline should be a user setting. When I click on a beer page it's because I want to read the reviews, I don't want to have to toggle the hads off everytime I click on a beer. I just want to set that once in my user preferences, and then if for whatever reason I want to see the hads, I can toggle them *on*.

Otherwise I think these changes are fine.

 

I think as long as you can filter the hads out of the reviews people will be generally ok with this, but yeah, having them mixed in with the written reviews is a bit of an eyesore.

 

I really like this post. It lays out some logic in a more beneficial way than other reviewers going on about the evils of tickers. It reminds me of the coding on a site like Yelp that automatically makes efforts to filter spammy reviews of bars and restaurants, which people should appreciate.

Here's my disclaimer: I don't review beers online, though I do value well-written reviews. I favor discussing beers with friends and tracking hads for my own purposes.

 

Having to trudge through who Hadded the beer when looking at reviews is a pain in the ass, though.

 

Sounds an awful lot like an Untappd imposter to me, something which is completely different, and should stay separate, from reviews. Simply putting a 1-5 number as a rating is not a 'review.' Some of the reviews are weak as it was (one or two liners), but this makes writing a thought-out review basically futile.

 

Agreed. I was planning on using the "Hads" function in the near future, but now that it isn't separate from my own Reviews I will not be. It was great the way it was before, I don't see the point of the combination.

 

Gotta agree with this -- I liked being able to see exactly when I reviewed a beer.

 

I am so against the changes to the ratings system now. As an Actual Reviewer, I think I can speak for many of the other BAs that Actually Review beers and have contributed to the site, to make it what it is. Combining Actual Reviews with Quick Ticks is an insult to me after the 950+ reviews that I have contributed as opposed to somebody who took 3 seconds to scroll down a pre-made score. Is BA going to start offering stupid badges too for quick ticks???

Segregate the scores to serperate the people who took the time to enjoy the beer as opposed to a hack that sniffed a 1oz sample. Apples and Oranges.