Changes: Beer Hads, Full Reviews & Ratings

Examining a little bit, as now the site is getting filled more.

I think for, "visual appearances" with the beer review section, the Hads are kind of giant gap and a bit of a distraction. It's visually not that appealing, as now you have review chunks all over.

Adding the hads as part of the overal score I am not going to be upset about. (Hey I got 4 more brews now to finish beers of Fame! tough task but I am up for the challenge!). your lists I would also think are going to be dynamically changing alot, but should settle once you get a little less rush of data.

However, maybe you can colappse/separate or just flat out not list the had reviews in the review section details? It's a bit jarring to look at and doesn't flow well. I think you can visually make it look better.

Edit: it looks like you might be on this already... ONWARD!!

 

Many factors went into this decision and it has been discussed before many of these new sites were even thought about, worrying about so-called competing sites was not and has never been a factor. Swift reactionary changes are usually short lived, I see this more as the site evolving with the industry and its consumers.

 

Fair enough, but the end result is the same. The future of the site is important, and I know you guys put a lot of thought into these changes. Most of my critiques are tweaks as opposed to philosophical disagreements about the direction the site is going.

 

I won't repeat everything that others have said, but here are two thoughts that seem the most relevant:

-It seems like Hads scores are generally much higher on average than review scores. I see a lot of newer users giving 5s to dozens of beers they try simply because of lack of experience (and this practice of giving out 5s is explicitly discouraged by you guys). This inflation might be a reason to consider un-integrating the Hads from the score average.

-I don't think moving the review minimum to 100 words is a good idea.

 

My hypothesis -
- changes = easier for drunk people to use
- drunk people click more ads

 

I can see why you guys did it, but on a personal note, I don't like having to wade through 546 pages just to read a decent review on the beer.

I'll still hand out detailed reviews, because goddamnit, that's my duty...I think.

 

And if they give a beer a five and that is their opinion who are you to say "oh they just don't know any better"? I think some are confusing just what an opinion is.

(not a personal attack towards you, just commenting on the general vibe from this thread)

 

I like the changes. And with the lower character minimum, I'm much more likely to write something and contribute more about the beers that I'm drinking.

 

In terms of the hads, what about having a user have "X" number of hads/ticks/reviews before their scores alter the actual score. This could deter some of the score trolling I know I and several others have concerns about.

 

Definitely this.

 

I'm sure everyone has an opinion on this. Mine is I hate it For selfish reasons, of course. I was at 98 or 99/100 on the beers of fame list...now CBS is on the list (totally getable, right? I thought BoF was all about the easy to get, classic, high score beers?) , and the first time I checked the BoF list today I was back down in the 80's. Looks like with the 1500+ reviews tweak, I'm back over 90. But CBS is still there, taunting me. Must be semi-easy to get for some of you since its now got 1500+ reviews & hads...

But anyway, its just beer, and honestly, I was shooting to get to 100 just so I could tuck it in my belt and stop trying so darn hard. Looks like I'll still do that anyway. Just without all the ticks.

 

I don't mind the changes and appreciate the site moving forward to accommodate more users/preferences.

However, is there anyway to increase the "Had" time limit? Typically I take notes of each beer at a tasting then "Had" them all at once afterwards when I'm back at my computer. After putting in 3 hads under a minute I was hit with the limit.

 

now ^THIS is a great idea! Looking forward to seeing this.

 

This is potentially a short-term problem as the only choices until now have been a single number Had or a 250 character review. With the 100 character review, we might see some of those 2s turn into short reviews explaining that the beer seemed infected, or that it had too much diacetyl, or that it had a harsh metallic finish, or whatever it was that the reviewer didn't like, but didn't want to spend the time to do a full structured review.

 

Well, we can pretty much expect the scores of new beers to shoot through the roof as people who have bottles of limited release give it a 4.5 or a 5 based on a .5 oz sip they had of an open bottle.

 

This seems like an easy hypothesis to test... assuming there's access to the data. Just correlate the "hads" scores with the full review scores. My guess is that they'd be correlated around .85, which would indicate great reliability and would argue FOR combining.

Of course, I'm making up the number, so I could be completely wrong.