New Rating System +/-

Indeed, word....and a final score from which he gave based on the assignments to the same things we rate here. I OWN THE BOOKS and the accompanying program from years ago that went with them on rating beers. Fact still stands that it is a cumulative number based on categories. A weak flat brew will not garner as high a rating as a beer in the same category with a better mouthfeel and better nose. Is it really that difficult to understand the cumulative percentages adding up to a final tally? There are plenty of web sites out there for such vanilla numbers, BA was one that went towards not dumbing down the system with.....vanilla.....mmm..mmm...bland.

 

Agree, put it on the home page when signing in. When all the tally comes in I would expect those for the new system to be a statistical insignificance.

 

So you'd be in favor of getting rid of scores altogether, and just move to all-text reviews?

 

What's odd is that I always thought I would give up on BA because I got bored with reviewing. Now I'm 7 years in and it seems like the site has passed me by.

BA played a big role in learning to appreciate a beer and do a proper review. Without the old guidelines, I feel like those new to reviewing can come up with any device to rate a beer and it diminishes what made this site special.

A lot of friends jumped onto untappd and I didn't see it's usefulness. The old rating system made BA special.

I'm awfully pessimistic about any rumblings leading to a reversal of the newest change. I'll still check out the message boards, but I feel like it's going to be back to paper and pen for full reviews these days. I guess I'm most disappointed with losing the ratings data without a heads up.

 

I think they serve different purposes. rAVG is use for a quick glance before I pick up a bomber I've never heard of. If I actually want a description of the beer, I read tasting notes. There is no intermediate level where I'd want to read what score individual people assigned to mouthfeel but wouldn't want to read their detailed thoughts on the topic. The value of the rAVG is intrinsically linked to the fact that it's an average of many users. Numbers have noise. Text less so.

In short, what I disagree with is the notion that the difference in quality between a "review" and a "had" hinged so much on whether one number was used or five. The difference was in the notes.

From @Pahn's latest review:

What does 4.1 taste like? Oh:

That is the part worth reading. That is the Review with a capital R.

The "other site" also breaks scores into categories, the only difference was how the weight was distributed.

For people to whom these were important, I can understand the frustration at losing what you already had. I still prefer the new system for myself, and I hope that if this does get reversed, both options are available.

Could you please name one with numeric scores?

 

To add further comment, perhaps beating a dead horse...If you look at recent reviews, I can see why the bros changed things. It seems since the last site update, most reviewing has gone the way of number rating only.

I've been on this site for a number of years, and as my beer knowledge increased, particularly since the last site update, I began taking the overall number score of a beer with a grain of salt. Instead, I would scroll through and find the most extensive and thoughtful reviews. In the past, it seemed the Bros favored this way of reviewing.

I actually really appreciated the quasi-BJCP format. As an aspiring BJCP judge, this site has been overwhelmingly helpful in figuring out how to judge a beer.

I'd like to add that I don't think I've ever complained about a site update of any website whatsoever. Every time Facebook changes the layout of things, tons of people freak out, and I couldn't care less. I don't mind getting used to new things. I didn't even really mind the previous site update.

Maybe this is a bit too reactionary, but I believe this recent update shows that the Bros care more about quantity rather than quality, a sentiment that is exactly the opposite of craft beer.

 

i would like to see you have to review the beer first b4 you can rate it , the way it is set up now promotes little thought with no subjective information

 

Maybe I'm not understanding something, but didn't tickers already have the option to quickly rate a beer with a single-number rating without providing a review or detailed five-category score? I guess what baffles me is, I don't see how this change is going to increase the total number of beer ratings one bit. All it does is take away the option, for those of us who prefer it, to provide a more detailed review and rating. In my experience, when you take something away without at least providing something else in its place, you end up with a net negative.

I just really don't get why this change is a benefit to anyone, including the owners/managers of this site.

 

A buddy of mine use to joke years ago that a review on the other site would consist of something like..."Good beer. Me likey." Now tickers can do the same thing on this site. I don't have anything against tickers but when I check "Display Reviews Only" I want to read something useful. Here is another example of a recently posted useless review: "Tasted decent perhaps because I was in ..... on vacation."

 

My God it was a wry, dry, droll comment. And YES I CAN. Delerium Tremens 100. Rated by him as the best beer in the world. Now grab a brew, maybe even the 100 pointer from brewery Huyhge, and post as one of the 8 percent at present tally that you obviously support.

 

I, personally, think that our ratings got messed up when the drinkability category was replaced by Overall. A lot of beers that I've reviewed suffered from the change and I didn't feel like going back and changing them. And I also have to say, never say never. I've seen the Bros change something back given enough negative feedback on said change. They do listen..

 

And you know what, that's fine if that's how you want to review. What I liked was having the flexibility to review how you wanted. Now, if I want my ratings to be consistent with how I did things before the change, I have to do a bunch of math manually that used to happen automatically.

Fortunately for me, I regularly backed up my reviews, categorical scores and all, to an Excel spreadsheet. So even if BA has decided to eliminate something useful and valuable, I haven't lost anything. I feel bad for those who have.

 

Agree this site is not called RateBeer.com when i first got into craft beer i came to this site as a non-member and was fascinated with reading the reviews (still am) i would look up beer on this site and decide if i wanted to buy them at my local

 

i should say, i wouldn't fully mind if people had the option to add text and overall number but not break it down.

i wouldn't mind if i had to do 2 extra clicks to have the category breakdown either.

what i mind is

1) lost all my old breakdown.

2) lost my preferred way of reviewing.

3) lost my preferred way of reading others' reviews (i focus on text and always check the category breakdown)

i'm confident many longtime reviewers would take the extra 2 click step to categorize out.

i don't mind it being a minority option if it's unpopular, but i think the way you're doing it now alienates longtime readers and reviewers.

 

I wanted to give a single score and record tasting notes, which was previously not allowed. I had the choice to hem and haw over each number (which ruined the experience of drinking for me), just mark each number the same so I could get to leave text (which felt like abusing the system), or do a "had" and keep my thoughts to myself.

RateBeer uses five categories for their scores. The reviews here are better because of the culture, not because you assign five numbers.

I imagine this would please everybody if it could be done.

 

Why not? If you reviewed a beer and wanted to give it a single score of 4, could you not have rated each category a 4, to end up with a 4 and then just post your tasting notes in the review?

 

it should still be an option to use a 5 pt rating system

 

Reviewed my first beer using the new system. This is horrible. I review while I drink the beer so I have to give an arbitrary tick score in order to write anything. Going back and attempt to edit your own review is tedious. Further dumbing down of Beer Advocate. If you do not want people to write reviews, why even give people the option?

 

I've already weighed in as overwhelmingly against the changes... But I will say that it is nice to see so many old schooler people commenting in this thread, folks that I looked up to when I first started reviewing.

 

Agree 100%.

I prefer the old scoring system because of the specificity. I paid more attention to various aspects of beers than I otherwise might have because I had to make my brain figure out things like appearance, aroma, taste, mouthfeel, etc.

I've used the quick rating option for when I didn't have time to do a full rating and planned on posting a full review later or knew I had enough of a feel for a beer or place to have an opinion but couldn't get too specific (i.e. cuz I'd been having a few beers!). However, it really annoys me when I see a massively positive or negative rating with no explanation why, especially if there's been no other reviews or ratings to go on. Sure, let the tickers tick, but I feel the new set-up will only amount to "like" or "don't like." If I preferred thins that vague, I'd have posted my reviews on Rate Beer. I'm not knocking RB - because of it's less demanding rating structure I think sometimes beers and places have actually been posted sooner than on BA, I just preferred BA because it always seemed more useful and informative.