It's Time to Embrace Ratings

I'm firmly in the 'review first' camp, and have expressed that during my time on these forums, but anymore, I'd just like to see more user participation. Especially in going to active vs. inactive beers. If locals to me are not rating beers as they get released and re-released, then many active beers may fall off the page.

It would also be nice to formulate a BA score for more local beers. Even with the reduction to five ratings, it still feels like a massive task due to the lack of local participation.

This is one feature I would not want added. Part of trying to increase ratings/reviews should be positive feedback. If reviewers are putting themselves in a spot to be critiqued, it may discourage them from reviewing. Lots of timid users when it comes to reviewing, and I wouldn't want to make it even more intimidating.

 

Another thing...
I don’t think going on to rate a beer is that time consuming or tedious. It’s pretty quick.
However when I was drinking a lot of local brews I found myself having to add beers to the site surprisingly frequently. This was a little more time consuming.

I’m also the opposite of many rater haters. I’m going to look at the numbers almost every time and not read reviews. Exception is when there’s only a few ratings and not enough data to get a reliable average consensus. Then reviews can possibly be more helpful to me.

 

Plus, it would turn reviews into forum threads.

 

I like the "How to Review a Beer" section you have. I think that's a good start and way to help users quickly get comfortable reviewing a beer. If you can somehow make that real easy to locate & reference while rating/reviewing, that might help. One of the things I hate about Untappd is people who rate and leave zero comment about the rating. If you gave the beer a 2.0, I'd like to know why. I've seen a lot of people rate a beer a 3.0 and then comment that the beer was outstanding. That comment at least gives me an idea of where that person's rating system is even if it doesn't match up to my own.

 

This is what I think will get me doing more. I typically add a rating for my local breweries, but not for most other beers that I drink. When I rate I give an across-the-board number, so a method to provide a single across-the-board number is needed. However, the individual characteristics number choices should be kept. If a characteristic about a beer stands out as being very good or very bad, I'll use that category and increase or decrease that number from what I gave the other characteristics. I'll then add a note to why I changed that number, and some of my ratings turn into reviews because of my explanation on that item.

 

I get that. My reviews reflect that, I found myself leaning on the same descriptors all the time. Almost every ipa I reviewed mentions grapefruit or other Citrus pith. It became like an echo chamber.

 

Re: my suggestion of allowing comments that either support or don't support the reviewers comments....

I guess I can see that happening, although in my mind I was thinking it would be along the lines of discussion rather than something that would read as disagreement or argument. As much as I would like to provide comments and feedback on some reviews I guess trying to manage the content and tone of the comments in text form could be a nightmare and inevitably lead to something that is perceived as overly negative. If nothing else, though, toggling a selectable star rating (1= "this review sucks", 5 = "this is a shining example of a great review") could help authors improve their reviewing style. Personally, if authors are writing cr*p reviews worthy of multiple 1-star designations from readers I don't care if they get offended and don't come back. The star system gives feedback without being wordy or confrontational. As a side benefit it would make identification of truly great reviewers much easier every year...just look at the average star ratings and number of 5 star ratings.

 

Have breweries offer some kind of inexpensive recognition directly to us for reviewing all the current beers in their portfolios. Make it something that has no cash value, and is simple enough to attract people to want to earn it without encouraging people to make fake ratings/reviews. Model it like states do with visiting all the state's breweries, and in such a way as it might attract lots of new ratings/reviews to the site. I have no real clue how this might work, if it's a good idea, or if it could be tailored to fit with BA, but here it is, my best suggestion

 

I often think people are overcritical of their ability to write reviews. I was surprised once to learn that a certain contributor to NBW/S thought his reviews were lacking, and I had found them honest and useful. I think what is missed in the pursuit of trying to be @BEERchitect is that a review works well when it is simple, honest, and hits the main features of the beer in such a way as the reader can relate to it.. This is what's lacking in ratings, the honest description of what's going on in the beer. We get instead an honest description (hopefully, no way to tell without a review) of how much the rater likes the beer. I think if certain words express things well, those are the words to use, repetitive as certain of them are likely to be when giving honest descriptions.

 

A lot of new beers also don't have entries here. Untappd is just a better resource for ratings due to the sample size

 

I couldn't agree with this more. A rating to me doesn't really mean anything for exactly the reason you said. However; if a rating is bad but accompanied by a review you get the "why" as well. If it is an honest description and describes things that I find appealing in a beer, even if it is rated low I'm still inclined to want to try it or take a gamble on it.

The reason I tried to start making it a point to review as much as possible is because of how many times I've looked up a beer on here wishing it had more than just ratings. I wanted, as you said an honest description of what the beer was actually doing. Yes I know reviews can disagree too, but enough of them saying the same thing is usually a good indicator of whatever trait is consistent.

 

I really enjoy rating the beer I buy.
I also like the what beer you drinking threads. The pics are awesome!

 

After reading some of his reviews I find myself more reticent to review. Thanks Dave.

 

What if you were to replace the drop-down numerical rating system with a clickable rubric that has verbal descriptors for each trait. It could pretty much be the same as what you have on the "how to rate a beer" page but fleshed out so there's less guesswork about what a 3 in aroma, for instance, actually means. This could have the effect of making ratings more accurate and less subjective and make new raters more comfortable while exposing them to language they could use if they crossed over into reviewing. I think the biggest problem with reviews is that the way it's set up now, the numbers are pretty disconnected from what they represent.

I don't know how easy it is to add that, but as a teacher I come across them all the time.

 

I use the raw ratings in a very specific way: if I'm going anywhere, I'll go into 'Places' and sort by 'Beer Avg' descending, just sort of discarding the low '# Beers' by eyeball. So, for my purposes, the more ratings the better and, given a large enough universe of ratings, I'm not super concerned with how much care and consideration went into generating each of those individual ratings.

But I also value the ability to write my own reviews and refer back to them. That's how I can remember anything for more than a day or so. And I enjoy reading other peoples' reviews, not all the time but, at least sometimes.

 

You're not wrong and I've thought exactly the same myself many times.

But that's exactly the joy of four-packs - I usually just go ahead and drink the first couple cans and enjoy them (or not, as the case may be), review the third one one and then just enjoy the fourth can (or, depending, pour it down the sink).

 

Reviews help me remember, whereas just rating does not. That said, I’m not as militant about rating everything new I try, as was the case when I first joined.

 

The NYT Cooking app has something like an 'X' number of viewers found this review helpful. Make that a sortable field and it would seem both useful and reasonably non-confrontational.

 

I like to review for three reasons: (1) it provides context if someone does happen to read it; (2) it forces me to actually think about why I like a beer; and (3) if I drink it again later I can compare it "now" versus "then" without relying solely on my memory.

However, no hate for those who rate only.