It's Time to Embrace Ratings

Stuck in an airport, and happen to have my tasting notebook. Trying to catch up on reviews, but finding only ~50% of the beers are added. I don't mind adding beers at my desktop where I can duplicate screens to add info faster. On mobile, it's a bit more of a chore.

It would be a lot easier to rate if these were added. Perhaps I'll circle back to these at a later date.

End of my rant.

 

I think it's a hard call.

You want to get people to participate more in reviewing but I totally understand that people aren't always going to be into that sort of thing.

Your data points about the usage of rating contribution when there was an app, was pretty remarkable. I personally just don't like using my phone to do reviews, I sometimes have and I discover that I write less in that format, compared to when I am in my best environment, sitting at home focused and having my laptop in front of me with hopefully a great beer.

I can see phone usage being a bigger carrot to get people involved in rating, I agree from a tech standpoint that's the way it's going, even though I am probably from a demographic that doesn't like to do things on a smart-phone most of the time.

 

The movement is everywhere! #splitupsaison

 

Disagree, but don't need to derail the thread the more than I already have

 

no worries! in keeping with the spirit of this thread (and not to be a long-time listener, first-time caller), i really enjoy and appreciate your reviews.

 

Thanks, I enjoy and appreciate yours as well!

 

I assume there’s a qualitative distinction in levels of participation. Example, I would rate on my phone and use it for comparative shopping but there is a zero percent chance that I would add a beer or write a review. So, I would expect there to be a trade-off between sheer traffic and contributing actual content.

But I’m old and have exceptionally fat stubby fingers.

 

Then spend some well deserved time and effort in building out the mobile app. Have to say I hate being out in a store or a bar and having to use the phone app.

One of my best experiences was recently meeting a guy in a beer store and watching him scan the bar code on a beer and getting instant results. Upon questioning him, he was looking up a beer on Untappd to see if he has had it and what the beer was about. Very useful!!! and I remember thinking that I wished BA had such a feature.

Please consider and thank you.

 

That's impressive!

 

Yes one of the main reasons I don't review beers as much anymore is I don't feel like adding a new beer in most cases as it takes some time. Most of the local breweries have new releases every week and I see them right away on Untappd, so I just rate there.

 

Are you going to embrace multiple vintages of a beer, as does Untappd?!?

 

So, I'm sorry this thread took off and I haven't followed it closely, but let me just add that I like the way reviews are set up now.

I don't have as many beers in my portfolio as many other members, but the majority of mine are full reviews.

I like being able to record my thoughts and refer back to a beer I may have forgotten. I'd hate to see the bigger part of that process altered.

 

I disagree that we need to embrace ratings.




That's it?!? No explanation thereof, Mr. ChANdler?!? THAT is how I view ratings without reviews as justification.

Yes, your review might be summed up by The Dude - "Well, that's your opinion, man," but at least it is justified. I hide "Ratings-only" for this very reason. I give EVERY review at least a cursory glance & some users' reviews get read from beginning to end. I may not always agree, but at least I CAN see how they got from Point A to Point Z or wherever. Without the corresponding verbiage, as a writer, numbers are just numbers and have no resonance.

I will grant you, the writing of a review CAN be time-CANsuming, but you will notice a) that EVERY one of my beers on this site has both a review AND a CANesponding rating, but not the CANverse (a rating without a review) & b) that I tried to inject humor into my reviews so as to make the task a bit more palatable. Yes, writing a review is a task, no sugar-coating it, but it CAN be worthwhile, especially over time as one's comfort level increases.

I was a lurker here for a LONG time & finally signed up at the urging of my ferMentor, Lew Bryson, who encouraged me to write reviews. I was deeply hurt when he wrote an article stating that amateur beer reviews were only done for one's own edification, that they were roundly ignored by others. Not only do I disagree with that sentiment, as outlined above, but it caused an unhealable rift between us. I may have to do some digging for that one, but I know that it appeared in print in one of the glossy trades (Draft?, All About Beer?, Imbibe?).

I CAN quote directly from his Why Beer Writing? (allaboutbeer.net) article, though: "The cynic might respond, 'You write about beer because they pay you to,' but it’s a rare beer writer of any merit who doesn’t also write for free, whether blogging, writing comments on Facebook or Twitter, or dropping remarks on other beer websites. (Now doesn’t that bring up a timely thing: If you’ve been doing free beer reviewing for RateBeer.com, who owns that writing? You, or RateBeer, or Anheuser-Busch InBev?)"

I am less CANcerned about the proprietary aspect of my writing/reviews and more so as to its fragility. THIS is the ONLY place that they exist & only in the form of electronic 0s & 1s. I quake to think that they could disappear in the blink of an eye. I finally quit writing them when I felt that there was more take (my reviews to drive site CANtent) than give (too many run-ins with ownership & the Mod Team) to make CANtinuing to write them worthwhile.

CANversely, with only a couple of glaring exceptions, my Untappd account is basically check-ins with "NO Rating", a photo & some wordplay. Why? There is currently a 255-character limit, up from 150 when they started. If I CAN't write a review in 255 WORDS, how am I going to acCANplish anything in that amount of characters?!? Pheh.

All right, embrace away, but I will not be an adopter of this trend. Sorry.

 

That surprises me. But people do walk around with their heads down on a phone everywhere I go. Even walking in the woods around here and more drivers than I want to imagine.........

 

ya, I'm not sure how your response was helpful or constructive, but returning to the original topic of promoting more beer ratings, the topic of Beer Karma is a significant consideration. You can't modify member behavior (i.e., doing more beer reviews) unless some combination of carrot and/or stick is used, and the members see some incentive for doing something that they are not doing now in numbers sufficient to meet your goals. Members are going to do what members value. If you are lucky, what members value meshes with what BA values. I find it interesting that in a different thread, people were nominating member names for a new enhanced "super-poobah" status because of their superior contributions to the members, yet at least one of those nominated individuals was known for NOT doing ratings or reviews. So you already have a disconnect between new BA priorities (more ratings.reviews) and member priorities, at least among a subset of vocal members.

So, there are not likely to be any "sticks" that are useful to modify behavior, so what is available in the form of "carrots"? That begs the question of what do BA members value that you are willing to provide as an incentive to have them modify behavior? How well do you know what they value sufficiently to change their behavior? Personally, I would like more access to beer stats without having to join as a society member. Seems like a fair and inexpensive trade if you want me to do more work to benefit your goals. Beer Karma might be of value to some, but it only is useful in this context if BA comes out and says that beer ratings/beer reviews are now an enhanced priority and that Beer Karma is being adjusted to reflect that. The other thing you could do is what some have suggested, and that is modify the methodology of doing ratings so that it is easier. In that case the "incentive" is not really changed much other than making it a less burdensome process for those that consider it a burden. I can't relate because I review 99% of the beers I drink.

I contend that Beer Karma is an underutilized method of influencing member behavior because the awarding/subtracting of points is not directly tied to specific, identified behaviors and BA goals that are clearly described and prioritized.

 

@Todd since BA scores is a compilation of five or more ratings, do you know how many beers would lose their BA score (and this ability to be on a top list) if we ignored all ratings?

I think there is some disconnect in this thread. BA isn't looking to reduce reviewing, but increase rating. This data is still useful to all of us that visit top lists or assess the BA score on a beer, regardless if you hide it or not (FWIW, I do hide ratings too.)

 

One thing to keep in mind, BeerAdvocate is different than Untappd (in my mind at least) because I think the ratings and reviews here are better. I love the scoring system is more detailed than just a single number. I like the fact that I have more space to write reviews. It's the reason why it's my primary beer rating/review site. Honestly, I only use Untappd because I like the beer menus and the Find Beer features. I'm able to look up what's currently on tap at breweries or I can plug in a specific beer and have a reasonable chance of coming up with a list of places that have that beer. Otherwise, if BA had an app, I probably wouldn't even use Untappd. Bottom line: I'm not convinced increasing beer ratings for the sake of it, will vastly improve the experience. But I'm kind of an odd ball too.