It's Time to Embrace Ratings

I enjoy reviewing the beers and this is primarily for my own record.

For anyone who has ever read one of my reviews: Thank you, I hope it was helpful!

 

I'm crack and to me engineers are data

Sounds good to me and anything that let's me know more about a certain beer is great

 

Way back when, I left UnTapped and became a BA devotee. I am an information and research junkie and UT didn't and still doesn't melt my butter. The content on this site as well as the community are what I am looking for. I looked at UT again when whatever it was happened that made us "siblings", but I still find it lacking the information I want and more of a look at me and what I'm drinking site - sorry/not sorry - that is how I feel about it. Plus I can't find my way around nor do I want to invest the time learning how.

I review and try to do the best I can with it. I've had sensory training, so I know just enough to be dangerous, but I do put effort into my reviews and call 'em like I see 'em. Straightforward and honest. Intimidating to get started...maybe a bit. But I have never been one to worry about impressing anyone. My opinion on a beer is just as valid as anyone's even if I can't pick out the fifteen hops used in a murk bomb IPA. I create a record in my own words that I go back to and then mirror in my beer journal spreadsheet. It is a record others can view and may find useful. I'm a lightweight when it comes to volume consumption, and I find the act of jotting down my thoughts relaxing in a way. It us equally enjoyable to just sit and drink a beer as It is to drink it, think about it a bit, and review it. Since a beer I review is usually new to me, there's also the discovery aspect of the whole thing and I find recording that first impression to be fun.

I have also learned that my tastes follow along with some people I consider true icons of the site and I rely on their reviews QUITE A times, especially when I am looking at some of the more pricey options in the beer aisles.

Statistically, it looks like the ratings with and without reviews are essentially equal. The data is there, statistically significant difference could be determined, but the eyeball test tells me there's no difference. I like writing reviews because I find it fun, relaxing, and hopefully it helps contribute to the group knowledge.

I will continue to do what I have so far - write reviews or take my notes when I have the beer in my hand and can take my time. I will rate beers I may have at a brewery maybe in a flight. I can review any beer later if I decide to buy it.

My behavior and participation have changed somewhat re: devices. I don't have a computer at home, only my work laptop and I don't take it home often since I have no discipline and will just do work. I have a tablet and wicked smaht phone. I used to play BA on break and at lunch, but since our IT was outsourced the people on the other side of the world seem to care an awful lot about policing. I now use the phone and the tablet almost exclusively and participate from home so I won't get my wrist slapped. When I retire, I will likely be computer based.

It seems to me the question is more about driving or increasing active participation than it is about the relevancy or relative merit of two essentially equal numerical entities.

 

I tasted beers for buying to sell across North Carolina, took notes for myself, still have them going back to around 2000 AD. These were my honest beliefs, and references to deep experience up until then. I wrote the reviews, produced sales materials, and built what I determined to be as good a portfolio that I could given current distribution possibilities. I still do this and never publish but a few. This is my history for me and for others in time.

 

I can respect that.
I don't do any selling though so no need for me to do what you've done and I don't take beer too seriously.
I'm also an asshole.

 

Keep beer fun, keep Snowshoe wild, keep Austin weird.

 

I rely on the reviews quite a lot for beers I've not tasted. I believe they should be encouraged.
An app would be good, if the character limit was much greater than untappd.

 

A lot of breweries use the same barcode for their seasonal or specialty beers. Using the barcode scanner in the Untapped app may bring up to half a dozen hits, all from the same brewery, of course.

 

Also I'd be willing to be a large majority of people here DO rate beer, just on Untappd. The only time I'll rate beer here is if I want to write a long form review about a special bottle or tick a top 250, otherwise all of my stuff goes on Untappd. It's just so much easier and more user friendly

 

In short, BA lost me as a rater years ago to Untappd, and I can't imagine any changes here being a better rating experience for me than Untappd already is. BA will lose [and clearly is losing] that battle. The ownership is the same, so why fight it? Figure out ways the two platforms can drive traffic to each other rather than compete with each other.

Longer version... I've used Untappd for years. Long ago I did some beer reviewing here, but even back then most of my beers went unreviewed because it took too much effort. Kudos to you who have many reviews here, but I'm busy or lazy depending on your view point. Untappd fits my needs and based on user statistics I don't think I'm alone. There's nothing in it for me to start double entering reviews on multiple platforms. Untappd has many of the features folks here are asking BA add (like vintages, serving type, easy photos, personal statistics, etc.). I'm on BA for the other news, information, and discussions, not reviews. Besides, I don't trust anyone's beer reviews or biases, other than my own. I have no need for the hive mind. So, the faster, easier means to log my ratings for myself is preferred and that's hands down Untappd.

Personally, I think with Untappd and Beer Advocate being under the same ownership, the two beer databases need to figure out a way to cross-communicate and support each other. I know just enough about databases to understand that's way easier to say than to do, but regardless of the difficulty I think it needs to happen or else this site will continue to dwindle until it dies. I'm sure the joint ownership offers some administrative synergies, but it's not at all apparent in the user experience. Like it or not Untappd is where the users, businesses, and growth are and unless BA figures out a way to tap into that base, then I don't believe there's any amount of tweaking to ratings/reviews that's going to entice users to go to a stand alone website.

 

Yeah, I miss the ability to "like" a good writeup.

 

I agree. I think this simple piece of positive reinforcement would go a long way.

 

I honestly don't know why people get upset for someone adding a beer if they haven't had it. I don't think the Karma you get from that is that great. I am happy when sitting at a brewery and having a beer and go to rate it and bam, there it is with no reviews. If it isn't there I will either send myself an email or text message with my review and add it when I get home. I don't like doing shit on my phone and would way rather do it on a computer. And also the lack of an app isn't really that big of a deal to me as I find the site works pretty good on Android.

 

While I don’t understand android, I agree that the lack of an app doesn’t really bother me at this point.
Whatever’s compatible with my phone is ok with me

 

Just for the record, I do NOT have a separate account as "Ranbot"! Our opinions dovetail nicely & we are both in PA so I CAN imagine that there might be some Q.

 

Agreed. I find apps kind of annoying in general, and don't understand the clamor for one. BA works nicely on my phone, and the UT app is always kind of janky.

 

Great, but what about all of my multiple reviews based on Serving Style that were lost without warning? The track record = not good.

 

My phone works fine, but man do I ever prefer sitting at my ancient Spanish desk, looking out the window and watching multiple bird species eating crepe myrtle seeds and nandina berries.
@utopiajane used to use the word hinky on occasion. Does janky equal hinky? I need to know.

 

Huh, didn't realize that.

Then again I'm really only a Society member to help support the site. But this is good to know, thanks!