Changes: Beer Hads, Full Reviews & Ratings

Now we have people giving top rated beers 1s.

http://beeradvocate.com/user/beers?ba=AnotherImperial

 

As a relatively passive user of the site (and a non-reviewer so far), none of the changes bother me. I do read the reviews and am glad I can filter out the 'hads' from the beer pages. I just wanted to say thanks for discussing the changes in an open forum like this and responding quickly to the users when they make suggestions. That’s really cool to see. Keep up the great work, can’t wait for the mobile app.

 

Well I logged out to see, and yes, users that are not registered will see this wall of 'Hads' instead of the reviews. They don't even have the option to sort out the 'Hads'. So a new user, for all we know, might pull up that page, think BA is all about picking a number and nothing more, and be done with it.

I know when I first started visiting BA the reviews captivated me. If I was a new user now, and saw those scores and nothing else, I doubt I'd gain much insight.

Will this happen all the time? No, there are plenty of beers with reviews at the top. Does displaying the 'had' numbers do the average user any good? Eh, I don't really see it.

My .02

 

I understand where you are coming from. To me this is kind of a clash between the new and old guard if you will. I know when I am giving a beer a numeric score I am not doing it haphazardly, but there are those that do. But really, are there not people that half ass reviews?

 

I just read through the whole post, so I will try and not touch on things that have been discussed at length. Hads are not just for ticking. I often use hads so I have access to them on my phone, and to remind my self to take the time to type out a full review when I have the time from my notes. Also, since we can only review a beer once, it would be nice to see what style the reviewer had as well as the date of the review. Look at Grey Monday. I can not tell if someone has reviewed a bottle or on tap unless they say so in their notes.

My thoughts: Hads not count for a score or weighted less, minimum reviews for Top Beers and HoF increased, multiple styles return, date stamp return.

These are just my opinion and I will end up using the site either way. Thanks for all the hard work Bros!

 

I personally do not have a strong opinion one way or another about the new updates. I only use the hads as I am not ready yet to be picking out certain flavors, or fully understanding what is a good representation of each style. The main complaint I have seen here is with the hads scores affecting the overall scores, without sufficient verbage to back up the given score.

I personally would like to see the hads change from a numerical rating to ageneric rating system. Assign each number a word; 1=swill at its worst--->5=top beer in the world. Not those exact terms, but you get the idea. Then on the side there could be a bar graph representing the distribution of those generic scores....(49% of hads rated this beer a "liked, and would reccomend")

This way, everyone is being included in some way, but the change does not affect overall scores of beers and those who write full reviews. Granted, I just gave a rough concept, but with some refining I think people would like it.

 

Hanzo,

Honestly man this, to me, is one of the LARGEST changes in BA in the 11 years I've been on here. It is nothing short of a change in the core philosophy. To me, this amounts to a sort of capitulation to tickers. It is. If not capitulation, it's a radical change in the appeal to who they want as current and future BA's. Hads might as well be relabeled as 'ticks' and now tickers have a score influence. The bros. said in some above posts, roughly, that they're changing to accommodate the new growth that they want and a key part is to be found with the hads, or ticks, feature. It's going to change the type of beer person who comes to BA now. I think this change is enormous and will have long lasting, and perhaps irreparable changes to BA. It's a huge change of direction.

 

As someone who is a brand new member, I really don't like this. I read other's reviews because I don't put the effort in to describe what I'm drinking. Sometimes I don't understand what I'm reading either. People kind of go overboard. I either like it or don't..that is why I use the hads.

 

I love the reviews that state: "I don't really enjoy this style so I can't give it a high mark." WTF are you reviewing it for? Just because you don't like a style does not make it a bad beer.

I give way more thought to my score and I only mark hads.

 

this rules, soooo much better than ever before

 

I'm not active in the forums, and have only written one review. I don't think I've ever done a "Had" or quick rating either. I don't think it should count towards the actual scores, for a simple reason. As a quick anecdote: If I like a movie on Netflix, I'll give it 5 stars. If I don't like it, I'll give it 1 star. It's just a single, quick click. However, if I was forced to review the movie for my score to count, I would give a much more honest score upon reviewing. Same thing happens with this "Had" feature counting towards the overall totals. Some people will just click "Had" and give a solid 3.5-4 beer a 5 rating without even thinking about it. Best we can hope for is that some people might hit 3 if they don't really like it instead of just 1. Writing reviews makes you think about the rating, and the individual aspects of the beer, instead of an overall "I liked it/I didn't like" quick click. Reviewed scores are going to be more honest scores. I'd easily rate, for instance, Stone Ruination, a 5 with a one click system. One of my favorite IPAs out there. However, if I had to sit and think about the individual aspects while writing a review, the score would probably be closer to 4.25.

I didn't actually realize how the "Had" worked, so I opened a new tab to check it out: It's even more fucked because when you click to pick the ratings, 5 is the closest to the button. Lots of inflated scores, ladies and gentlemen. It's just a bad system. A well thought rating is worth much more than two clicks.

 

one more thing...

BA is now more ticker friendly than RateBeer. On RB you have to actually write a few words and do the scores. Now, with this change on BA, you just use the 'had' function with a score. Is this really what is wanted, to be more ticker-friendly than that other place?

Please, please rollback the score option for 'hads'. Tickers can still tick, have their number, but let there be no score that counts!

 

Tickers have feelings too!

We demand representation!

(how much have scores changed with the hads scores rolling in? Ten point swings?)

 

Words mean nothing, scores mean nothing, and that is why I choose to look at many reviews and the Hads scores. Sometimes I am confused why the review score was lower that the Hads score.

Best way to make it is more "accurate" is say that until a user has marked or reviewed 50, or 100 beers. I just don't know how accurate anyone can be until they have really had a wide variety of beers.

My job is a data analyst and I have these conversations weekly.

 

Definitely liking the .25 increments for reviewing now! I agree that being able to 'like' a review would be a nice feature. Overall I'm liking all the changes, makes for a more active reviewing community.

 

My world has been throw into shambles now that .25 increments have been added. Sure it makes for more accurate ratings, but it throws off my first 250plus ratings. How things may have been different if I always had the option to rate things but .25

 

As a professional webmaster, I have to chime in and say that if this does not change, it will quickly diminish the site and drive away hardcore users. Include the hads, great, but put them in a separate column in smaller text or make it REALLY easy to just see reviews. Users come here over RateBeer and its ilk because of the quality of the reviews.

Trust me on this: if you allow hads to have the same weight on the page (scoring's another, lesser issue), the ratio of hads to reviews will increase and eventually the vast majority of "reviews" will be hads. It's the nature of the beast: why bother to write a nice review when it has little weight and will quickly be off the main page, buried under an avalanche of adds.

 

The top 100 list has high regarded brews completely off the list now. [Stone Imperial Russian Stout was number 65, and now it's dropped completely off the list]. We've seen some VERY high rated beers drop down the list significantly. [Founders Breakfast Stout has gone from #25 to #45 overnight]. A lot of beers with inflated ratings because of the merge. Like I said, it's way too easy for someone who likes a beer to give it a 5 or 4.5 without reviewing or thinking about the beer. Sad state of affairs. The lowest rating on the top 100 used to be 4.32 or something. Now it's 4.42, because of the artificially high ratings given due to the "hads" being merged.

 

Any way we can get this same Hads filter on the ratings pages for individual members?

 

... and change the default setting so it automatically excludes them, and then someone has to manually select it to view what it looks like with them included.