Updates to Changes: Beer Hads, Full Reviews & Ratings

what if there are only 50 or so reviews, most of them "hads" by people many would label as "tickers"? MANY of these folks give 2 or 3 sips to a beer, including subtler "session" styles, and write them off because they aren't "extreme" enough.

 

I believe it is a safety net to protect against spamming of certain beers to affect the score in one direction or another.

 

Who's to say a person submitting a full review didn't only have 2 or 3 sips of a beer? Or even if a full beer, that they weren't drinking it in a smoke filled room out of a bottle or shaker pint? Or drinking a subtle mild at 33 degrees?

In the end, there's nothing guaranteeing one way or the other that a "reviewer" or a "ticker" is reviewing/adding hads in a reputable manner. It's a lot easier to just find people you know you agree with and follow them. This list can be a lot longer with hads counting. Some of the most-experienced people I know don't like to sit around and write reviews, but do have hads. On the other hand, there are others who I disagree with on loads of things (including their basic adjectives) and they review.

 

If that's the case, it would do a lot better just to monitor those doing a lot and report them if they appear to be spammers, and then block them if that's the case.

 

i think the limit on the number of reviews/"hads" added within a certain period of time should be waived for those with, let's say, 50+ full reviews. give or take.

 

yes, but with a full review, there is nonetheless more accountability. the bros have asked people, well before "hads" were even implemented, to report suspect reviews. again, just to reiterate, i'm fine with "hads" counting towards the final score. just that they should be weighted less. it might not seem "fair" to those who "have real lives", but it is arguably fair to those for whom this is a serious hobby or even professional beer writers.

 

I guess maybe we're not that far off in terms of final thoughts. There is more accountability with a full review, but if someone is really bent on messing things up, it's easy enough to take 30 seconds to write a seemingly-legitimate review, whether positive (loved it so much, so hoppy, yummy citrus) to negative (horrible, oxidized, maybe just a bad bottle?).

 

phony full reviews will pop up inevitably, but at least they have the CHANCE of being flagged. plus even if either method is abused, one remains far easier and far less accountable than the other. it's the tradeoff for convenience. but that tradeoff can be alleviated by giving more weight to the full review.

 

Here is the crux of our disagreement. I think there is an easy way to know if you can trust peoples' words, read them, and use your common sense and experience. Will you be wrong? Yes, you can be wrong, also you will be right. But here is the point you have not argued, and here is your chance. There is no way at all to judge the info. of a person who only and always gives a number, and that number is suspect with no way, fallible or otherwise, to fix this reality.

A larger sampling is good only if the individual samples within it are good.

If a person is capable of giving a great review in just a few characters that is wonderful too. I have seen it. I have seen white deer also so I know that both things are possible. Likely? Common? In my experience not at all.

 

Looking at the Recent Beers and Reviews page makes me the most sad. People throwing down 1's or 5's without even a single word of justification is just wrong. For a respected beer resource to sum up a brewers hard work and craftsmanship or lackthereof, in just number, is doing a disservice to the community.

 

I think the amount of good reviews sub-250 characters gained would not nearly be worth the amount of less useful reviews that could just be entered as hads. 250 characters is really not a lot at all. Also, with the majority of reviews I read, I have no idea who the reviewer is so have no way to know if they know what they're talking about other than how descriptive the review is.

Like someone said above, I think a huge distinction between BA and RB (whose limit seems to be 75) is the quality and usefulness of the reviews. It's really quite distinct. I think the character limit is a large part of this.

 

False. If a person has 100+ hads and 90%+ of them are very close to what I would score, I would trust that person's opinion as being similar to mine in the future.

Aside from that, if a person has put in thousands of hads over a long period of time and is obviously not a troll, I'd trust that they're giving an honest opinion. I don't see someone wasting years adding scores just to mess around.

If you disagree with that, then there's really no point in talking about it any further.

 

I suppose you are right, and if we limit hads to contributing a small enough percentage of the total score it would do little enough harm that I will concede the point you are making.

 

Glad that we can all agree on something. And now that it's Friday evening, I hope all are ready to enjoy a beer!

 

I apologize if I missed the answer to this, but I think this is a great question.

Overall I am happy with the direction...

 

Thanks for bringing back the old time stamp. I appreciate it and have always found it useful.

 

Todd & Jason:

Not a fan of the fact that the "quick reviews" influence the site's score of a beer. Although it expands the sample size, and allows a larger population of people to give a more "real" score without having to write stuff down, i think it also opens the review system up to lazy/fake/not thought out reviews. I get that not everyone always wants to write a review, but what does a string of unexplained "4/5" really ADD to the beer's page on BA? OK, so you think it's a 4/5...why? Because of personal style preference? Because it was a perfect style example? Unique style example? Because it was fresh? Was it stale? What vintage was it?

The benefit of reviews is not the score, it's the reason behind the score and description of what the beer is like. Thats the value provided by the users in reviewing IMO.

EDIT: I do love the quarter steps added for written reviews!

 

Keep up the good work Brosephs.

 

I if was a user here who over the years spent a lot of time writing thoughtful reviews I would be pissed that with a click of the mouse a person could give a score that counts as much as a well thought out review.

I was looking at Peekskill brewery today, not a lot of reviews for their beers, but one user who has over 1000 hads gave a beer a 3. it lowered the overall score of the beer. Upon further review the Rdev for this person is negative on almost all of their had "reviews". Some were very significant negative rdevs. Why should this person who doesnt appear to put though into their reviews count as much as a reviewer who does?

This new system waters down the validity of the scores for sure.