It's Time to Embrace Ratings

Since this is becoming a more general discussion on reviews I would like to share a little hack I did for a while when I reviewed everything.
This may not be that interesting, but if it helps someone then it’s worth it...
I usually copy my template of previous reviews of similar styles, then just change specific info. For example:

Bottle courtesy of _____.
October 2019, roughly 10 months old.
L: black with dark mocha head.
S: vanilla, chocolate, bourbon.
T: chocolate, oak, vanilla, maple, caramelized sugar. Pancakes.
F: fairly thick, bourbon/boozy burn.
Overall: solid bba stout. Fair amount of heat.

This way I can do a decent review without taking forever pecking away on my phone (like I am now)

 

@Todd For me, it's all about game theory and incentives.

During the last couple of years I had more beer (and better beer!) than previous years, yet I didn't even rate them.

And it is pretty clear to me why I didn't do it. I had no incentive. Nothing to strive for.

I prefer to just enjoy the beer with friends, rather than focus on my phone for several minutes trying to review while everyone's having fun.

I don't see myself rating or reviewing another beer, ever. I don't see the point anymore.

Now, given some incentive to rate or review, I would definitely take the time to do it

 

- merge Untappd beer database so BA users don’t have to enter new beers. I estimate I’m over 50% having to enter a new beer and that alone is starting to cause me to miss some of my ratings and reviews more than in the past

- Eliminate the minimum character count on reviews all together. Reading 10 peoples One sentence reviews can be more useful than 1 persons 2 page narrative. Show all review notes.

- For Poobah status, consider eliminating the need to rate inthe 5 attribute rating system for speed of entry but all rating to the 100th of a percent as historically set up on here. After years of rating beers, now When I drink a beer I generally have a ballpark idea of where my overall score should fall in relation to other beers across styles and also within the style. I end up tinkering with the 5 attribute ratings to ensure Iget that beer in the range where I think it belongs. Overall, I know it’s not desired rating process we should follow , but just being honest for constructive feedback.

 

Thank you @cavedave, I certainly do like reviewing beers, but I don't think that this site has to have more reviewers/reviews in order to grow in relevancy or importance to the beer community. Ticking, tracking and rating are vastly more important to most of today's beer fans and there's credibility in that as well. I'm a little surprised (pleasantly so) that these numbers reflect that. I do, however think that if folks want to review beers then try to put some extra though into it and add information about the beer's character that might help others rather than simply going through the motions just to satisfy a website's request. The language of beer and beer writing was important to me from the beginning, but I don't expect it to be as important to everyone. It may surprise some folks that my least interesting part reviewing is assigning a score. -Just my two cents anyway, Cheers Brother!

 

2021 (Pandemic Limbo)
Total Ratings: 270,169

Interesting numeral. It means that daily average Ratings are 740 and it is also means that daily average activity users are 300-400. I thought that the communinity capacity are more.

 

this seems off topic but i agree. i’ve seen people bitch before about people adding a beer that they’re never going to try… to me it’s like this: 1) i know i’ll add it correctly (can’t tell you how many times the style is wrong or no notes are left - lazy!, 2) if it saves someone a few minutes when they’re drinking it and can skip straight to rating / reviewing, where’s the harm in that, and 3) who knows, i may end up trying it at some point.

 

I appreciate the desire to add content to grow a business. I do hope this effort has positive results. As for me, beer is fun; the folks around here are smart, mostly very nice, from everywhere (even Kiribati), and generally get along well. So, the camaraderie, humor, information about beers and places are the most important factors for me. I do enjoy NBS/Weekend and WBAYDN, but rarely plumb old reviews for my beer purchasing. Beer is not really a discipline, a religion, a science (though it can be), or the most important thing in my life. I was a beer professional for decades and it is now fun and people. And this place has allowed for that quite nicely.

 

Wow thanks for chiming in! Also for giving me guidance over the years for my purchases, and inspiration to review.

I am totally in favor of folks adding and using ratings, if for no other reason than they may decide to add reviews at a later date. I guess there are fewer and fewer folks who feel the need to use reviews, even though, logically, there is more need of them, as there are more styles and brands than ever. I hope the effort to increase the participation in rating beers, to which our voices in this thread now are added, is successful.

Cheers, Brother!

 

I know people are sick of hearing it, but until there is an app I feel like the ratings discussion is putting the cart before the horse. I would love to rate on an app and review later when in front of a computer, whereas now I have a backlog of notes because I haven’t gotten around to writing up reviews
In the meantime, I would rather us fix up some of the styles like making saison not a catch all for most farmhouse ales #splitupsaison

 

we have too many styles on this sight as is

 

When I started reviewing beers on BA, I was very insecure about my base of knowledge. What I found was that the process of reviewing a beer made me think a little harder about what I was seeing, smelling, and tasting. That increased my knowledge and made me a more confident reviewer. I love having a record of what beers I've had and what I thought of them. To those who are nervous about reviewing, just jump in.

 

great points here. 100% on board with the “keeping a record of things” concept (whether it be rating or reviewing). that’s what it’s all about for me. if it helps someone else out along the way, great, but ultimately no one but you can decide what you think of a beer.

 

I write for a living, and writing about beer is too much like work for me - but I'm certainly grateful that so many of you here can do it!

For example, making my verbal descriptions of each attribute accurately reflect the numerical ratings was just not fun. In technical, consumer-research types of studies, the words used to describe a 3.75 in Mouthfeel, had better be consistently distinguishable from a 3.25, even without the numerical rating, or you shouldn't be using them. If they're not, the statistics will show that you skewed the data. Over-thinking is our business.

I love doing ratings though, and I put sincere effort into them.