Negative "Place" ratings without reviews?

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Rago, Nov 25, 2014.

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  1. Rago

    Rago Devotee (357) Nov 20, 2014 Georgia

    Hello All,

    As a new BA member and being new to the world of beer, I've taken the advice of many on this forum and am exploring my local breweries to find new styles of beer that I haven't tried or have never heard of.

    According to BA there are 7 breweries within a couple hours drive from me, all of which produce beers that have less than ten ratings, and a fair amount of those beers don't have pictures. So I'm thinking that this is going to be great. I'll be able to learn while adding reviews and pictures to the BA community.

    Then I noticed that one of those breweries (or "Places") has a single rating: 2.75, which would give it a BOS of < 60 = awful.

    This rating does not include a review. I find this to be not helpful at all.

    The rating came from a member who at the time had been on BA for less than 1 year. This member has rated over 100 places and over 1,100 beers in a single year.

    Now like I said, I'm new to all of this so my initial reaction that this person is either made of money or artificially inflating their reviews, may in fact be wrong. Please note that I'm not trying to bash anyone, I'm just trying to understand.

    But it seems to me that BA has made it explicitly clear to "Stop and think" before reviewing anything:
    I hope that this post is not inappropriate, and I'll understand if the mods move/remove it. And again, I'm not trying to bash anyone. I would just hate for someone to avoid one of their local breweries for the wrong reasons. Am I way off base here?
     
  2. blue-dream

    blue-dream Initiate (0) Aug 22, 2013 Virgin Islands (U.S.)

    http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...mum-ratings-required-to-be-considered.222437/
    From the announcement forum , this might help.
     
    Rago likes this.
  3. Rago

    Rago Devotee (357) Nov 20, 2014 Georgia

    Thanks.
     
  4. PapaGoose03

    PapaGoose03 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,057) May 30, 2005 Michigan
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    You're not off-base at all. If I saw that someone had rated as many places and beers within a year I'd be a little suspicious too, not only about the number of ratings, but since you said that member had been on BA less than a year. My belief is that most new reviewers don't have the expertise yet to be accurate in their scoring, so I think credibility or accuracy is also a concern. I suggest that you look at some thread postings from this member to try to see what this person is like and whether his input in various discussions is legit. It could be that all of those reviews in a short period are from notes that were kept over a longer period of time, and that the reviews are historical in that sense and are legit, and that the person has a lengthy experience period to learn the evaluation and scoring process.
     
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  5. Rago

    Rago Devotee (357) Nov 20, 2014 Georgia

    Hey Mothergoose03,

    I read ya.

    Nah, that's okay. I think @blue-dream understands, and he's letting me know that they have a system in place to keep things as fair as possible. I guess there's no sense in complaining about it. :wink:
     
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  6. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Everyone seems to focus just on the negative ratings. Why not complain about the overly positive ratings with no reviews?

    Regardless, outliers are taken care of by the system and time. We're also working on a new project that'll challenge outliers, but it's too early to discuss. We hope to have more on this next week.

    Locking this one down. No offense to the OP or others, but this is just another rant against those who rate vs. review.
     
    Rago and blue-dream like this.
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