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I was in sort of disbelief so I had to look it up. https://www.amazon.com/Xfinity-Internet-Mbps-12-month-term/dp/B01B6ZHV7C/ https://www.amazon.com/Xfinity-Int

I was in sort of disbelief so I had to look it up. https://www.amazon.com/Xfinity-Internet-Mbps-12-month-term/dp/B01B6ZHV7C/ https://www.amazon.com/Xfinity-Internet-Mbps-12-month-term/d... Yep. 4 stars with 85% one star ratings. Amazingly awful. To be fair, there are certain categories that amazon weights differently based on the average rating of those categories. Some types of things are just always rated poorly. Maybe that has something to do with it?

mikequinlan 10y ago
Quoting... "Amazon calculates a product’s star ratings using a machine learned model instead of a raw data average. The machine learned model takes into account factors including: the age of a review, helpfulness votes by customers and whether the reviews are from verified purchases."
- timv 10y ago
  But what is the machine learning to do? It sounds like it could be optimising for sales. I actually mean that quite seriously - a machine learning system needs to have some goal to optimise for, sone way to tell whether the rating it produces is "good". In Amazon's case that is quite likely to be some measure of clicks or sales. [Edited to remove typo]
  - tajen 10y ago
    I only buy from Amazon when the product isn't available anywhere else: Between counterfeit products, external vendors that I don't know how to distinguish from Amazon itself, stuff "Available in 2 days" that gets delivered 2 months later, bought reviews, strange ratings and pictures which don't natch the description — I have a 70% chance of paying the return shipment.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Sounds like secret sauce and not transparent. I really liked IMDB's rating scheme developed back in the late 90s - openly transparent but not a simple mean of rating values. Of course, back then they weren't part of Amazon yet.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- heakins 10y ago
  Throwing a little bit more data into the conversation. Filtering to only the verified reviews shows 16 reviews: 8x 5 star reviews 1x 4 star reviews 1x 3 star reviews 4x 2 star reviews 2x 1 star reviews Mean star rating of verified reviews: 3.5625 That's a lot closer to the overall star rating. Disclosure: I work for Amazon Lab126 (not related to the retail website).
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Amazon calculates a product’s star ratings using a machine learned model instead of a raw data average. A machine learned model optimizing what output measure? Ideally, a machine learned model for ratings should optimize for what I, as a potential consumer, would most likely rate the product were I to purchase it.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    That's noble but it's going to be difficult to overcome the temptation to train their machine to produce the rating that gets the most sales. Up to the point where it starts affecting their reputation or it concerns their branded products, Amazon doesn't care too much what they're selling, just in what volume.
    - daveFNbuck 10y ago
      The fact that they don't care what they sell is why you can mostly trust them to be trying for accurate ratings. If you can trust the ratings, you'll buy more of your stuff on Amazon. Boosting the ratings only changes what you buy (which we agree they don't care about) and leaves you with a sour experience.
newesthn 10y ago
There also appear to be satirical reviews. Consider the top one: 169 people found this helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars "Hitler highly recommends Comcast" Adolf Hitler was quoted saying this about Comcast: "Beeindruckend, das ist böse" Rough translation: "Wow, that's evil"

mikequinlan 10y ago

Quoting... "Amazon calculates a product’s star ratings using a machine learned model instead of a raw data average. The machine learned model takes into account factors including: the age of a review, helpfulness votes by customers and whether the reviews are from verified purchases."

timv 10y ago
But what is the machine learning to do? It sounds like it could be optimising for sales. I actually mean that quite seriously - a machine learning system needs to have some goal to optimise for, sone way to tell whether the rating it produces is "good". In Amazon's case that is quite likely to be some measure of clicks or sales. [Edited to remove typo]
- tajen 10y ago
  I only buy from Amazon when the product isn't available anywhere else: Between counterfeit products, external vendors that I don't know how to distinguish from Amazon itself, stuff "Available in 2 days" that gets delivered 2 months later, bought reviews, strange ratings and pictures which don't natch the description — I have a 70% chance of paying the return shipment.
r00fus 10y ago
Sounds like secret sauce and not transparent. I really liked IMDB's rating scheme developed back in the late 90s - openly transparent but not a simple mean of rating values. Of course, back then they weren't part of Amazon yet.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
heakins 10y ago
Throwing a little bit more data into the conversation. Filtering to only the verified reviews shows 16 reviews: 8x 5 star reviews 1x 4 star reviews 1x 3 star reviews 4x 2 star reviews 2x 1 star reviews Mean star rating of verified reviews: 3.5625 That's a lot closer to the overall star rating. Disclosure: I work for Amazon Lab126 (not related to the retail website).
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Amazon calculates a product’s star ratings using a machine learned model instead of a raw data average. A machine learned model optimizing what output measure? Ideally, a machine learned model for ratings should optimize for what I, as a potential consumer, would most likely rate the product were I to purchase it.
- Spivak 10y ago
  That's noble but it's going to be difficult to overcome the temptation to train their machine to produce the rating that gets the most sales. Up to the point where it starts affecting their reputation or it concerns their branded products, Amazon doesn't care too much what they're selling, just in what volume.
  - daveFNbuck 10y ago
    The fact that they don't care what they sell is why you can mostly trust them to be trying for accurate ratings. If you can trust the ratings, you'll buy more of your stuff on Amazon. Boosting the ratings only changes what you buy (which we agree they don't care about) and leaves you with a sour experience.

newesthn 10y ago

There also appear to be satirical reviews. Consider the top one: 169 people found this helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars "Hitler highly recommends Comcast" Adolf Hitler was quoted saying this about Comcast: "Beeindruckend, das ist böse" Rough translation: "Wow, that's evil"