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> Chess and tennis rating systems work reasonably well. I don't quite see how that applies? Those are straight up/down/tie. And not subjective at all, like boo

> Chess and tennis rating systems work reasonably well. I don't quite see how that applies? Those are straight up/down/tie. And not subjective at all, like book quality.

kelnos 3y ago
I thought there were some studies done that showed that 5-star rating systems can give worse results than a simple thumbs up/down rating. IIRC that's why Netflix moved to a simpler rating system (though they added a "two thumbs up" at some point). While on first glance it might seem useful to have the nuance of being able to award between 1 and 5 stars, those intermediate star rankings tend to mean different things to different people, so a 2-star rating from one person might mean something fairly different coming from someone else. Also consider how Uber/Lyft ratings are decidedly nonlinear. Anything below 5 stars -- even 4 stars -- essentially means there was a fairly large problem, and drivers will get "fired" by the platform well before their average even drops to 4.0. If any platform would benefit from a simple thumbs up/down rating system, I think it's that one. > And not subjective at all, like book quality. Certainly in chess and tennis they're not subjective, but a simple thumbs up/down just means "I liked this" or "I didn't like this". Sure, if you only have a handful of reviews, that maybe doesn't tell you much, but as you accumulate more, the average starts being more useful. And of course this doesn't preclude the option of allowing people to write something in addition to the binary choice.
Syzygies 3y ago
Sorry, I was thinking abstractly. I was opening up the question of how different models for aggregating reviews would be naturally immune to review bombing, using Chess and Tennis ranking systems as inspiration. There's nothing about that style of aggregation that locks one into a particular kind of base signal.

> Chess and tennis rating systems work reasonably well. I don't quite see how that applies? Those are straight up/down/tie. And not subjective at all, like book quality.

kelnos 3y ago

I thought there were some studies done that showed that 5-star rating systems can give worse results than a simple thumbs up/down rating. IIRC that's why Netflix moved to a simpler rating system (though they added a "two thumbs up" at some point). While on first glance it might seem useful to have the nuance of being able to award between 1 and 5 stars, those intermediate star rankings tend to mean different things to different people, so a 2-star rating from one person might mean something fairly different coming from someone else. Also consider how Uber/Lyft ratings are decidedly nonlinear. Anything below 5 stars -- even 4 stars -- essentially means there was a fairly large problem, and drivers will get "fired" by the platform well before their average even drops to 4.0. If any platform would benefit from a simple thumbs up/down rating system, I think it's that one. > And not subjective at all, like book quality. Certainly in chess and tennis they're not subjective, but a simple thumbs up/down just means "I liked this" or "I didn't like this". Sure, if you only have a handful of reviews, that maybe doesn't tell you much, but as you accumulate more, the average starts being more useful. And of course this doesn't preclude the option of allowing people to write something in addition to the binary choice.

Syzygies 3y ago

Sorry, I was thinking abstractly. I was opening up the question of how different models for aggregating reviews would be naturally immune to review bombing, using Chess and Tennis ranking systems as inspiration. There's nothing about that style of aggregation that locks one into a particular kind of base signal.