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How do I rate an uber drive? Say I pick up an uber, and everything goes exactly as planned. No weird side streets, no funky smell in the car, and an amicable d

How do I rate an uber drive? Say I pick up an uber, and everything goes exactly as planned. No weird side streets, no funky smell in the car, and an amicable driver. Not the best uber experience - I've had uber drivers free water bottles and nightlife recommendations at the ready in the past - but we got exactly where we wanted to go. The service was satisfactory, but not above average. What do I rate this driver? The answer to this question varies depending on who you are. The problem is that there is no standard for riders to objectively rate uber drivers. It's the equivalent of the easy-A teacher in high school versus the strict grading-on-a-curve teacher. People have their own biases and experiences that affect the scale they rate on. The differences in my own personal grading syllabus versus another persons can get people on uber fired for the exact same ride experience.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
If Uber has anyone statistically competent on staff, they'll normalize your scores and compute an individualized scale for you. I.e., let i = individual rider, j = individual driver. Then they'll use a model like: score[i,j] = a[i]z[j]+b[i] + noise Then they store the z[j] for each driver. So if I consistently rate drivers between 2 and 4, while you consistently rate drivers between 4 and 5, then a[me] = 3, b[me] = 2 while for you a[you]=4 and b[you]=5. If you rate a driver as 4 (i.e. z[j] = 0), then Uber will tell me the driver is rated a[me]0 + b[me] = 2. Uber can then rate their drivers internally based on z[driver], not the individual ratings. It is of course possible that Uber is completely statistically incompetent, but I doubt that.
- morgante 12y ago
  Exactly. I really don't understand all the hubbub that people raise over Uber's rating system somehow being broken because: 1. Many people, like the writer, only give our 5 stars. (Simple: their votes don't really count much.) 2. People have different scales. (These can easily be rescaled.)
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Yeap. For example, Criticker (movie ratings site) simply ranks everyone on a 10-tier scale, so if you only rate movies up to 30%, a movie with a 29% rating with be on the 9th or 10th tier.
- makomk 12y ago
  Uber aren't incompetent, they just don't care, much like any other marketplace with a huge market share. Most of the time the variance in how customers rate drivers will average out. Even though they'll accidentally fire and ban a few good drivers due to random bad luck it doesn't affect Uber much since they still have plenty of other drivers. Same reason why companies like Amazon are willing to ban reliable Marketplace sellers on spurious grounds like moving into an address that someone once scammed them from years ago.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Why do you believe Uber (with hundreds of employees, and in vicious competition for drivers [1]) doesn't care enough have one employee devote a week to doing textbook linear regression? [1] Uber is willing to pay Lyft for the privilege of having their recruiter sit in the car with the driver.

yummyfajitas 12y ago

If Uber has anyone statistically competent on staff, they'll normalize your scores and compute an individualized scale for you. I.e., let i = individual rider, j = individual driver. Then they'll use a model like: score[i,j] = a[i]z[j]+b[i] + noise Then they store the z[j] for each driver. So if I consistently rate drivers between 2 and 4, while you consistently rate drivers between 4 and 5, then a[me] = 3, b[me] = 2 while for you a[you]=4 and b[you]=5. If you rate a driver as 4 (i.e. z[j] = 0), then Uber will tell me the driver is rated a[me]0 + b[me] = 2. Uber can then rate their drivers internally based on z[driver], not the individual ratings. It is of course possible that Uber is completely statistically incompetent, but I doubt that.

morgante 12y ago
Exactly. I really don't understand all the hubbub that people raise over Uber's rating system somehow being broken because: 1. Many people, like the writer, only give our 5 stars. (Simple: their votes don't really count much.) 2. People have different scales. (These can easily be rescaled.)
- icebraining 12y ago
  Yeap. For example, Criticker (movie ratings site) simply ranks everyone on a 10-tier scale, so if you only rate movies up to 30%, a movie with a 29% rating with be on the 9th or 10th tier.
makomk 12y ago
Uber aren't incompetent, they just don't care, much like any other marketplace with a huge market share. Most of the time the variance in how customers rate drivers will average out. Even though they'll accidentally fire and ban a few good drivers due to random bad luck it doesn't affect Uber much since they still have plenty of other drivers. Same reason why companies like Amazon are willing to ban reliable Marketplace sellers on spurious grounds like moving into an address that someone once scammed them from years ago.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Why do you believe Uber (with hundreds of employees, and in vicious competition for drivers [1]) doesn't care enough have one employee devote a week to doing textbook linear regression? [1] Uber is willing to pay Lyft for the privilege of having their recruiter sit in the car with the driver.