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Chess Variant Pages Rating System. Missing description[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

Derek Nalls wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 04:59 PM UTC:

For that matter, any rating scale at all can offend game inventors
(including the 4-tier one we are using right now).  Still, we need a
rating scale.  It can be comparable to helpful advice.

I don't think adjectives should be used at all (including the ones in our
current system).  When someone's game receives a below-average rating, bad
words trigger people to get upset and feel insulted moreso than numbers.

🕸Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 08:48 PM UTC:

I think the ratings system should be divorced from the comments system. It should be setup so that any user can rate a game only once, and it should make it clear that it is for rating the game, not the page or the game's presentation. To this end, ratings for anything but games should be eliminated. This will make the ratings system useful for generating lists of the top-rated games. There should also be the option for a user to change his rating for a game.

Adrian Alvarez de la Campa wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 09:32 PM UTC:

I am in full agreement with both Fergus' and Derek's comments.

Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Thu, Mar 23, 2006 11:24 PM UTC:

'How about:

0 Poor
1 Below average
2 Average
3 Good
4 Excellent'

well that is the best i've heard. using numbers is good idea too, so as
not to upset people, then i guess you could rate 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Fri, Mar 24, 2006 12:48 AM UTC:

In the previous thread, Christine Bagley-Jones wrote:

i think the rating system in place is just fine, what is the point of 'neutral', what is that, it isn't even a rating, and isn't 'none' pretty much the same.

I will address the second, fourth, and fifth independent clauses of this sentence.

2. The point of a 'neutral' or 'average' rating is to allow users to express ambivalence.

4. Correct. As the system now stands, anyone can skim the rules of a game, think about it for thirty seconds, and proclaim that it's the best thing ever. But someone who has played a game numerous times, or analyzed in detail, and comes to the conclusion that it's nothing special (neither very good nor very bad) has no way to express that opinion and have it taken into account in the computation of the game's average rating. The fact that 'Neutral' or 'Average' is not a rating in the current system is the primary reason why change is desirable.

5. Correct. 'None' is not at all the same as 'Neutral' or 'Average'. 'None' is not a rating, communicates nothing about the user's opinion of a game, and has no effect on the average/overall rating. But a neutral rating would communicate something (i.e. that the user considers the game to be neither very good nor very bad) and does affect the overall rating.

In my opinion, in order for a rating system to be useful, it must include one rating which corresponds to neutrality, and at least two ratings on each side, so that both positive and negative opinions can be expressed with various degrees of intensity. The current system satisfies neither of these criteria and is therefore not useful. The proposed system satisfies both, and I think it could be useful if used properly (a big 'if'). It's interesting to note that the labels (ranging from 'Poor' to 'Excellent') are still biased toward boosting people's egos, but this is relatively unimportant: the meaning of the ratings is carried by their underlying numerical values, as long as it is clear which is the neutral rating.

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