Ch-Ch-Changes! Evening BAs - So we made some changes recently, much of which was based on feedback we've obtained from users and other sources over the 6 months or so. We listened, made some tweaks and then sat back to listen some more. Jason and I have been chatting about the feedback for the last hour or so and decided to tweak things a bit more. Minimum Characters for Full Reviews (250) We lowered this to 100 from 250. As of now it's back to 250. If someone wants to write a full review, then take some time and put down some words. Otherwise ... give it a Had for now. Come back to it later, or not. This may or may not change down the road with the site redesign. Showing Hads Inline (Now Optional) Many of you expressed your displeasure with have to view Hads mixed in with Full Reviews, so we dropped in a checkbox to filter out Hads when viewing a beer. Then some of you expressed that viewing Full Reviews should be the default and Hads should be optional. Done. Full Reviews are now the default view on beer pages. Click the checkbox to view Hads. The site was built on Full Reviews, so we're going to try to keep them front and center and continue to encourage users to contribute more. Minor Bug Fixes/Updates Displaying the old date/time stamp again. Might tweak it a bit, but it's back as requested. Beer pages now display the number of Reviews and Hads for the beer; under rAvg and pDev. Editing a Full Review now displays your review after you post the update; date doesn't change at this time. When you Had a beer, "Show Hads" is set so you can visually see that it's been added. Simply uncheck the box if you want to go back to Full Review view. Hopefully this addresses some of the concerns many of you had. We'll continue to listen too. In the meantime ... stay-tuned for more updates on the site redesign and mobile apps. Cheers! Todd (and Jason)
One more filter tag please, on the recent beer review page, used to be an enjoyable read, now it's not. (plus break up the top beers west coast into two regions) Otherwise, well done sirs,
did you guys catch my comment about changing the name to something like "quick rates" or, simply :gasp: "ticks"? constantly saying "hads" must be the most hackneyed, awkward language usage on this site in past year, by far so in any case, will you consider weighting these less than full reviews? i agree they should count somehow, but just not as much. you put in less effort, you get less say. it's only fair...
We're keeping them "Hads" for now as they go with our Hads, Wants and Gots theme. Personally I'm keeping it as I now know it bugs you. As for other changes, we're going to hold back until the site redesign and continue to listen to your feedback.
Forgot this one. Just updated my post. Displaying the old date/time stamp again. Might tweak it a bit, but it's back as requested.
"Hads" still count for the scores, right? This is the one major, major change that I saw a lot of concern about in the other thread. BA is now more ticker friendly than the other site, because here you don't have to write anything for your score to count and for your tick to be registered by your name. Less effort involved to get your credit for the beer. After the feedback from the other thread, is this what is intended going forward?
Yes. How it's applied during the redesign will be a point of discussion, but our core intention was to make it count towards the overall rating.
I like the changes and the tweaks. My only question is, what ever happened to the section of the user profiles that kept track of beers had from States, Country's, Styles etc.?
It was a casualty of our being forced to look for a forum solution back in Feb 2012. We plan on bringing back user stats like this (and a whole lot more) with the redesign.
As stated by someone on first update thread... I think it would be cool to search for other users based on where they're from. This would make it easier for trades and possible tasting groups and things of that nature.
I dunno if they'll implement this as they stated previously that this would (and has) opened the door to spammers. To Bros: Good stuff so far. One feature i'm very much looking forward to is more flexibility in searching within my beers but for now, this'll do
I'd say in the case of preventing spammers, maybe you make a minimum review number. Like a user needs 10 or 15 reviews and then they're able to search for others by location. And I do agree, the bros have done a great job accommodating us advocates and our suggestions.
Can we get a Retired Top 100 soon? Wishful Thinking? That's been my only true consistant want for two years now, aside from DDG
I really think the quality of the reviews is what seperates this database from Ratebeer. Thanks for helping keep it that way. Jeff
On any brewery's main page, it still lists the total number of ratings as "Revs" (Reviews). Any thoughts as to whether to adopt listing total ratings for this page or just full reviews?
Well, I kindly suggest a value of something like .10 for 'hads' compared to a full review, or something similarly diminished. In the other thread people noted that it isn't a theoretical point to note that people will "review bash" by just slamming beers with 1's or 5's quickly, because it was pointed out that people are already doing this. This will be inevitable with such a quick & easy 'had' scoring system. And I think it will be much tougher to police because of the vast quantity of 'hads' that will exist, increasing numbers of people using the 'hads' feature (especially once the app goes live too), and a suitably low score weighting will diminish the negative impact on beers' scores.
Hads and Full Review averages are actually very close for most beers. I believe we've also witnessed some 1 bashing and 5 hyping with Full Reviews before all of this too.
What's the point in making it so that a person can't update hads quickly? If someone has a few beers at a bar and wants to update later, is there really a point in limiting how quickly that can be done?
Weight the Hads (I suggest .25) compared to reviews and I would be very happy with everything else that has been done so far.
Nice revision guy's, digging on going back to the 250 characters and as always thanks for listening and including us users.
I like the updates! Recently a lot of things that had been bothering me since the forum redesign last year have been improved. I am especially looking forward to the improvements that you have promised with the site redesign. One more request, when the app comes out, please do not be one of those websites that prompts me to download the app every time I visit the site on my iPad. An app for the phone is one thing, but I have absolutely no interest in an app or "mobile version" of a website when I'm using my iPad and I'm amazed at how many websites seem to want to cram one down my throat.
Great news! I'm so, so glad that full reviews are back to the default view, and that full reviews still have to be longer than a tweet. Cheers!
And all is right with the world again. (except beer costing money). Glad to see the clutter of the "Hads" is gone. Thanks!!!
Im a little fuzzy on the term ticker, its derogatory? Just because someone uses the scoring system with the written review does that automatically mean you're not a ticker? You sir have reviewed 1000+ beers...that's like 3 times as many as I have ever had in my life. Perhaps you're a ticker?
compare BA full reviews with untapped and ratebeer. it's night and day. people like yemenmocha take time to actually evaluate a beer and write his reviews. meanwhile at ratebeer, it's literally a competition for who "ticks" the most beers - they list rankings of who has "reviewed" the most beers. i put "review" in quotes deliberately.
To the Bros: Can you please look into the time between entering hads. I am sure I am not the only one in this group that takes notes either on paper, on my phone, or even mentally if just a few beers when at tastings or the bar then enters them all at once when I'm back on the website in front of the computer. I understand wanting to prevent spamming the site with a ton of hads quickly but you can at least let me enter more then 1 or 2 a minute.
You can tell the tickers by if they review with a notepad or phone while they drink 2 oz samples, and make sure to get every one into their databank. Take a look at ratebeer for ticker style reviews. Sure one can tick and give helpful, BJCP reviews done with full pours and careful consideration, but that is not an issue with me in terms of the usefulness of their review in making my buying choices. People can tick all they want, more power to them. It is when they post that they think a number, or a review saying the equivalent of , "Really brown beer, some foam on top, nice smell, malty, good taste, malty with some hops, and some excellent carbonation, I recommend it" should be weighted the same as a "real" review that I have an issue . One feels almost stupider after reading a review from most tickers.
This is a small and unrelated suggestion, but something to consider for the site redesign: instead of drop down boxes for selecting a score 1 through 5 - for Hads AND Reviews - I think it would be more attractive to have a horizontal scale and slider. The default would naturally be at '3' - defeating the argument that negligence is why there are so many Hads scored as 1's. This would also be an improvement on the clunky appearance of the drop down boxes, especially since the list of numbers has grown considerably (which I like).
