Huh? Overal star ratings?

*emeleel* · #1 08-30-2001, 11:17 AM

A couple of days ago, I wrote a review of my previous monitor. I have the ONLY review of this monitor, and I gave it 5 stars, and a rating of "extremely easy to use". So how come the overall star rating that it's showing for the monitor is only 4 stars?

Edit to add: I just checked another review. I wrote a book review that is again, the only review. I gave the book 5 stars. But the overall rating is showing up as only 4 stars. I wonder what's going on?

Redlass · #2 08-30-2001, 11:25 AM

Is it possible that other people have rated it without writing a review?

Or, perhaps they use a weighted system that is weighted toward three stars. There has to be a certain number of reviews/ratings before it gets moved away from the three in either direction.

(These are simply guesses on my part.)

kuuleimomi · #3 08-30-2001, 12:39 PM

I've noticed that and tend to think it's due to rating w/o writing a review. A few months ago they would take half a star from the only review on subject [if you gave it 5, the overall is 4.5], now they either changed it or they allow rating w/o writing.

Finn

jaderabbit · #4 08-30-2001, 02:09 PM

I've had that happen, too. I always assumed it automatically bumped the overall ratings towards average when there was only one review--not a bad idea, when you think about it. It should protect from inflated ratings. I have wondered whether it does that when the reviews are by Advisors/Top Reviewers, though.

jaderabbit

#5 08-30-2001, 04:24 PM

I have noticed that too but I think maybe it is due to the dropdown things that you check when you are writing the review. Epinions doesn't consider your rating to be worth anything and instead takes the average of your dropdowns... I could be wrong but it sure seems to work that way in Movies...

Ander

*emeleel* · #6 08-30-2001, 04:52 PM

I thought of that Ander, that's why I mentioned in my original post, that my other ratings were all top marks, too. "Ease of use", etc.

The other ratings thing makes sense, though, since we can now rate without writing. Perhaps a few other people have rated it without writing and that affected it. :Shrug: who know with Epinions!

#7 08-30-2001, 08:51 PM

Hmm... How weird. I haven't seen many people checking the ratings menu though... I think it would say how many ratings the particular product has (rated *** from 24 member ratings or something like that) so...
Shrug. It could just be a bug...

Ander

jaderabbit · #8 09-04-2001, 07:56 PM

Before I posted my review for Jin-Roh , it had one review giving it four stars. I could swear the overall star rating was three stars. When I posted my review--also giving it four stars--it went up to three and a half stars, although it took a while for it to do so (took a while for Epinions to admit it had two member reviews, too)

My theory remains the same...I think that the number of stars is averaged out and then bumped towards an average rating if there's a small sample.

jaderabbit

quasar · #9 09-05-2001, 12:11 AM

Until a few days ago it was possible to rate an item without reviewing it. I do it a lot. I use my ratings as bookmarks - the full list of everything you've rated is available from your account page. It gives you a list of items you want to write about in one place.

They seem to have removed this functionality (darn) but that's how items' ratings don't match the review ratings.

Janice