[new] system fails for users who rate few bad films

Encounter an error, or something which isn't working correctly? Please, let us know
livelove
Posts: 759
67 Ratings
Your TCI: na
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:36 pm

[new] system fails for users who rate few bad films

Post by livelove »

cke wrote:
AFlickering wrote:
fabiovisnadi wrote:a major problem involving the Tier/Percentiles method still remains:
[…] it's natural, while we watch more and more films, to avoid some of them because they do not interest us or because we think they're bad, etc. And eventually, in the long run, 80% of our ratings will include films we enjoy and only the remaining 20% of them will be of films we consider bad. When this happens, it's possible that the tier of a film we consider good in our page is 2 or 3, while only the really bad ones are tier 1. In some cases, the films someone ranks 20 [and] the films someone ranks 65 are in the same tier, just because he avoids watching films that look like a "20" film. I, personally, wouldn't want a film that I rated 70 in the same tier [as] a film I rated 20, just because I don't watch films that I think I would rate 20.

i've expressed similar sentiments over the years, and it certainly remains the biggest problem with this system. when people like movies they've rated 40% more than i like movies i've rated 70% (or vice-versa), the TCI is gonna be off, and that's frequently and clearly the case. […]
I personally have given thought to rating a bunch of ultra-obscure films low just to balance my own rankings out, which isn't exactly ideal but is better than the alternative of going out of my way to watch a few hundred crappy movies. :p (note: i'm not actually going to do this as i feel it'd be kind of selfish at the expense of the site+movies in question, but i wouldn't be surprised if others did it)

Agree 100%. This is the only problem with the site to me and it's something I've raised with them before.

You probably heard these comments a 1000 times. But maybe because there is something to it.

Since you heard that so often, you probably stopped really thinking about it sometime ago. I am filing this as a bug, as an opportunity to pause and re-examine this core part of Criticker, which is certainly healthy to do once in a while.

As much as I love Criticker, I think the problem is that Criticker assumes that all users rate bad films (which simply isn't the case) and therefore the lowest ranked films must be bad, regardless of their nominal scores, and regardless of anything else really. And Criticker not only assumes, that all users rate bad films, but that the respective share of bad films rated must be equal between users (which also isn't the case).

I want you to think about these questions:

    • Do you think a system, which obliges users (i.e. leaves them no other viable option but) to “rate a bunch of ultra-obscure films low just to balance my own rankings out”, because although “not exactly ideal, selfish, and at the expense of the site and movies in question, it is better than the alternative of going out of my way to watch a few hundred crappy movies” ... might be broken to some extent ?

    • If not, why would users “not be surprised if others did it” ?

    • Does your system really work for users who rate few bad films (which actually is the majority of users!) ?

You have certainly weighed similar questions long ago – but maybe not these exact questions, and the postings quoted above are particularly well framed. Maybe it's time to take a good, hard look again at this issue.
Maybe you will find a way to improve the system in a way that deals with this problem ?

Post Reply