Tips for Getting Started at Criticker

Before Criticker can start building predictions for you, it needs to be able to match you to other users. And the matching doesn't start until you hit at least 10 ratings. As soon as you rate your tenth title, Criticker will start working behind the scenes to find the users who watch the same types of movies as you, and rate them in the same way.

Criticker works best when you rate films and games along the entire 0-100 scale, because this provides the algorithm with a much more nuanced understanding of your individual tastes than a simple 5-star scale allows. That said, if you can't wrap your brain around around 100 (really 101) different possible scores, Criticker will still work using a 1-10, or even a 1-5 scale; once we understand your personal rating system, your predictions will be tailored to that!

Criticker judges the compatibility between two users with a measure called the Taste Compatibility Index (TCI). You have to have at least three titles in common to generate a TCI, and this limit increases as you rate more titles. Your scores are compared to generate a TCI; basically, it's an average of the distance between the ratings you share. The lower number, the closer your tastes!

Upload a profile image, and tell people all about yourself in your personal biography! The users with whom you have a high degree of affinity will probably be curious to find out about you, and you about them! You can optionally provide your age and location; we won't share that with anyone unless you allow it, but it helps us build interesting charts about rating behavior across locations and age groups.

Criticker starts you out with a standard color scheme and quips for your ratings. If you'd like customize your Criticker experience a bit more, or put the quips into your own language, you can do that! Just head over your profile and scroll to the bottom for the ability to "Manually control the colors & quips applied to your ratings with this tool".

At Criticker, we believe that everyone's rating system is unique. For one person, a score of "75" might mean "Really good", while for another it means "Not so hot". Some people consider "50" to be "right in the middle", while someone else will consider the same score to mean "trash". No system is more valid than the others, but it complicates the task of comparing scores. And that's why we use percentiles. We don't compare the flat number you gave to a film... but the percentile placement within all your ratings.

Let's take an example. Let's say a score of 80 puts Train to Busan in your top 95% of all films (you're a tough grader). But for UserXYZ, an 80 lands the film in their top 65% (they're much more generous). We don't compare the scores, but the percentiles. So, although it might be tempting to say "We both scored this an 80, so we must have similar tastes", the reality is that you both have very different tastes, and the 80 means something different to each of you.

One of the most powerful features of Criticker is our massive database of titles, and the ability to sort and filter them. You can make a list of Hungarian films from the 1960s, in which they speak German, and which you haven't yet seen. I mean, if you wanted to, you could. Or you can keep it a lot more simple: all new, somewhat popular movies that are either comedy or action, ordered by how much I'll probably like them. Once you've refined your filter, you can save it, so that you can easily refer to it whenever you like.

It's always optional, but Criticker encourages people to jot down their thoughts in the forum of a "mini-review". And if you have a lot of thoughts, you can also choose to write a "full" review, which gets its own, shareable page at Criticker. Other users will be able to add stars to your reviews, if they find them particularly insightful (or amusing). You can browse the list of your latest stars, and also check out the all-time list of most-starred reviews!