I'm thinking the rating system needs to be updated  There two main areas I'm considering updating are the Overall Rating and individual comments

 Overall Rating

The out of five rating is not suitable for a whole game rating.  I tend to feel that top marks should not be used because no game's perfect however, I feel really bad by giving a good game the same rating as an outstanding game.  But, how do we do it, do we use the current rating control but use 10 stars insead or would we be better off using a percentage.  If we go for a percentage, how should it be displayed - would it be best to show it as a raw number or to translate it into an out of 10 rating and show it as an out of 10 stars.

  Commenting

I'd like to see how each commenter rated each game.  As a sidethought, do people think it would be a good idea to allow commenters to rate individual aspects of the game, as well as providing an overall score.  Similar to the overall rating, how should these be rated, should they be out of 5 and use the current rating control.  If we do go for individual scores, how do you think the overall score for that comment should be calculated, should it be seperate to the individual scores or should it be calculated by adding all the scores a user has given a game.

Voice your opinion by voting in the poll below and through replies to this post.

 

Im guessing this is all cos of the few games I wrote quick comments for. Sorry XD I think that an out of 10 rating would be best, but also including decimal points. This means my comments can easily be made into decimals (91% = 9.1, etc) Ten Stars would be a good idea, but something more personal would be a nicer touch - example being 10 Wii remotes? Another option is dividing someones rating by 2, and using the 5 symbols to display that - so 9.2 becomes 4.6 symbols Odd ratings would have 1 added before being divided by 2 (8.1 = 8.2/2 = New rating of 4.1) Two seperate ratings should be shown. By this, I mean that I think a small group should be elected to decide what they think of a game and come up with a consensus as to what that rating should be, and then a user rating would be given as well, from the collection of votes So team WiiRate would decide on one rating, and give a few reasons. Then, users can vote on their opinion, and an average taken: User 1: I think it was crap - 3.4 User 2: I think it was Meh - 6.5 User 3: I think it was awesome - 9.3 Current average user rating - (3.4+6.5+9.3)/no.of users Then if we go with the 5 star, it would be divided by 2 after that I think 10 stars is less complex, but seems like an big number of stars to have. Individual elements is too complicated. An overall rating is much easier in the long run.

mackay64:

Im guessing this is all cos of the few games I wrote quick comments for. Sorry XD

It's not that - it's just seeing someone else who had commented on a game means that by posting this, I won't just be talking to myself.

 

So you're suggesting (for user ratings) that people give their rating as a number out of 10, which is then displayed using the current star implementation, and at the top we give the average game rating as a percentage.

My thoughts on the issue are, when a user rates a game, they are given a box in which they give the game a rating out of 100 (I think a percentage is better as if you say out of 10, some people won't think to use decimals, percentages makes this a lot clearer).  When this rating is displayed in the comment list, it will be translated into the five star rating (i.e. rounded to the nearest 10, with each 10 being half a star).  The ratings each user provided would then be added together to generate an average percentage.  This would then be translated into a 10 star rating (every 5% representing half a star).  I'd prefer to have a pictorial way of representing the ratings as it's very quick way to get a feel of how good a game is.

I like the idea of having something instead of stars, however i'll refer to whatever item this maybe as stars as it's much easier than writing "star replacement item" . As for having a 'team WiiRate' rating, that's certainly something to keep in mind as the site grows however at this moment in time, I don't think the time developing the feature and backtracking through all 170+ games to do so.

 

If you (or anyone else) think I'm wrong with any of my thoughts above, tell me so and what's wrong with them.

Right, I think Ive got all that.  And I approve

So if I do understand correctly (which I rarely tend to do):

1)User gives an opinion out of 100%

2)Their Percentage displayed as rating out of 5 'Wii-Related Objects'

3)Percentage put into average game rating

Righty-Ho, yeah I think that is a good idea. But you mentioned rounding for a users percentage - would you leave their precentage unrounded when its added to the 10-'star' figure? You say that you round for the User, but would you for the total average? Because a rounded average wouldnt be as good, in my opinion. LIke 3 users vote (lets keep it simple) 74%, 80% and 90%. Their ratings become 3 1/2, 4 and 4 1/2. But in the 10 'star' one, this could either become 8 Stars (rounded), or more accurately, 8.1 stars.

I think the example makes sense haha

Yeah, in other words, will you round the stars, or keep them as blah and a bit?

And yeah the last bit of my comment was just for when the site grows a bit, it may be worth it to show what a team of gamers think, and show what the user thinks, so as to have two seperate appeals - if you consider yourself like that team, theres your one. If you think youd relate more to other users, then the average is for you

Yup, I think you understood 

Rounding - effectively, there'll be two ratings - raw rating (e.g. 66%) and a seperate OutOf5Rating (3.5).  The OutOf5Rating would be used when the star rating for each comment is displayed, and the raw rating would be used in calculating the overall rating.

For the total average, when it's displayed in the Star form, it would be rounded to the nearest 5% then converted into an out of 10 score, and that would be displayed.  If the rating is displayed in percentage form, it would probably displayed as the actual average percentage to either 0 or 1 decimal place.

 Right, well that sounds much better than what we have right now (hope you dont mind my use of we :P)

I heartily approve  

So do you plan to delete all the comments to get this new system on the go? I was thinking about what to use instead of stars, and have 3 ideas:

1) Wii Remotes

2) Mario Party Stars (ones with the eyes)- not much different but would still have a more personal touch

3)Retro Marios

Just ideas I was throwing about those were my favorites, if you want different ones just say the word. 

I don't think there'll be any need to delete all current comments.  It shouldnt' be too hard to put comments and individual ratings together. 

I like your ideas for rating picture replacements, at the moment I'm inlcined to go wtih Mario style stars / shines (any mario game should do) as that would be the clearest for new visitors to the site.

If anyone has any further suggestions, please post them below

 Ah Ok then :)

Yeah I was rather proud of that idea :D haha 

How's this look to you

Good. Do you plan to have the total user percentage beside the stars?

There's still quite a bit of fidling about to be done with how the stars are presented - I'm not particularly happy with it at the moment as it only works for games with short names - games such as "The Legend of Zelda: Whatever" look most perculiar in this mode.  I have a few ideas on how I can do this but I need some time to see what they look like on the page, and to finish off what remains of the ratings system's makeover.

New Ratings system uploaded today - see http://wiirate.co.uk/forums/p/234/321.aspx for more information

i think update the system

How do you think the system should be updated.  The update being discussed in this post happened a while ago, however I'm open to ideas for future improvements.

sz the system is gr8