Score system

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ALRyder
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Re: Score system

Post by ALRyder »

npandit wrote:I have a question about the score system too.

What is "number of disputes over private blurbs"?
This is my question as well
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Post by claire mckay »

When you complete a paid review you are asked to summarise the ending and add comments but this is just for the author for feedback and confirmation that you did indeed read the whole book. I believe this is the private blurb and so I guess you'd be marked down if the author felt you hadn't read the whole book and raised a dispute on that. That's what I think anyway but you might need Scott to confirm that!Hope that helps.
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Post by Scott »

claire mckay wrote:When you complete a paid review you are asked to summarise the ending and add comments but this is just for the author for feedback and confirmation that you did indeed read the whole book. I believe this is the private blurb and so I guess you'd be marked down if the author felt you hadn't read the whole book and raised a dispute on that. That's what I think anyway but you might need Scott to confirm that!Hope that helps.
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Post by ALRyder »

Ah, that makes sense I guess. It does kind of stink to lose 5 points just because you haven't had any paid reviews yet though.
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Post by Scott »

It's meant to be a wash in that case, you get 5 out of 10, so that you are not losing or gaining any points, or are gaining and losing equal points depending on how you look at it.
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Post by sivienna »

When will you make the FINAL scoring system? Sorry, but this stuff about scoring system makes me a bit frustrated. My level keeps changing. 3 to 1 to 2 to 1 again. It feels like my effort to raise my level is useless.
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Post by anomalocaris »

I"m new to the board, and still waiting for a chance to review, so weight my thoughts accordingly. I'm in agreement with some of the points made, particularly with regard to the BOTM. The logic being used is essentially, "How could someone possibly give a competent review of a Stephen King novel if they've never read Nora Roberts?" If the reviewer can read an assigned book, and give a thorough, competent review, then whether they've read other books that happen to be popular with the demographic using this particular forum is irrelevant. The current system means that the majority of reviews will be coming from a group of reviewers who all fall within a fairly narrow demographic, which may be detrimental to authors requesting reviews on books that don't fall within the current popular style.

I'm also on board with the idea that scoring on the basis of number of views is problematic. It means that a reviewer can artificially force a score up by repeatedly viewing the thread or by asking a couple of friends to do the same, while a more honest reviewer, or one who doesn't (as noted above) want to pester friends to read his work is ultimately penalized.

This isn't intended to be confrontational! Just tossing in some thoughts that may not have been fully taken into consideration. Use them if you find them helpful. Disregard them if you don't.
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Post by Scott »

Why is your level dropping? What was your score before? What is your score now?

Are you sure your level isn't being reported as 1 simply because your score expired and is thus coming through as 0?

The only adjustment I recall making recently was to split the popularity between a cumaltative measure and an average measure.

My goal is to always update the score to better reflect averages. My idea is that a score of 50 is average, and that almost nobody should have a 100. The score is meant to measure one's desirability as reviewer, which namely means the quality of review activity and participation in the community. The score should be adjusted to prevent any measures of cheating. For instance, if post count improves score, one might make a bunch of fluff posts with like 3 words each to try to artificially inflate their score. But then I might change the scoring system to only count posts of a certain length. The particular metrics used at any given time are to as fairly as possible gauge the value a reviewer has to prospective authors namely through participation in the forum community and delivery of quality reviews; that is final and I have no plans to change that. But I do plan to continually make slight adjustments to the actual formula to generate the score to get it to better reflect that.
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Post by PashaRu »

No system is going to be perfect, but I think the one we're working with is pretty fair. If reviewers want to do reviews, especially paid ones, there should be some criteria in place for assessing the person as to his/her competency. I'd actually like to see more weight given to the editorial analysis and review activity. I've read a few reviews that demonstrate a lack of good English/writing skills, including poor grammar and improper/awkward sentence structure. Okay, this isn't a college English course, but wouldn't more credence be given to someone who shows an adequate understanding of English? After all, we're reading English books, and if a person does not have an adequate grasp of the language, is he/she in a good position to assess others in this area, especially quality of writing? I realize that the editorial analysis is subjective, but there are some things that are simply either right or wrong within the accepted parameters of English.

As far as changing the criteria for post count - eliminating one-, two-, or three-word posts from the scoring system - I'd be in favor of that. There are a lot of threads that allow a person to inflate his post count by contributing practically nothing to the community. Admittedly, I add to these threads as well, because it's fun. So I'm not in favor of eliminating them, but shouldn't an active member be making a significant contribution to the community?

Anyway, just my two cents.
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Post by gali »

I think now that the system is fair and I am satisfied with it. The current system helps out to pick good reviewers.

A word to the wise: In order to increase the numbers of views and responds to the reviews, one should participate more in the community itself. By commenting on others' reviews, one will get comments on his own reviews.

It isn't truth that the current system forms "a group of reviewers who all fall within a fairly narrow demographic". It is quite the opposite in fact and the authors gain from the diversity of tastes.

Regarding the English skills, I think that people who don't have an adequate grasp of the language, avoid reading in English or writing reviews.... So this point is moot. Furthermore, one can asses writing or a book no matter his language skills. One doesn't have to be a teacher or an author to do that. I agree that some reviews may have "poor grammar and improper sentence structure", but Scott goes over the reviews and doesn't publish those with bad grammar. What I like here is the diversity of reviews. If all reviews followed the same mold, they would make a boring reading.

From the personal angel, I have read in English more than 20 years. My English may not be perfect as some, but I can still appreciate a good writing (or a bad one) when I see one. I know it isn't personal, but I just wanted to clarify this issue. :)

That my two cents about it all. :wink:
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Post by ALRyder »

If I were going to change anything I would change how much is put towards the book of the month. I may be a bit biased though, because while I have a pretty decent score, that's about the only thing that drops my number :P .

gali, you don't have anything to worry about. I've read your reviews and they're always easy enjoyable reads. You for sure get your point across when it's a good book, and make people want to read it.

Scott, you said that you're thinking of factoring in the score system to how fast we get to see books up for review. I think I have a pretty good score, but what are you thinking the minimum score will be for the fastest people to see the books? For every 5 points under 100 the person loses an hour, or what? It would be nice if it were something like every 20 points, but again, that's just me being biased.
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Post by gali »

ALRyder wrote:If I were going to change anything I would change how much is put towards the book of the month. I may be a bit biased though, because while I have a pretty decent score, that's about the only thing that drops my number :P .

gali, you don't have anything to worry about. I've read your reviews and they're always easy enjoyable reads. You for sure get your point across when it's a good book, and make people want to read it.

Scott, you said that you're thinking of factoring in the score system to how fast we get to see books up for review. I think I have a pretty good score, but what are you thinking the minimum score will be for the fastest people to see the books? For every 5 points under 100 the person loses an hour, or what? It would be nice if it were something like every 20 points, but again, that's just me being biased.
Thank you for your encouragement. I put a lot of efforts into my reviews and It is good to know they are such. :)
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Post by Scott »

ALRyder wrote:Scott, you said that you're thinking of factoring in the score system to how fast we get to see books up for review. I think I have a pretty good score, but what are you thinking the minimum score will be for the fastest people to see the books? For every 5 points under 100 the person loses an hour, or what? It would be nice if it were something like every 20 points, but again, that's just me being biased.
I just factored it into the levels, so that there is a waiting time for the lower levels. At this time, I believe it is 6hrs for each level down from 5 one is. A current table of the waiting times is kept on the levels page.
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Post by ALRyder »

I saw the change. Thank you. I should have come back on here and taken the question off once I realized, sorry.
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Post by maraman »

I’d like to share some of my contemplations about the current formula for getting scores. When I saw it, I didn’t like the formulation “unlimited potential loss of points for penalties”. In my opinion, it should be defined more precisely (one or five or…? points for a reminder email, e.g.). I was really astounded when I rechecked my score and saw that from 12 points I went down to -4 (I got two reminder emails after which I reacted promptly). Does anyone else have similar experience?
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