Rating/review system discussion

[timg]

There's nothing from stopping a group here to create a standard for "course level"... base it on distance, foliage, SSE, whatever. Multiple tees = multiple designations. I'm definitely not smart enough to figure it out on my own but if the idea has merit I'm all for exploring it.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

There's nothing from stopping a group here to create a standard for "course level"... base it on distance, foliage, SSE, whatever. Multiple tees = multiple designations. I'm definitely not smart enough to figure it out on my own but if the idea has merit I'm all for exploring it.

Maybe you should take a look at the par thread.

Without a statistical analysis of each course that ensures that the color designation is exactly right, within an accepted number of decimal points, there's little hope for agreement on such a system. With such exactitude, there's equally little hope.

 

[DavidSauls]

I'm lazy and don't want to read through the entire thread so if repeated earlier in the thread just f'ing deal with it...

Time to get rid of ratings and just have reviews. Ratings invite the fly by homeboy reviewers and course designer reviewers bumping up course ratings as well as the haters rating down a course cause they hate it or whatever. Let's weed out this crap. Write a well written review and folks will get a good idea of whether or not it's worth it for them to check out.

I'll save you the reading.....with enough samples, course ratings average out so that the bogus ratings, good or bad, have little effect. What we're left with is a consensus rating that is valuable to many users in sorting out courses, and vastly quicker than reading a ton of reviews.

So you're stuck with them, though as a user you're free to look right past them and just read the reviews.

 

[BrotherDave]

One thing I do know is that a large group gets to an answer better than even a single expert can... in many cases anyway and this is backed up by studies.

So, if we left it up to the reviewer to select a skill level and then take the selection with most answers, we'd likely have an accurate answer.

Whatever this comes to, if we do it, it needs to be easy for the members to utilize and for DGCR to maintain.

I dunno. Around here there are so many people playing Intermediate when their rating says they should be playing Rec, Advanced when their rating says Intermediate and so on. If the serious tourney guys can't figure out what level they should be playing, I'm not sure the general DGCR audience can either.

 

[DavidSauls]

As it is, length tells us something about the skill level. Par would, too, but......well, let's not go there.

 

[DavidSauls]

Don't like it. Everything/course can't be "pigeon-holed" into some few guys loony 'color-coded' system broken down by an arbitrary number of shots based on a statistically-flawed rating system. Besides that's what an SSA is/was supposed to do (provide a 'hardness factor' for a course).

My understanding is that it's not what the SSA was supposed to do.

It's a potential side-benefit, for courses where the tournament layout is essentially the same as the everyday layout.

The purpose of the ratings system is to separate Ams by approximate skill level. The SSA measures the course for a particular round and conditions, as a step in that process.

My understanding of the color-coded skill-level concept is that it's based on a course being designed for players of a particular skill level, not a course producing a certain SSA.

Of the 3 courses I play most, the SSA is only reliable for one (and a little shaky there):

* The one course is the same for tournaments and casual play, and SSAs very consistent from event to event, though the last singles tournament was April 2016 and there aren't likely to be any more anytime soon, so the SSAs will get stale as the course undergoes changes.
* Another course adds 2 temp holes, and a ton of O.B., for tournaments, so its SSAs aren't applicable to the day-to-day course.
* The third has a wide range of pin placements and extra holes used in tournaments, so SSA is meaningless unless you know where the baskets were, and which holes were used, for that round.

Which is why SSA would be useful, as a guide to difficulty, only if it were entered by someone knowledgeable enough to know that the tournament layout is what a visitor would see on an everyday basis. And that it was produced in normal weather conditions. Even then, it's not a precise number, but if you look at a course with an SSA of 62, and another with one of 47, you'd recognize the difference.

 

[zjones9]

I'm lazy and don't want to read through the entire thread so if repeated earlier in the thread just f'ing deal with it...

Time to get rid of ratings and just have reviews. Ratings invite the fly by homeboy reviewers and course designer reviewers bumping up course ratings as well as the haters rating down a course cause they hate it or whatever. Let's weed out this crap. Write a well written review and folks will get a good idea of whether or not it's worth it for them to check out.

nope

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I'm lazy and don't want to read through the entire thread so if repeated earlier in the thread just f'ing deal with it...

Time to get rid of ratings and just have reviews. Ratings invite the fly by homeboy reviewers and course designer reviewers bumping up course ratings as well as the haters rating down a course cause they hate it or whatever. Let's weed out this crap. Write a well written review and folks will get a good idea of whether or not it's worth it for them to check out.

But arguing about ratings is half the fun of the forum.

 

[biscoe]

Unless a course only has one set of tees and one set of pin positions an attempt to use SSA info in the review process is going to produce as much misleading info as good info.

Asking reviewers to classify course level will be the same way. There are very few true gold level courses in existence (I can only think of 2 in Virginia and one of them is only partially complete)- there will be a ton of long blue courses described as gold by users of this site though.

 

[air show]

DGCR is only a tool for finding courses one may like. For road trips it is a invaluable resource. I have found ratings mean nothing for finding courses that I enjoy. What I find works best for me is following like minded reviewers as myself and using the info on the course's main page to give me the best chance of finding a course to my liking.

If DGCR members want to be helpful updating course conditions is probably the single most important thing one can do to help out fellow disc golfers.

Moreover if more members would use the wall post feature to list more recent info about the course this would also be a great help to other disc golfers.

 

[Steve West]

It seems to me that hole lengths are the best indicator of whether a course is appropriate for a particular player's skill level. It doesn't take long at all for players to figure out how far they can throw, or how long the holes are that they like.

I don't know that anything we could come up with would be better.

 

[scarpfish]

So, I haven't read through this entire thread, but the use of elitist is... elitist. Saying that someone is a snob, or elitist because they're an expert in something is paving the highway to hell. It's stupid beyond belief.

You're getting elitist and elite mixed up. Elitist does not necessarily equate to expert. Someone who ploclaims they or their ideas are better because they aggrandize themselves or their ideas is much different that someone who demonstrates through practice or peer review that they are the best at something.

 

[New013]

I'm also against the level option. On top of the multiple layouts courses can have and varying pin positions a single layout can have holes of varying difficulty.

On top of that you're asking mostly Am players to make that distinction.

On top of that you're asking people to agree on one standard and even if you wrote it out in bold people will still go with however they feel.

If you look at the hole lengths/par and read the reviews, you should easily have an idea of difficulty without throwing in more sub classifications.

Breaking everything down like some of you want to actually ends up informing people less because it further complicates the process and gives people more ideas they have to understand to not only read the reviews but write them.

IMO the site should be aiming to embrace the opinion of people who are new to the sport and the site; and adding more and more classifications to know before you review will hinder that.

 

[_MTL_]

I'm also against the level option. On top of the multiple layouts courses can have and varying pin positions a single layout can have holes of varying difficulty.

On top of that you're asking mostly Am players to make that distinction.

While I agree with this 100%, it's interesting to see that you among others think that all reviews should count the same.

If you are going to one hand say "am players shouldn't decide difficulty" then you shouldn't on the other hand say "all reviews should be identical."

I will add, however, that difficulty is one of most mis-understood things in disc golf. Difficulty, IMHO, is the difference between Par and SSA, not simply what course par is.

A course with a par of 54 with an SSA of 50 is way more difficult than a course with a par of 62 and SSA of 54, even though scoring on the second course will be higher.

 

[tbird888]

When did ratings become about difficulty? If that were the case, Winton Woods should be a 1 at best. I'm admittedly a chucker at this point, and I can regularly score in the low 40s there with a putter.

 

[Steve West]

...
A course with a par of 54 with an SSA of 50 is way more difficult than a course with a par of 62 and SSA of 54, even though scoring on the second course will be higher.

For predicting the enjoyment of a course, I don't think that's the kind of difficulty that matters. Basically, holes are less and less fun after six throws. Even if par is 7. What people want to know is whether they can finish the course in a reasonable number of throws.

 

[_MTL_]

For predicting the enjoyment of a course, I don't think that's the kind of difficulty that matters. Basically, holes are less and less fun after six throws. Even if par is 7. What people want to know is whether they can finish the course in a reasonable number of throws.

Agreed.

So what does the course ratings rate?

Is based on enjoyment? Is it based on the experience the park provides? Is it challenge? Is it ease of navigation?

This is why I proposed what I did. If you asked 100 people, you would get different answers.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Is it safe to say this (or any) site can't be all things to all people?

As a long time member and contributor, I'm all for improving the site, and applaud Tim for being receptive to what our suggestions. I'm a pretty detail oriented person, and while I like the idea of quantifying certain aspects of a given course in theory, being able to use it effectively in practice will be something else altogether.

Numerous times in this thread, it's been pointed out that trying to compartmentalize various course characteristics, by pretty much any grouping of people, is at it's core, HIGHLY SUBJECT TO INTERPRETATION... by both the author, and the reader ...and in a number of different ways, to boot.

I genuinely see both sides of this coin, and tried to come up with a way to advance the issue without totally overhauling the way the review/rating process works. But sometimes, simple is better.

I honestly think the current system provides more meaningful information to people who use the combination of reviews, pictures, and ratings as intended than trying to slice and dice the things into some sort of rubric would. If we choose to go that route, I really think what we'll end up with is a dead frog, as Biscoe quite eloquently put it.

 

[DavidSauls]

Agreed.

So what does the course ratings rate?

Is based on enjoyment? Is it based on the experience the park provides? Is it challenge? Is it ease of navigation?

This is why I proposed what I did. If you asked 100 people, you would get different answers.

All of the above, and more, in proportion to how much the reviewers value those aspects. With the expectation that users will value them in roughly the same proportions.

So if 10% of people think navigation is highly important, the ratings will be nudged 10% in that direction. It's an average of what people think is a good course.

 

[Olorin]

What does everyone think about a level designation for a course? Like a red level course or a gold level course. Should that be written in a review or checked off in a review or just listed on the course page..?

Fantastic idea, in theory, if you could find people qualified to do it accurately.

That quote about those not knowing history... that also applies to DGCR... There is the Course Levels thread from 2007.
And a "Does what the course is designed for..." thread. Start here and here.

I'm also against the level option...

BUT on a practical level New013 makes a compelling argument that I also agree with. The average DGCR reviewer just doesn't have enough experience to make this designation accurately.

Biscoe also makes cogent points about why this is impractical in the real world of DGCR.