Suggestion: Users average rating

Sorry if this was brought up before, I did a search and couldn't find anything.
 
Just a little suggestion, different people judge albums with a different degree of harshness.  For example, some users may rate every album they like 5 stars, while other users will only rate an album 5 stars once in a blue moon.  While reading the reviews it is sometimes hard to tell which category the reviewer falls under.  Is this the best album they've ever heard?  Or is it just one of many that they enjoy.  Is this album actually that bad?  Or is the reviewer just really harsh.

It would be handy to display the users average review rating beside their name or something, to help the readers gauge how much those 5 stars actually mean.

And I believe this is my first post (though I've been using the site for awhile now), so hello all.

P.S  I also forgot to mention that I realize the content of the reviews are more important, but you also have to keep in mind those who only rate the album without giving the reviews.

Edited by Ahal89 - July 21 2008 at 22:32

Good idea, just did mine, on 211 reviews, my average is 3.8........Somehow I thought it would be higher.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 21 2008 at 23:31

It's not that simple. If a reviewer has a very high average, it's impossible to tell whether this is because he generally gives higher ratings than other reviews or whether he is simply focussing on his favorite albums. I think that without more information about the reviewer's "strategy" people will almost always draw wrong conclusions from those averages. The same is - to a lesser degree - true for the album averages too ... you simply can't encode too much information into a simple number.

I understand what you say Mike, and agree to an extent. I think most reviewers will focus on their favourites first though, and cover others over a period of time. I would therefore expect the average for a reviewer to go down as they review more albums.

I'm not sure that Genesis is a great example Ivan. In that case, as you suggest, you have rated all their later albums low because of the fundamental change in their direction.

Easy Livin wrote: I'm not sure that Genesis is a great example Ivan. In that case, as you suggest, you have rated all their later albums low because of the fundamental change in their direction.

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - July 24 2008 at 01:45

Ahal89 wrote: Ah, I didn't realize it was already stored on the profiles.  If it isn't hard to implement it would still be more convenient to have them right in front of you. I see where you're coming from Mike, but it's still a better indication than nothing, right?

I don't know ... if people are prone to draw wrong conclusions from it then I would prefer "nothing".

One cool solution would be to give users a way to comment on their rating strategy. Like a small text which could be shown along with any average or diagram.