I would say it's more desirable to vote how *you* feel, not how you think the average person feels. If voters are expected to know how the average gamer feels, why do we bother collecting and averaging their votes to find out how the average gamer feels? We could just ask one voter.
Alternatively, if we accept that the voters might well get it wrong in their opinion of average gamers, then we get a result of how the average voter estimated the average gamer would consider this run, when what we really want to know is what the average voter thought of the run. This could be substantially different with, for example, a bad game from a big franchise: it might be the case that most people hate it but most people consider that most other people like it. Similar but less extreme effects would affect all runs to some degree.
The point is that we're already taking an average of the votes to get an aggregate result, so we don't need to ask the voters to come up with some aggregate of how they think everyone else feels.
I also support the idea of taking the median rather than the mean to insulate against outliers.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Instead of using the arithmetic mean, how about using a weighted rating similiar to the top 250 rating system in IMDB, defined as (taken from the bottom of the top 250 page):
"The formula for calculating the Top Rated 250 Titles gives a true Bayesian estimate:
weighted rating (WR) = (v ÷ (v+m)) × R + (m ÷ (v+m)) × C
where:
* R = average for the movie (mean) = (Rating)
* v = number of votes for the movie = (votes)
* m = minimum votes required to be listed in the Top 250 (currently 3000)
* C = the mean vote across the whole report (currently 6.9)"
Interesting suggestion, but it would also be interesting to know a bit more about how it would change the results if it were implemented, before making a decision one way or another. Can you give some actual examples (eg. from some actual TASes and their ratings) how that formula would change the rating value compared to the current formula?
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Well, by looking at the formula, it seems that for movies with few votes the rating lies closer to the mean for all movies. The more votes a movie gets, the closer this weighted rating gets to the arithmetic mean.
Here's a numerical example of how this might work: Let's say that the parameter m=5 and C=6.5. Let's also say that a movie currently has 5 votes in entertainment - 7.0, 6.5, 6.3, 5.5 and 1.2. With the normal mean vote, that 1.2 value will affect the mean quite a lot, giving a mean of 5.3. Using the weighted rating, now with R=5.3 and v=5, we plug everything into the formula above and get the weighted rating W=5.9, a bit higher than the mean value, which is what we wanted in order to make that 1.2-vote less important.
For movies with few votes, including those where one or more of the votes are outliers, this weighted statistic will push the rating closer to the mean for all movies. Of course, we would have to decide on a value for m if this formula is implemented. Right now a movie needs (I think) at least 3 votes if you want to look at the movie's ratings, so perhaps setting m=3 is a good idea. If a movie has many votes, those "extreme votes" won't affect neither the normal mean or this weighted rating much.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
We have stars to reflect how the average person would feel. I myself even pushed for stars for some runs that I personally didn't care for.
As for the rest, that's why there's multiple voters. If you were supposed to vote how others feel, we might as well just removing ranking altogether. To make sure voting reflects how you feel, go to your personal favorites page (click rated movies), and make sure everything is sorted as you want it.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
I think there's a confusion of terminology here, and I honestly can't understand what you are trying to say.
"Mean", when used all by itself, is synonymous with "arithmetic mean", which is colloquially called just "average" (in other words, the sum of all the values divided by the amount of values). You probably meant something else with either term, or both.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Ah yes, I did make a typo. Here's what I meant:
"For movies with few votes, the weighted rating lies close to the mean for all movies, C. The more votes a movie gets, the closer this weighted rating gets to the mean for the movie itself, R."
Does it really matter that much? People will vote how they feel, and no one can change that.
It astounds me that Zeupar feels the need to call out two vested and extremely active members of this site.
You should understand it after reading the reasoning of my first post. I myself was surprised with my conclusion, so I wrote this topic to ask for an explanation. Fortunately, that explanation proved that my conclusion was the result of an incorrect assumption, and all was clarified.
Randil wrote:
Instead of using the arithmetic mean, how about using a weighted rating similiar to the top 250 rating system in IMDB
I like this idea, but it will need more support to be considered. You should write a topic about it.
AzumaK wrote: I swear my 1 year old daughter's favorite TASVideo is your R4MI run :3
xxNKxx wrote: ok thanks handsome feos :D
Help improving TASVideos!
adelikat, do you still remember what I suggested via our secret IRC session?
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days
<adelikat> no doubt
<adelikat> klmz, they still do