Hello everyone.
I apologize if this isn't allowed but it wasn't clear to me from the last post of 160 -Make impossible to rate uncompleted dramas, what the conclusion was. I'm guessing from the Volunteer Staff's last post, that the decision is that it will NOT be implemented because it is already possible to "hover over" a score and see a breakdown of dropped, etc.
However, I feel this is still a little misleading and may be biasing drama scores. For starters, I will say that I appreciate that this site is volunteer run, and system overhauls may be a lot of work. However, I think because one of the main functions of this site is to list dramas (IE. The namesake!) and this is a REALLY popular place to look at ratings that other users have given, it is important that the rating is as "well informed as possible" -- personally I use this as an initial screen to see if a drama is "promising enough to try". Therefore, I think it is important to re-explore.
Just like the other thread, I recognize that basically "nobody should be silenced from participating/reviewing whenever they want" but I do think the current system is still misleading: someone that watches 1 episode, comes to the site to give it a certain rating (whether 0 out of 10 or 10 out of 10, it doesn't really matter), and then drops the show and never comes back, arguably has less "weight" in their review than someone who watched all the episodes. I recognize that there is functionality to rate each episode, but honestly, the same people who won't bother to revise their rating are the same people who will probably not rate each episode individually. Therefore, I'd propose that the "default" rating that is shown in "regular areas" (IE. Like the score that appears when you sort dramas by popularity, etc.) is the "Completed" rating-only and you can hover over it to reveal the actual, overall rating or dropped, etc.
I think there is some precedent for other score aggregate sites to try to make their ratings "less biased" towards initial feelings and try to encourage users to "experience the product in its entirely first". For example, Metacritic video games have historically been "review bombed", meaning that on game release, angry users who didn't play the game, but disliked it for some reason, would go to the site and give it a 0 out of 10. In response to this, Metacritic now requires 36 hours to pass after a game's launch before it is allowed to be reviewed, to try to discourage this bombing. I am not saying this safeguard would be appropriate here, but I think additional safeguards are needed.
One might say "well, why don't YOU just hover over the existing scores and filter out completed for yourself?" Well, because I still rely on MDL's innate functionality: when I search for shows and filter by rating, it still uses the overall rating. Alternatively, personally, I would be OK if there were additional filtering options (IE. "Rating by completed only") but also recognize that may be a lot of work. Furthermore, I would suggest that there is an existing problem with score bias that is made worse by initial-impression-only reviews -- for example, it wouldn't be unusual for someone to see their favorite star and give a show 10/10, regardless of the actual quality of the show.
Sorry for the long bunch of text. I feel this is an important feature to discuss and would be happy to know what everyone, including the administrators, think.
