I wish we could have the IMDB/RT ratings directly in Netflix and a page with all the movies sorted by those ratings. There are articles on Internet like "top 100 Netflix movies of the month" but it's almost always for the US Netflix.
[deleted]
Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
241–250 of 298 posts
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm far from an expert on statistics, but wouldn't the fact that star ratings tend to fall on a bimodal distribution just mean that the ratings that don't fit the bimodal distribution have a higher signal/noise ratio than the ones that do? I'd think you could use a 2-4 rating as an indicator of a thoughtful reviewer. Additionally, it seems like you could also use the fact that a particular reviewer doesn't fit the ov…
I've built recommender systems at Etsy, among other places, and you get much better results if you make the data yes/no first. Shockingly MUCH better results. You'd think it would help to take into account, say how _many_ items of a shop a user likes, rather than just the fact that they liked some item, but it doesn't – it actively hurts. The only meaningful piece of information, it turns out is does this person like…
That doesn't really surprise me. A lot of people imagine that highly granular, multi-dimensional rating systems must be best and they're often not. Of course, it depends a bit on what you're trying to distinguish but then it may not really matter to distinguish among the 75% that people are genuinely happy with.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why on earth would you use Netflix as a rating service? First of all their library lacks a lot of great movies, or info about the movies they have. Netflix isn't IMDB.
If you include the DVD service they have practically everything. I've been rating movies I've watched in Netflix since 2005-ish. IMDB makes sense, but I chose Netflix and now I'm stuck with them. Data silos suck.
>If you include the DVD service they have practically everything.
Though quite a bit less than they used to. My observation is that more and more back catalog type of items are no longer available.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
>use a smartDNS At that point, isn't just plain old piracy more convenient ?
Sadly, the simple answer is "yes". I used to use a VPN to watch US Netflix, but they started to block known VPNs and I didn't feel like spending time on workarounds. On the other hand, downloading the latest episode of some TV series takes only a few mouse clicks. For sure easier than fighting geo-restrictions. I still pay for Netflix, but doesn't really watch it much because of the tiny catalog available to me local…
>Sadly, the simple answer is "yes".
>I simply want to support them.
Nothing to be sad about. Also curious, why do you want to support them ? Being a market leader, Netflix is a unique position to influence some of these regressive practices. More support is clearly not helping; it's only making it worse by creating monopolies that exert even more negative influence.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or edge cases like me will get that little boost to just give up on Netflix. I already use them less than other streaming services, and I could always just turn it on and off again.
Honestly one of the only reasons I keep it is because I have so many movies that I've rated and didn't want that time investment to go to waste. I guess now that isn't going to be a factor.
I've rated thousands of movies and shows on Netflix, not just what I streamed or received from Netflix on disc but anything I've seen anywhere that I can recall and came across on their site. Having rated something is also a reminder that I've seen it. I didn't want to lose all that so I downloaded the pages [0]. I'll figure out how to scrape them and put them in a better format some other time.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/netflix/comments/5zzc4g/batch_downl...
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are an anomalous user. I'm not sure why you're OK with rating 1-5 stars but not a thumbsup or down. I think you're just upset because they are changing.
I like giving weight to my vote. 3 stars = "not a bad movie, but wouldn't recommend" 4 starts = "decent movie, would recommend" 5 stars = "great movie, would definitely recommend" A binary choice doesn't have any weight to it.
I agree. I even want a couple more increments between 2,3, and 4. There are a lot of movies I see that I think are better or worse than a 3 rating but don't justify a 2 or a 4. I feel there's a lot of room for nuance around the middle area.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lock-in is a pain. A similar thing happens with music streaming where getting playlists between services is just awful.
That is one reason I've always preferred to control my music directly. Music in particular is something I can't stand to have discontinuity of playlists and collections with.
Spotify reordered my lists. It frustrates me just less than the chore of fixing them would, which is a special class of irritation.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've analysed product ratings in the past and found that the online ratings tend to have primarily bimodal distributions. People who rate online welf select and either love something and give very good ratings or they dislike and give poor ratings. Unlike surveys where people have to answer questions, only people with extreme reactions tend to answer these online rating questions and you don't get any meaningful di…
I have no doubt you are right about the people who rate online (you definitely see it in restaurant ratings and comment sections) but when I rate movies on Netflix I very, very rarely ever rate something a 1 or a 5. I would imagine that 2/3 of what I rate has been a three (so average content for me) and that it takes something special to go up or down from there. Just curious if I am an outlier with how I do my ratin…
Interesting. I pretty much only rate 1s and 5s, hoping that this will influence what content is recommended to me.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're optimizing the wrong metric. They should be optimizing "number of people who pay for Netflix". Instead they are optimizing "number of hours spent watching Netflix". Those two metrics are correlated, but definitely not fully. If I spend hundreds of hours a month watching meaningless action movies and TV on Netflix, I can cancel my subscription and save myself hundreds of hours and $10. I've got lots of other w…
it's interesting because the more someone uses netflix, the less money netflix makes.
Not necessarily. I strongly suspect (but can't prove) that they sell their rating data back to the studios.
Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down
#250From the linked Variety article, "However, over time, Netflix realized that explicit star ratings were less relevant than other signals. Users would rate documentaries with 5 stars, and silly movies with just 3 stars, but still watch silly movies more often than those high-rated documentaries." But the signal isn't just for Netflix; it is also for users, who might sometimes be in the mood for something silly and some…
Thumbs up or thumbs down is just as good of a signal for the users. Everybody has some innate star rating threshold where they won't watch a series or film. If it's below 3.5 stars I won't even give it a chance. Thumbs down accomplishes the same thing. I'm going to rely on Netflix's recommendation engine to put things in front of me that I am going to enjoy.
The problem with that approach is that it assumes that liking is normally distributed.
I'm reminded of Jerry Garcia's famous quote about the Grateful Dead: "We're like licorice. A lot of people don't like licorice - but the people who like licorice REALLY like licorice".
A 3.5 could either mean 50% of users give it a 3, and 50% give it a 4, or it could mean that, say, 30% of users give it a 5 and 70% give it a 3 or less. How do you know you aren't part of the 30%? Great art is often polarizing.