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Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

variety.com

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Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#51

Post by bryanlarsen »

ykler wrote: post #38

From 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…

But I want Netflix to surface good documentaries as well as good silly movies. I'm more likely to watch a silly movie, so with this change my queue is more likely to be filled with silly movies, making me more likely to unsubscribe because it appears that Netflix only has silly movies. I watch more silly movies than good documentaries, but I pay for Netflix mostly for the good documentaries. I can get mindless pablum elsewhere easily.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#52

Post by surge »

dominotw wrote: post #11
kefka wrote: post #2

And not only that, but also removing their existing collections of videos and replacing it with their "Made by Netflix" shows that mostly amount to shovelware. I'm about ready to drop them, just like they've dropped MASH, soon to be X-Files, and many many movies.

> but also removing their existing collections of videos and replacing it with their "Made by Netflix" shows that mostly amount to shovelware. You are not wrong "US Netflix offers only 31 of IMDb's top 250 movies, study shows" "David Wells, Netflix’s chief financial officer, was quoted by Variety stating that the company wants half of its content to be original productions over the next few years." [1] RIP Netflix! 1…

They're becoming their own content creator...like HBO, and thus reducing their dependence on often hostile networks for content and able to offer more content to more international markets, there is nothing wrong with that.

I find myself watching more of the stuff they've produced then the licensed content, so for me, it's been an improvement. If I run out of things to watch, maybe I'll care then, but at least I'm not tied to a cable contract, I can just switch to another streaming provider until they fix that issue. At this point though, I can't keep pace.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#53

Post by ghaff »

widdma wrote: post #28

A problem I'd like to see a good solution to is selection bias. Unless there is some kind of reward, only people that really care are likely rate something I think Netflix's move might help this. It certainly lowers the cost rating.

There's another type of selection bias as well. I'm not going to watch a movie unless I think I'm going to like it (based on reviews, comments, description, etc.) As a result, with the exception of a few real disappointments, I'm generally at least sorta OK with most of the movies I watch.

Even most of my disappointments tend to be in the vein of "It was OK I guess but I don't see why people think this is so great."

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#54

Post by garethsprice »

rampage101 wrote: post #7
kefka wrote: post #2

And not only that, but also removing their existing collections of videos and replacing it with their "Made by Netflix" shows that mostly amount to shovelware. I'm about ready to drop them, just like they've dropped MASH, soon to be X-Files, and many many movies.

Why are they dropping shows? Does it save them money somehow?

They originally negotiated licenses super cheap as the studios thought they were just some niche upstart. Now they're eating the market the studios are realizing their mistake and either not renewing licenses or jacking the rates up massively - hence the move into original content which can't be taken away.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#55

Post by jerf »

frik wrote: post #5

What's next. Just a thumb up like on Facebook? Rating is a hard problem. No system works universally well. IMDb (Amazon property) for example uses 10 stars, Amazon uses five stars. Facebook use thumb up ("likes"). Games ratings are often in percent 1-100% (summarized by metacritics.com and others). School systems around the world use A, B, etc or numbers like 1-5 or 1-6 for grades.

Netflix lacks the issues that lead Facebook not to implement a thumbs-down. Netflix should still want a thumbs-down.

You should also distinguish between aggregate ratings and individual ratings. Metacritic and other aggregators normalize to some scale, but not all the individual reviews use the normalized granularity. A common movie case is Metacritic having to normalize a 5-star, in half-star increments, review to a 100-point scale. I believe Metacritic also allows user reviews to use a 10-point scale, but present the average on a 100-point scale (the first ten integers but with one decimal point, technically allowing 101 ratings from 0.0 to 10.0). Aggregate ratings always have more detail than their constituent parts.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#56

Post by imron »

jfaat wrote: post #35
Spooks wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be neat if they gave each user a set number super thumbs (obviously with a better name). You can use them so many times per month or year. I think month would be ideal, but if they went with the year route, make it possible to remove your super thumb like to use it on another movie.

Likes?

Super Thumbs!

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#57

Post by X86BSD »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #50
kartickv wrote: post #14

If you have many reviewers, you don't need to get more information than thumbs up or down from each person. How much people thumbed it up is a good indicator. Star-rating can be too much detail, anyway: if you're comparing two shows, and one has a higher fraction of five-star ratings, but the other has a higher fraction of ratings that are four or above, which is better? Star ratings can be too much detail and cause…

>> Star ratings can be too much detail and cause confusion The iOS App Store is a good example of this. An unbelievable number of people, for some reason, thing 1 star = great and 5 star = bad.

Haha yes! Where the hell do these people learn that??

The other thing that annoys me with ratings in general, specifically places like amazon, is when people pan a perfectly good item because of some third party factor.

"Item was great, but it came in a beat up box from the post office, I'm giving it one star."

WTH does someone drop kicking your box have to do with the product?

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#58

Post by imron »

kefka wrote: post #48
talmand wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. Why do so many not seem to understand that, in most cases, Netflix is likely not "dropping" anything? Netflix does not own the rights to the content and the owners can decide on the terms of the agreement on how long the content will be on Netflix. People threatening to leave, or actually leaving, lowers Netflix's leverage to try to get and keep the content in their system. This is why Netflix is creating their…

I really don't care how they run their business. Not my problem. What is my problem is: I started watching X-Files for the first time (yeah, never go around to it for the initial airing). Started watching in late February. And starting March 1st, is a warning on the upper left of my monitor saying "Show will be removed April 1". From my viewpoint, I'm paying the same, and getting less. Not only less, but specifically…

> "Show will be removed April 1".

Don't worry, the show goes downhill after the first couple of seasons, so it's probably for the best.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#59

Post by PhasmaFelis »

I don't have Netflix, so I 'm not clear if the rating shown to users is changing. Or does it not show a rating, just use it to decide what movies to surface for you?

In any case, simplifying the ratings users can bestow makes a lot of sense, unfortunately. We like to imagine people carefully considering the merits and flaws like a professional reviewer, but the fact is that the vast majority of users only ever use two ratings anyway: if they like it, 5 stars; if they didn't, 1 star. There's maybe a third option where if they're ambivalent they just don't rate it.

So star ratings aren't actually very useful for evaluating products. This xkcd https://xkcd.com/1098/ made me realize that an Amazon product which has a 20% chance of exploding when you open the box, and otherwise works normally but unexceptionally, is gonna average out to a four-star rating for a product you really shouldn't buy. I always look at the one-star reviews before buying stuff now, no matter how few of them there are; knowing a thing's failure modes is much more useful than a bunch of praise.

Re: Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Ups and Thumbs Down

#60

Post by fyolnish »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #51
ykler wrote: post #38

From 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…

But I want Netflix to surface good documentaries as well as good silly movies. I'm more likely to watch a silly movie, so with this change my queue is more likely to be filled with silly movies, making me more likely to unsubscribe because it appears that Netflix only has silly movies. I watch more silly movies than good documentaries, but I pay for Netflix mostly for the good documentaries. I can get mindless pablum…

To me it sounds like they should instead use categories as hints for how to weigh ratings of different users for different categories. I definitely don't want my feed to be filled with silly comedies all of a sudden.
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