the bar ratings

SHADOW · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 8:07 am Post subject: the bar ratings

Just a suggestion Lev, do you think the ratings needs a tweak here and there,maybe ratings out of ten as lots of bars are 3.0 and 3.2. Just a small dig All bar won when its open sells less beers than octopussy at higher prices and no free mixers. I know you can't sit in every bar and rate it over a whole night,but I have read a few posts that people go to bars at the top of the list and are not very impressed. On my travels around town I can see how hard it is to rate all the bars with out repeating the ratings. Does anybody have any ideas on how we could make the ratings stand out a bit more .

Lev · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 1:28 pm Post subject:

Shad,
You're right the rating system does need a tweak or three so your suggestion is worthy. The bottom line is I physically don't have the time to go to every bar anymore and count what beers they have in the fridge.

The rating system was an idea I had a couple of years ago that I thought would work for its originality. In actual fact it became a victim of its own popularity as people started taking the ratings as gospel and giving me shit when they couldnt find a stunner in a higher rated bar on the night they went in.

The way I see it there are a few possible ways forward (and I will need help with this):

1) Have readers rate the bars.
This would need to be done through the forum for moderation purposes (plus the forum gets more visitors). Basically the bar ratings page shows a brief overview and links to a new section of the forum where people can rate the bars themselves. This would rely heavily on reader input though.

2) Scrap the ratings.
Keep a list of active bars on the page with a brief one sentence description and drop the rating system all together.

3) Update the rating system.
Change to a rating out of ten and keep it updated and current. This also would rely heavily on reader feedback as one mans opinion and experiences on one random evening could not justify a rating as we've seen by the responses.

I value all of your opinions on this so get posting with your suggestions and thoughts!