Topic: Tiers overhaul - opinions?

I thought long and hard about how to improve the tiers. Triggered by yet another 50/100 rating of a landmark release, I decided to enable users to (optionally) be more specific when submitting a rating.

The adjective used now are all decidedly subjective (e.g. "Adored" instead of "Supreme"), but knowing that some of you won't like it, you can switch the adjective for your rating, make it sound more objective if you want to, and also add individual aspects which you liked or did not like.

Let me know what you think about this change! Two things worth noting:

1. I'm starting off with only a handful of aspects - feel free to suggest more.
2. If this works, the aspects will replace the rigid additional ratings (e.g. musicianship, songwriting etc.).

I don’t like the changes. They totally change the meanings of all of my previous ratings.

I'm happy to discuss the changes and arrange things so that it works for everyone :-)

Here's what changed:

• S: Adored (was Supreme)
• A: Loved (was Awesome)
• B: Liked (was Great)
• C: Appreciated (was Good)
• D: Meh (was Ok)
• E: Disliked (was Poor)
• F: Hated (was Awful)

Which of these changes do you find inappropriate?

The one I like least is "Appreciated" ... maybe something like "Noted" is more neutral. And the most controversial change is probably the D-tier going from the neutral "Ok" to "Meh". Since these labels won't please all people equally no matter which ones we choose, one thing I could do is offer alternatives that each user can configure.

How about “Enjoyed” for C and “Noted” for D?

Guessing that's me daring to not like something you like again. Apologies. All I can say is I'm giving it all a fair listen with an open mind based on what pops up slightly at random in recommendations, top charts etc.... It is what it is - subjective. I'm making sure that when it's only one listen, I record it as a first listen, given the previous edits to ensure a less positive first listen is given lower weighting than a multi-listen review.

For what its worth I don't believe we as individuals can give an objective rating, as they should be based on hard facts and evidence. If you want an objective rating you may as well just plumb a database of record sales for their top charts - not necessarily a bad idea but also probably a bit pointless.

If you really do want to change the subjective descriptors again, the existing changes aren't too bad in my opinion and actually probably fit marginally better with how my ratings tend to distribute themselves. The D Tier being 'meh' is quite an accurate descriptor from my British lexicon perspective, generally that's a space for things that weren't offensive to my ears but I'd happily move on and never listen again, or maybe one track of value.

Enjoyed for C is too strong, to me that's actually more positive than Liked so would definitely say that's wrong.

^ Don't worry about it - I'm absolutely cool with your ratings. I'm just trying to find a solution for the subjective/objective dilemma.

I don't think that album sales are a reliable criterion. In the end it's experience. The more releases you listen to and the more you learn about music, the more qualified you get. We should all be free to decide how assertive we want to be with any given rating.

Let's fine-tune these adjectives. I already came to the conclusion that "adore" was a problematic choice. Will come up with a new suggestion later today, which is more in line with the previous wording.

I wouldn't give any credence to album sales either. But that's also part of the reason why I don't think objective ratings are possible. I can't think of anything that would qualify as fact and not opinion that you could make those ratings on.

Objective ratings by individuals are almost impossible, but that doesn't mean we can't try to be objective. The point with this new distinction is to give users a way to express that they're not even trying, which sometimes is the most honest solution. If I were to review a reggae release, I probably won't enjoy it since I don't like reggae. When submitting a rating I'd have to decide whether I want to express my dislike (subjective) or whether I want to try to be objective (think about how I would rate it if I liked reggae). The latter is more complex and risky, and at least for me it would be the exception.

But, by what metric will you be objective? For an objective rating to actually have any value, everyone would need to apply the same logic, or it's not actually objective.

I don't think you need to split things up. I don't think anyone would look at individual ratings and assume any level of objectivity, everyone inherently knows its an opinion.

The closest thing you get to objective is when there are so many ratings given you can simply say that a particular album is generally well liked within the confines of the audience of this site.

objective ratings are in no way possible because there are ALWAYS objective and subjective components given
that's what I always tried to consider when assigning a rating, while knowing this is not perfect, an approximation solely
if you now completely change the preference to the subjective many of my recent ratings are in question

^ I’m not sure i understand. Could you give an example?

Edit: I see ... are you saying that even though you think it's impossible, you have been trying to rate objectively in the past, so that now for example a B-tier rating signals that you love something, whereas you only gave it a B because you were trying to be objective?

If that is the case for most of you, then migrating your ratings to the objective side would fix your problems :-)

for example you may have noticed that I don't like albums with too much growls incorporated, mostly from the Death or Extreme Metal department
I always try to consider excellent technical and compositional skills in a positive way, if they are available of course, means the rating goes up, even if I don't like the music
such ratings are too positive now considering the current state

hands off from migrating ratings

Worth saying I try and do a similar thing. There is always variance in ratings across a subgenre I generally don't enjoy, even if those ratings are generally distributed at the lower end.

Mike, to put my thoughts slightly differently - if people were to use the objective rating marker, and some rated an album "objectively high" and others "objectively low" what would you do? Who is actually "correct"? Because by definition, if something is objective there is a single factual answer.

Rivertree wrote:

hands off from migrating ratings

in this case migrating would mean restoring the previous adjectives.

Barty, I think this is a case of “objective” vs “trying to be objective”.

I understand that implementing and improving such a project like AP is a really gripping playground, but to be honest I'm currently totally overchallenged by all your changes

your decision in the end, but restoring the tier adjectives might be a wise move

And as Rivertree & I are doing, we try and put some of that into the ratings we give. Might not like something at all, but rather than that just mean everything we don't like gets a 1, its all judged on some merit.

The rating system as it was before this change is clearly defined, and is mostly subjective, with some element of objectivity encouraged to adjust ratings acknowledging everyone's natural biases. There is an objective byproduct of this via the Top Releases and Annual Polls which state undisputable fact - these are the overall top rated releases by users of this site at that given time.

What I'm trying to say, and doing a terrible job of, is that in order to offer the option of an objective rating there needs to be clearly defined criteria for how that objective rating is set, otherwise it is based on opinion and therefore subjective and essentially unnecessarily duplication.

Sorry, back to start, I just noticed your recent changes concerning the rating dialog ...