Topic: Rating Aspects: Opinions

Let's discuss this new feature. Important for you to know: I think this should eventually replace the sub-ratings we have today (musicianship, songwriting etc.). Most users ignore those, and they are not flexible enough.

Most important (IMHO): The rating aspects can be used to indicate both things we like or dislike about the content. So don't think of them only as a feature to deal with unusually low ratings, like we discussed in the other thread about the tier adjectives.

A good example for a positive use case: A release contains a lot of improvisation. Some users like that, others dislike it. Some might just dislike it on this release, but not on others, or the other way(s) around. Enabling users to say "I particularly liked the improvisation on this release" or "I really did not like the improvisation" is what this feature is all about.

One problematic thing: How to quantify. Currently the aspect "currency" is tiers. I would like to make it more abstract, but if we're going to convert the sub-ratings to aspects, we need some relation/mapping to tiers or rating points (e.g. you put a release in the A-tier and submitted a production sub-rating in the C-tier -> production aspect -2 tiers).

What do you think?

Still not 100% sure about this but would like to at least do you the justice of putting some of my objections aside to hopefully offer some constructive thoughts! :-)

Sub-ratings - I tend to ignore those, mostly due to my awareness I don't really have technical musical knowledge or ability and a lot of whether or not I enjoy something I put more down to emotion and gut feel. I therefore don't usually feel 'qualified' to assess things like musicianship unless I have really strong feelings towards it. Would probably have a similar approach to the more 'technical' aspects, but your example of improvisation is a good one as it is a simple enough concept to pick out in isolation.

I think for many aspects its easy enough to be able to say whether they are a positive/negative/indifferent/not-applicable marker but a very tricky thing to quantify, particularly if the aspect is hard to think about in isolation to everything else. I'm not sure I'd actively be able to say it's a particular thing that has dropped a rating two tiers but I might be able to say my general view towards it is strongly/slightly positive/negative. So perhaps like many survey designs on the face of it they can be a qualitative statement that at least has a +/- quantitative indicator behind it.

I think it's possible to have an aspect that on its own is a very high or low score, but that it doesn't actually affect your overall rating in any way. Maybe over simplistic, but there's probably examples of lyrics being absolutely appalling, but the musicianship and delivery of the vocals so stellar that it's easy to completely ignore that failing. You'd perhaps still want to flag up that the lyrics are rubbish but not necessarily that it's dropped your rating a tier.

For aspects to add - I think one of the repeat themes I have when writing a quick blurb is on lyrics, and slightly more specific than those listed there at the moment, is not when the lyrics are inherently bad or cheesy, but when they have clearly been translated from great lyrics in their native language directly into literal english and lose their natural flow, subtlety and emotional depth. Not sure what that would be called as an aspect rather than just 'bad lyrics'!

It's also the case that in reflecting on many a rating, I struggle to put anything specific on it beyond my own emotional connection to it. It may be that there's a reason for it that someone with more musical talent could draw out. Things like the musicianship clearly being very high quality but feeling a little mechanical or soulless I can sometimes get, other times its just a case that for an unknown reason I'm indifferent to someting others find stellar - or the other way round.

^ Yes, I'll put the aspects steps in more abstract terms again, it was wrong to use tiers there. It makes people think too much about how they "modify" the rating. Like you said, they should just say how much the aspect "bothers" them (or the opposite).