Dearest Pinside community...

I thought Robin invented the "bogus flag" button to allow the community to flag the "1" and "10" ratings that dirty the ratings on games, since no game is ever a 1 or a 10 -- not to allow us to flag ratings we disagree with, because they aren't high enough for pins we personally favor.

I just reviewed my 24 ratings, most of which have clear comments for the ratings. Most of my ratings are 7 through 9 -- with a few exceptions -- I see that my (5.992) rating for WoZ got 5 "bogus" ratings. Completely hilarious. I'm left wondering how a 5.9 on a scale of 1 to 10 is bogus.

This means there are at least FIVE soul-crushed WoZ fans out there, who may mark your rating "bogus" if you don't give their game a high rating -- you will get voted off their fantasy island of "OMG. this pin rulez, you are the one who is bogus!"

I guess I'll submit a feature request to Robin that we allow our alleged "bogus ratings" to be reviewed so that Robin can pinpoint the people who are abusing (or are confused about) the bogus button -- in order to somehow improve the system. (If a rating is considered "not bogus" by a moderator, perhaps all "flags" can be reset on the rating and then all bogus flags set by that person can be undone.)

(I did a little more research, and found nine or ten "10" ratings that have 0 or 1 bogus flag(s) on them. So apparently, the "bogus flag's" use right now (in WoZ-land and possibly elsewhere) is only to pump the ratings, not to remove actual bogus ratings of 1 and 10.) I also found another four or five people like me, with "average" WoZ ratings in the 5 or 6 range, who all have 2 or more bogus marks.

Conclusions: (if we "try to make sense" of the 'bogus flags')
1. It's not bogus to rate WOZ a 10.
2. It's bogus to rate WOZ less than a 7.

Is this really what was intended by implementing this system?

-mof

Hey, I'm down with that -- if the majority feels that way -- that every pinball game designed deserves "1st place, a trophy, and a hug"...

Then let's change the rating system to ONLY go between 6 and 10 -- as in... "All games are 'better than average', ALL."

Think about that one for a second... "All games are better than AVERAGE."

lol !

=)

-mof

Correct. I tested your numbers of 6.6, and I got slightly different results.

If he got confused about the system, it means others are likely confused about it as well. Sounds like Robin needs to put a tutorial up front on what the rating scale is, and what an "Average" rating is.

In the meantime, I'll try and figure out what an "Average" rating is in the system both from a math point of view, and from just clicking the buttons.

I just tried a few things... I opened up a new rating, and marked everything a 1, then a 2 , then 3, etc... (go try it)

There are 6 dots you can mark up. 1,2,3,4,5,6.

If you mark everything 1, the final score is 1.00 (1.00 for dot 1)
If you mark everything 2, the final score is 2.50 (1.50 for dot 2)
If you mark everything 3, the final score is 5.25 (2.75 for dot 3) (5.25 for the first 3 dots)
If you mark everything 4, the final score is 6.80 (1.55 for dot 4)
If you mark everything 5, the final score is 8.00 (1.20 for dot 5)
If you mark everything 6, the final score is 10.00 (2.00 for dot 6) (4.75 for the final 3 dots)

I am a bit surprised by the results.

If you want to figure the numerical average of this system, (1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=55/10)=5.5

If you want to figure the average of this system based on clicking the dots... The average in this scale is actually some strange point in between 5.25 (3 dots) and 6.80 (4 dots) -- so the average rating is roughly... 6.025 -- since 3.5 dots would be an "average" rating on this scale.

Conclusion: the average in the pinside system is 5.5 or 6.025 or somewhere in between, depending on Robin's curve.

This means my rating of 5.99 for WOZ is "average", in your School system model, I just gave WOZ a "C" grade. It is the most non-bogus rating possible. Not a 1. Not a 10.

-mof

Can anyone find the OP where Robin explicitly states the intention behind adding the "bogus flag" ?

My intention behind the thread is to ask the question: Are we using the bogus flag as intended by Robin?
I think the desired outcome was to have "more reliable ratings." Are we now achieving that with its current implementation?

I'm not sure what the correlation is now between the bonus flag, and having more reliable ratings. As far as I can tell, this feature just now hides ratings from people who don't vote 7's or higher on the more popular machines.

-mof

5 people agreed to this "line of reasoning." (quoted above)

This motivates me to help those who are struggling to see how the Pinside system is quite different from other rating systems. I'll try to show how in as few words and steps as possible to demonstrate the difference.

Take the quiz below, and let everyone know how it turns out. If you get it 100% correct, you can thumbs up this post to let everyone know you got 100%! No peeking!

(I'll post the answers at the bottom of the post, to not spoil it.)

QUIZ
1. What is the average LETTER choice in this 5 point scale?: F-D-C-B-A?
2. What is the average PHRASE choice in this 6 point scale?: "terrible", "poor", "not so good", "decent", "good", "excellent"
3. What number (60-100) do we typically assign to C in the US school system? (If your answer is +/-5 of the answer I give, you get this right)
4. What number would we assign as an average score in a system that goes from 1 to 10? (Now multiply that number by 10)
5. Does 75 equal 55?

Bonus question (If you want to earn a 6 out of 5 score!): What makes these two systems so different?

the
answers
are
way
down
here
don't
cheat
santa
is
watching

Answers: 1.C, 2.'the midpoint between "not so good" and "decent"', 3. 75, 4. 55, 5. no.

To learn more about Likert scales: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likert_scale
To learn more about school grading systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_(education)

Both are good reads.

TY for the proofread, corrected !
-mof

It's always cool to see a good 'ole thread necro'd.
-mof