Ratings

How Ratings Work on YLB

Ratings are an extremely important, if not the most important part of YLB. It is essential to us that users have confidence in the rating and ranking methods that are used on YLB, and to protect the system from potential abuse. After much research, we have chosen to break with the tradition of most other beer and food websites and have opted to use a 10-point rating system instead of the more common 5-point / 5-star system. Furthermore, to fully represent the nuances and diversity of users' experiences when it comes to rating beers and beer establishments, we've added the ability to rate to the tenth of a point, which means there are 100 different rating points within each 10-point scale. Finally, to give new and/or limited beers and beer establishments an even playing field with the more established entities that already have hundreds or thousands of ratings, we have decided not to use the Bayesian statistical model which tends to weight ratings in favor of the older players. The craft beer industry is inherently flush with new and limited production beers, new concepts and fresh ideas, and we think it is important to let the new compete squarely with the established on an even playing field without giving undo advantage to either one. Please read on to see how we do this, and how your ratings are calculated and used on YLB.   

Beer Ratings:

There are 2 ways you can rate beers on YLB: a Quick Rating or a Review.

Quick Rating: a Quick Rating is just what it sounds like - simply rate a beer with a single overall rating from 0-10 to the 1/10th of a point (e.g. 6.2, 8.7, etc). Our system will log your overall rating and it will count just as much as a full Review towards the beer's average rating, and the average beer rating for the brewery (see Brewery Ratings below for details on how breweries' scores are calculated).

Review: a Review is simply a more detailed way to arrive at the same final overall score for the beer, but it takes into account your rating of six different qualities of the beer to arrive at the final score (see details below). Furthermore, it also gives you the opportunity to provide some written details about your thoughts and experience with the beer which can be very helpful to other users as well as the brewery who brewed the beer. Following are the six categories and the weight given to each category in arriving at your final rating for the beer:

1. Appearance - 10%

2. Aroma - 20%

3. Taste - 20% 

4. Mouthfeel - 10%

5. Drinkability - 10%

6. Overall - 30%

We encourage you to use the Review option as often as possible (you will earn more contribution points for a Review than a Quick Rating), but we know that isn't always possible which is why we provided the Quick Rating option. Either way, we want and appreciate your feedback. A couple of important notes about beer ratings: 1) You can only rate/review a beer once. Please do not try to get around this by creating multiple accounts to rate the same beer and "game" this system. This only hurts the integrity of the ratings and the site, and if it is detected by our system, will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your account. 2) You may edit or delete your rating at any time. Once you have rated a beer, you will see "My Rating" under the beer name on the beer's detail page, and an Edit and Delete button next to your score which you can use to edit or delete your rating. You must be logged in to your account to see/edit/delete your ratings.