Maybe he was operating on the forgiveness>permission theory
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I don't understand DGCR reviews/ratings
- Thread starter Mando
- Start date
Maybe he was operating on the forgiveness>permission theory
Banned?
Where I work, it was not so much that sites got banned as it was that you had to get a site authorized to have access. The company essentially set all external websites to "prohibited" except obvious exceptions (weather, national news, Google, major corporate ones, ESPN). If you tried a website and it was "prohibited" and you wanted access then you had to send an email request to the IT group and they would determine if access was permitted. In general, it wasn't hard to get access ("I need to look there to see if my kid's soccer match was postponed") and during normal hours, you might get a response in 15 minutes. They were mainly looking for 'inappropriate' websites and non-secure websites. Not unreasonable. I got access to websites such as the local sandwich shop. That took overnight as they needed to make sure it was secure. Most https websites were 'approved' pretty rapidly.
I know one of the IT guys who monitors and they look at the 'rejections' to see if there was anything 'obvious' they missed. And for those outraged, your corporate accounts probably have a standard disclaimer when you logon which says that you implicitly consent to monitoring as a condition of employment. They have issued warnings to employees who have attempted to access inappropriate websites but realize that one attempt can be a mistake.
Where I work, it was not so much that sites got banned as it was that you had to get a site authorized to have access. The company essentially set all external websites to "prohibited" except obvious exceptions (weather, national news, Google, major corporate ones, ESPN). If you tried a website and it was "prohibited" and you wanted access then you had to send an email request to the IT group and they would determine if access was permitted. In general, it wasn't hard to get access ("I need to look there to see if my kid's soccer match was postponed") and during normal hours, you might get a response in 15 minutes. They were mainly looking for 'inappropriate' websites and non-secure websites. Not unreasonable. I got access to websites such as the local sandwich shop. That took overnight as they needed to make sure it was secure. Most https websites were 'approved' pretty rapidly.
I know one of the IT guys who monitors and they look at the 'rejections' to see if there was anything 'obvious' they missed. And for those outraged, your corporate accounts probably have a standard disclaimer when you logon which says that you implicitly consent to monitoring as a condition of employment. They have issued warnings to employees who have attempted to access inappropriate websites but realize that one attempt can be a mistake.
Not the first time I've used vacation time to play disc, and certainly not the last.
Some thoughts regarding newer reviewers getting discouraged when they get flamed...
Could simply removing the thumbs down option work? I think most people are smart enough to realize the lack of thumbs up means something needs to be added to their reviews. We don't have to thumb up a review we do not find useful, but specifically downing really doesn't do anything except discourage newer reviewers. I also think too many folks still 'down' a review simply because they don't agree with the rating given.
Could another option be that no thumbs down can be given for a person's first 10 or 20 or whatever reviews?
I think a PM by a trusted reviewer to a newb which offers positive critiques would help.
"Hey, thanks for reviewing the Gates of the Arctic course. What things did you enjoy about the course? What level are you, how long have you been playing, etc"
I know, that is work for the TR, but I will tell you it is also very encouraging (I know) to have someone who has been here years take the time PM you and say this was great, this part not so much---about your review.
I definitely like the more in depth reviews here, and don't want to replace them with Udisc's "Great course, got some birdies, 5 stars", or "worst course ever, too hard, 4.5 stars". But I do think lots of folks are finding the site daily with the influx of new players, and turning even a percent of those into TR's would be great.
In the FWIW department, I have genuinely reached out in an attempt to help auto-count distinct thumbs for silver/gold/diamond level, so everyone would know exactly where they stood at any point in time, but I did not get any response. Still willing to help with that, I would need a level of access to the data I obviously do not have now, maybe that was the issue, IDK.
Could simply removing the thumbs down option work? I think most people are smart enough to realize the lack of thumbs up means something needs to be added to their reviews. We don't have to thumb up a review we do not find useful, but specifically downing really doesn't do anything except discourage newer reviewers. I also think too many folks still 'down' a review simply because they don't agree with the rating given.
Could another option be that no thumbs down can be given for a person's first 10 or 20 or whatever reviews?
I think a PM by a trusted reviewer to a newb which offers positive critiques would help.
"Hey, thanks for reviewing the Gates of the Arctic course. What things did you enjoy about the course? What level are you, how long have you been playing, etc"
I know, that is work for the TR, but I will tell you it is also very encouraging (I know) to have someone who has been here years take the time PM you and say this was great, this part not so much---about your review.
I definitely like the more in depth reviews here, and don't want to replace them with Udisc's "Great course, got some birdies, 5 stars", or "worst course ever, too hard, 4.5 stars". But I do think lots of folks are finding the site daily with the influx of new players, and turning even a percent of those into TR's would be great.
In the FWIW department, I have genuinely reached out in an attempt to help auto-count distinct thumbs for silver/gold/diamond level, so everyone would know exactly where they stood at any point in time, but I did not get any response. Still willing to help with that, I would need a level of access to the data I obviously do not have now, maybe that was the issue, IDK.
It's a slippery slope, but comments on reviews might be a better option. A way to respond directly there why we like/don't like certain aspects of a review, or just disagree with the rating overall. Maybe only TRs could comment on reviews, but making it public would be helpful instead of PMs.
With all of the recent discussion about reviews lately I'm curious to see what the reviews look like here for some of my local courses.
I'm going to take a stab at trying to find them on my own but if I can't figure it out then someone might have to guide me in the right direction.
If I find anything interesting I will report back.
I'm going to take a stab at trying to find them on my own but if I can't figure it out then someone might have to guide me in the right direction.
If I find anything interesting I will report back.
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Hover over "Courses" on the top bar
Click on "Browse map"
Click the map on your location
Dunzo!
You can then filter courses by distance, rating, # of reviews, topography, tree coverage, pet friendliness, etc. etc. Have fun!
Thanks. I pretty much do all of my internetting on my phone and typically only use Tapatalk for the forums.
Once I opened the website in a browser it wasn't too difficult to find the reviews.
Is the "helpful/not helpful" the thing where people were thumbs upping or thumbs downing the reviews?
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Yes.
I just clicked on Denver on the map; Bucksnort, Baily, Beaver Ranch, Bear Mountain, The Beast...do all of the courses there start with "B"?
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I think people should be discouraged from spouting useless drivel just so they can throw out a rating with nothing to support it. :thmbdown:
If you're going to a DG website specifically to share your opinion about a course, at least take a few minutes to actually think about the course and describe the shot variety, or give me an idea why I as a travelling player, might want to play (or want to avoid) it.
I'm anything but a right wing nut case but...
Enough with participation trophies and the softening of America. Don't waste people's time with useless opinions that say nothing. All it does is degrade the site's integrity.
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Mando, why are you here?
You complain about not enough reviews, you've added 27, yourself.
You complain about the weight of TR reviews over noobs, you want more reviews, they have to start somewhere.
You obviously have an axe to grind with TimG, why do to persist on his site, then?
You have such great ideas on how to run a site, step up, and make you own.
People use this site for different things. Some just to find courses, some to get an assist as to which courses to play (as in looking at the reviews), some to help others in those first two causes (as adding courses and writing reviews), some come to exchange information in the forums and some come to just blather away in the forums. There are a few that use all those tools.
I agree with Bogey that I would prefer less, but quality reviews. If I want homer and 2 line reviews, I can go to UDisc for that. The explosion of the sport is going to test this site, UDisc (especially with the PDGA pulling its support) and the PDGAs own site/app. If you don't like what you see, or how you perceive to have been treated, move on....
You complain about not enough reviews, you've added 27, yourself.
You complain about the weight of TR reviews over noobs, you want more reviews, they have to start somewhere.
You obviously have an axe to grind with TimG, why do to persist on his site, then?
You have such great ideas on how to run a site, step up, and make you own.
People use this site for different things. Some just to find courses, some to get an assist as to which courses to play (as in looking at the reviews), some to help others in those first two causes (as adding courses and writing reviews), some come to exchange information in the forums and some come to just blather away in the forums. There are a few that use all those tools.
I agree with Bogey that I would prefer less, but quality reviews. If I want homer and 2 line reviews, I can go to UDisc for that. The explosion of the sport is going to test this site, UDisc (especially with the PDGA pulling its support) and the PDGAs own site/app. If you don't like what you see, or how you perceive to have been treated, move on....
I agree with most of this, if not all--but I also think people need, for lack of a better word, training or maybe coaching is better, on how to do this. This has really become the phone generation, and if someone is starting to review here but has a Udisc background, yeah most of what we will see is drivel. 100% agree the reviews on Udisc are essentially worthless, sure don't want that here.
Just wondering if there is a way to get the newbs up to speed on what is expected here, without bruising egos too much. I'm also as anti-participation trophy as you will meet (most of us my age--50s--are), but I think we have to be able to pass this site on to the next generation. If they don't want their toes stepped on, we should at least tell them to move their foot.
would a word character minimum support this idea
The threshold to have an opinion recently increased to 200 courses played. Inflation going out of control.
Lots of debate on weather practice areas should count for your total, or temp courses, etc.
Since this has morphed into ANOTHER...how do we fix DGCR reviews, I will supply my standard take.
It ain't broke. Ratings and rankings are absolutely useless, to me, to I don't care about them. Reviews use, should be at the discretion of the reader. If you don't care for short, unsupported reviews, don't use them in determining whether you want to play a course or not. Have a discerning eye, make use of filters and use the information that matters to you.
It ain't broke. Ratings and rankings are absolutely useless, to me, to I don't care about them. Reviews use, should be at the discretion of the reader. If you don't care for short, unsupported reviews, don't use them in determining whether you want to play a course or not. Have a discerning eye, make use of filters and use the information that matters to you.
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Just wondering if there is a way to get the newbs up to speed on what is expected here, without bruising egos too much. I'm also as anti-participation trophy as you will meet (most of us my age--50s--are), but I think we have to be able to pass this site on to the next generation. If they don't want their toes stepped on, we should at least tell them to move their foot.
Nearly every TR on this site was a noob reviewer at some point*. Our training consisted of reading other reviews, figuring out what we did/didn't like about them, and tweaking things to suit our personal preferences and style.
The obvious answer to people writing better reviews is quite simply: either you give a fecal log about writing a quality review, or you don't. DGCR's always had some percentage of say nothing reviews submitted just so someone could toss their rating into the mix, and we've had NUMEROUS discussions in multiple threads about ways to improve the review/rating process, and debated the merits/drawbacks of various suggestions over the years. And here we are, yet again.
I think David Sauls hit the nail squarely on the head. No one's gonna submit what the long time DGCR member or road tripper thinks is a quality review using their thumbs on a phone.
I myself primarily access DGCR from my phone. But I submit all my reviews from my computer, because it's plain easier. It's not just about the desire to do a good job. It's more about whether someone's willing to put in the EFFORT it takes to do a good job.
I'm not talking about a lot of effort. Take a few minutes to mentally go through the course.
What did you like? What didn't you like? What kind of variety does it have, and how does it play? Then sit at your computer and type it.
It's hard to write a quality review on a phone. But it's easy to say a few quick lines that tell the reader hardly anything.
Like a great many things in life, it comes down to effort.
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* I think a few like Olorin, and maybe Mike Harrrington, and maybe 1 or 2 others had developed their own review/rating system prior to DGCR.
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My bold--perhaps this is the main point. I didn't look up statistics, but I know more than one person who has never owned a computer. Mostly the younger folks out there. Many others only have one at work. The world is trending away from the PC/laptop. I'll let others debate if that is good or not, but I don't think the trend is subsiding soon. If we all are fine with fewer and fewer (but always solid with good content) reviews each passing year, then I agree, its nothing that needs fixed. If there is a desire for reviews on this site to be relevant in 5 or 10 years still, I do think it's at least worth discussing options for the future. To me, it's not as much about today, as tomorrow.
Perhaps the app could be updated to force answers to questions like the above. Most phones today have voice recognition, so typing not even necessary. A word minimum could also come into play.
I'd love to see this site remaining the premier course review site for years to come. All one has to do is track the infrequency of new reviews (even with new courses popping up all over the place) to see something needs to be done to get that to happen. It's not a complaint, merely an observation.
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