I don't understand Udisc course ratings

[BogeyNoMore]

I've often thought certain courses were 4.25's, 3.75'etc, and felt I had to round my rating one way or the other, but these things tend to balance themselves out, much like flukey plays and penalty calls in ball games. As long as we're relatively consistent about the process, it's robust.

We're allowed to have individual likes and dislikes, pet peeves, etc, but in the end, it seems most TR's are looking most of the same things on our checklists things, regardless how we weight them.

 

[pmay5]

And even with that, I've still found myself wishing there was even more granularity. Seems like more than once I've wanted to give a 3.75 or 4.25. Moreso at the high end of the ratings though. Haven't felt the need to dole out a 0.25 yet.

I feel the same way, but didn't want to be the one to bring it up.

I've found myself recently wanting to rate a few courses, but needing that granularity. The current rating is between two selections, but the issues I have with it may not be material enough to lower the current rating, but I sure don't think my rating should raise the current rating. I'd like to rate it right were it currently is, or within <.5 .

I'm not a coder, so I respect TimGs word that it can't be done without a major rework. But, since the ratings already go to one decimal (2.5,3.0, etc), that doesn't seem like a big stretch to add .1 to .9 options under each whole disc rating, instead of adding .25 and .75 options. But like I said, I'm not a coder.

 

[DiscGolfCraig]

And even with that, I've still found myself wishing there was even more granularity. Seems like more than once I've wanted to give a 3.75 or 4.25. Moreso at the high end of the ratings though. Haven't felt the need to dole out a 0.25 yet.

Been there. Done that. I realized I was overthinking the process. For the 4.25-level course, it's negligible whether to rate it 4.0 or 4.5. Either way, you're still saying the course is in the upper echelon.

 

[dmoore1998]

I think DGCR is the exception, not the rule. Most ratings systems today are about "your experience" and are practical, as opposed to the "impractical" ratings system here (impractical in that the vast majority of people care about their experience far more than one site's definition of good course design). The system here is about attempting to be objective in rating the design of the course, and to that end the system is more defined. DGCR I would equate to a journal. People are expected to document their reasons, to leave their subjectivity at the door for the rating but then explain it later (for example, nobody should really be lowering a score because a course is too long...they should rate the design and then note in their explanation that the course is very long...while I fully expect people rating their experience to lower the score based on an impression that the course is too long).

DGCR seems more heavy on "justify your rating" while the majority of ratings system use a "your experience is your experience" philosophy where there's no need to justify the rating because the rating reflects how you feel. I think both have their place. Do I really want to play a course where DGCR folks wax philosophic about the amazing course design being used if everyone who played the course actually hated playing there (including DGCR folks who mention in their notes that they hated it?)? Probably not. Do I want to play a course that DGCR says is severely lacking in design if everyone who plays it says it's a blast? Probably.

The key is really knowing the difference in the ratings. If you are someone who wants to go to the movies and watch a technically well-executed movie...DGCR ratings will help tell you that. If you are someone who wants to go to a movie that everyone likes...UDisc and other ratings systems will tell you that.

As an example from a previous post...having a sidewalk nearby is completely irrelevant to whether I want to go play a course. DGCR is going to say "poor design". UDisc is going to give it a terrible rating if you have to wait forever because people are constantly walking on the sidewalk and stopping you from throwing, or a good rating if you never have to wait.

Practically speaking, I check DGCR if I'm planning a "trip" somewhere...even locally. I want to read the journal and justification and take the time to process that information and decide which course I should hit. If I'm in the area and looking for a quick throw, I just wanna know if people like the course or not.

 

[Gblambert]

Unlike DGCR, Udisc focuses on finding courses, providing layouts, hole lengths and recording scores. Reviews are an afterthought. There are no established guidelines for writing reviews and no mechanism in place to facilitate comprehensive, well thought out reviews. The reviews themselves are not rated, there are no trusted reviewers, no option to sort reviews by date or reviewer experience level. There are no forums where the criteria for a good review are discussed and generally agreed upon.

Perhaps it's regional, but most of the folks I play with never heard of DGCR, but everyone uses Udisc. My home course has been in existence for 7 years. During that that it has been reviewed 11 times on DGCR and over 1,500 times on Udisc. Since Udisc asks for nothing more than a simple number rating, lots of folks are happy to comply. Everyone from seasoned pros to a first time players who know nothing whatsoever about good disc golf course design. Especially those that already have the app in hand during their round to record their scores.

So, in the absence of formal review criteria, how do most players assign that number rating to a course on Udisc? Most, I believe, are rating the course based on the experience they had while playing and not the subtleties of course design. Did they have a great time while playing that day? If yes, then they will more than likely give it a perfect 5.0 in Udisc.

 

[ru4por]

I think DGCR is the exception, not the rule. Most ratings systems today are about "your experience" and are practical, as opposed to the "impractical" ratings system here (impractical in that the vast majority of people care about their experience far more than one site's definition of good course design). The system here is about attempting to be objective in rating the design of the course, and to that end the system is more defined. DGCR I would equate to a journal. People are expected to document their reasons, to leave their subjectivity at the door for the rating but then explain it later (for example, nobody should really be lowering a score because a course is too long...they should rate the design and then note in their explanation that the course is very long...while I fully expect people rating their experience to lower the score based on an impression that the course is too long).

DGCR seems more heavy on "justify your rating" while the majority of ratings system use a "your experience is your experience" philosophy where there's no need to justify the rating because the rating reflects how you feel. I think both have their place. Do I really want to play a course where DGCR folks wax philosophic about the amazing course design being used if everyone who played the course actually hated playing there (including DGCR folks who mention in their notes that they hated it?)? Probably not. Do I want to play a course that DGCR says is severely lacking in design if everyone who plays it says it's a blast? Probably.

The key is really knowing the difference in the ratings. If you are someone who wants to go to the movies and watch a technically well-executed movie...DGCR ratings will help tell you that. If you are someone who wants to go to a movie that everyone likes...UDisc and other ratings systems will tell you that.

As an example from a previous post...having a sidewalk nearby is completely irrelevant to whether I want to go play a course. DGCR is going to say "poor design". UDisc is going to give it a terrible rating if you have to wait forever because people are constantly walking on the sidewalk and stopping you from throwing, or a good rating if you never have to wait.

Practically speaking, I check DGCR if I'm planning a "trip" somewhere...even locally. I want to read the journal and justification and take the time to process that information and decide which course I should hit. If I'm in the area and looking for a quick throw, I just wanna know if people like the course or not.

I don't really agree with any of this. Perhaps I am not interested in the "social media" effect. I am not into how you feel. I don't care about your fun. I am not interested in your experience. None of it relates to how the course will play for me.

A review, to me, is a tool to be used by others, to assist in whether I want play the course, what I might need or how to prepare, to play the course. Direction assistance, navigation tips, highlights to look for, trouble to beware of..... It is an aid to other disc golfers. Not a diary of your life experiences. I suppose this is my age and reluctance to embrace the internet review evolution.

I think some here focus on course design, but the power of this site has always been the readers opportunity, to sift through the reviews to find what they need. I am a traveling player. I want to play higher rated courses, but not only for course design. I have a laundry list of amenities that are important to me. I look for many of those before or equal to course design quality.

I do appreciate your opinion here though. Blogs, forums are designed for relating your experience and thoughts.

If I am looking at shoes, I don't want to hear about how much fun you had shopping. I am not interested in knowing you heard your favorite song, on the way to the store. I want to know about the shoe.

 

[dmoore1998]

If I am looking at shoes, I don't want to hear about how much fun you had shopping. I am not interested in knowing you heard your favorite song, on the way to the store. I want to know about the shoe.

If I'm looking for a shoe, i want to hear from people who have worn the shoe and whether they find it comfortable and would recommend it...I don't care that they are trying to place themselves in the role of shoe designer to marvel at the creativity and technical precision of the shoe design that they hated wearing.

My time has value. Sometimes I have the free time to dig through reviews and try to parse the pieces that might offer some glimpse into what my own experience might be. Sometimes I just need to know that 95% of people hated it...and I'll run the risk that I might have fallen into the 5% who thought it was magnificent.

I'm not going to plan a trip to another state to play the best courses there and spend 60 seconds checking UDisc ratings...I'm looking for well written reviews that I'm ok pouring over. I'm not spending an hour parsing DGCR reviews to know whether the course next to the hotel I'm staying at for work is worth popping over to play a quick round at.

I AM interested in this part though:

"I am not interested in your experience. None of it relates to how the course will play for me."

What are you doing on these courses that makes you think nobody else's experience playing the course relates to how the course will play for you? Do you play disc golf so differently than everyone else on the planet?

All I can think about is a conversation I had with someone I know...we were playing a course and almost everyone was loving the way a hole weaved through some large trees. Rough paraphrasing here:

"This hole looks fun"

"This hole sucks, all I throw is tomahawks and there are trees everywhere"

"Ummm, yeah...I guess if all you throw is tomahawks this is gonna suck".

 

[itsRudy]

Eh, very low entry of barrier for a lot of players who play few courses. I understand the inflated ratings.

When I was a new reviewer with less than six courses under my belt, it was easy to impress me and I put an over-reliance on tee signs and such that really only affected first time players. Some average bigger course impressed me from the community course run of the mill I was used to.

At over 50 course, my perspective changed a lot. I don't even notice tee signs and other niceties all that much unless it's a course I don't see baskets from the tee, I care how it plays. A lot of earlier courses that used to be impressive are now just ordinary once I saw the competition.

And I'm sure my POV will change with 250 courses. Or 1,250, if I ever get there.

What Udisc should do with scores is weigh them according to how many other courses that scorer has done. Rater has 1 rating under his belt? Shouldn't count as much as someone who rated 100 on their app.

I have more irks with Udisc about how courses are getting tons of different maps everytime someone want to show off his one-off safari layout or even just one or two teepads from the main, or making a 2x-3x course map when it should just be a scorecard change. That's the stuff getting tiresome, scrolling thru a bunch of irrelevant maps.

 

[ray1970]

I have more irks with Udisc about how courses are getting tons of different maps everytime someone want to show off his one-off safari layout or even just one or two teepads from the main, or making a 2x-3x course map when it should just be a scorecard change. That's the stuff getting tiresome, scrolling thru a bunch of irrelevant maps.

Or the people who like to try and change the pars.

Sorry, dude. That non-technical 411' hole is not a par four just because you suck at disc golf.

(Sorry for the derailment.)

I don't rate courses but if I did the difficulty level of the course would weigh heavily into my rating. Any course I play blind for the first time and shoot at or below par probably deserves a low rating for being too easy or boring. A course that challenges me and is difficult to score well on would get a higher rating. Most Udisc raters seem to take an opposite approach.

 

[WD09]

I have more irks with Udisc about how courses are getting tons of different maps everytime someone want to show off his one-off safari layout or even just one or two teepads from the main, or making a 2x-3x course map when it should just be a scorecard change. That's the stuff getting tiresome, scrolling thru a bunch of irrelevant maps.

Agreed! I have been told that they are in the process of changing this so that only certain people can make those changes. I hope that is true.

Having said that, I only use UDisc when I get to a new course and the tee signs and directional signage are so bad that I am forced to pull out my phone to find my way around the course.

 

[Billipo]

I pay no attention to ratings on Udisc. Very few make sense as if raters are unfamiliar with disc golf or have little experience but something to say.

Somebody actually removed a layout for one of my designed courses through Udisc. The Blue and White fairly recently had cement pads installed. The reds have natural so a random person deleted the red layout.

I questioned the admin about authority and he made it sound like it's kinda wild west, anyone can post anything. He seemed ok with that.

I indicated that I might be having a bad day sometime and pull all my courses from Udisc since apparently that would be ok as well.

 

[BillFleming]

I pay no attention to ratings on Udisc. Very few make sense as if raters are unfamiliar with disc golf or have little experience but something to say.

Somebody actually removed a layout for one of my designed courses through Udisc. The Blue and White fairly recently had cement pads installed. The reds have natural so a random person deleted the red layout.

I questioned the admin about authority and he made it sound like it's kinda wild west, anyone can post anything. He seemed ok with that.

I indicated that I might be having a bad day sometime and pull all my courses from Udisc since apparently that would be ok as well.

yeah, almost anyone can make changes to the uDisc courses, but it's weird on who can/can't make changes.

I play a course where hole 5 is a slightly down hill 508 footer. It's a par 3 that some people want played as a par 4. Someone "updated" uDisc to show it as a par 4 and I updated it back to par 3 and got an email that the change wasn't allowed - but no reason given. I sent a reply with a photo of the tee sign showing it was a par 3. uDisc changed it back to par 3.....sometime (months) later someone changed it to par 4 again. I asked uDisc if they could stop that from happening without proof the hole actually changed and I again included a photo of the tee sign. They said they would put the picture and a comment with the hole information...so hopefully it can't be changed again. But, sheesh, they were told once... why let it happen again?

 

[dmoore1998]

I have a private course at my house. It's set up to be all par 3s, because that's what I'm going to play them as anyways. Someone went in and changed a couple to par 4's (in their defense, one hole is over 700 feet...in my defense it's my house so suck it!). I tried to change them back, UDisc asked for tee signs as proof. When I pointed out it was a private course at my house they SAID they set the course so that nobody else would be able to change anything about it again except me. I haven't had any issues since...but I'm not sure if what they said was true with any real mechanics behind it or just that they put a note on the course or something.

 

[aphilso1]

yeah, almost anyone can make changes to the uDisc courses, but it's weird on who can/can't make changes.

I play a course where hole 5 is a slightly down hill 508 footer. It's a par 3 that some people want played as a par 4. Someone "updated" uDisc to show it as a par 4 and I updated it back to par 3 and got an email that the change wasn't allowed - but no reason given. I sent a reply with a photo of the tee sign showing it was a par 3. uDisc changed it back to par 3.....sometime (months) later someone changed it to par 4 again. I asked uDisc if they could stop that from happening without proof the hole actually changed and I again included a photo of the tee sign. They said they would put the picture and a comment with the hole information...so hopefully it can't be changed again. But, sheesh, they were told once... why let it happen again?

Same thing happened out here on a hole that's a tough par 3. Someone kept changing it in uDisc to a par 4, and the course designer kept changing it back. Eventually he got tired of the back and forth, so moved the pin placement to a harder spot to make it a true par 4.

 

[txmxer]

I have a private course at my house. It's set up to be all par 3s, because that's what I'm going to play them as anyways. Someone went in and changed a couple to par 4's (in their defense, one hole is over 700 feet...in my defense it's my house so suck it!). I tried to change them back, UDisc asked for tee signs as proof. When I pointed out it was a private course at my house they SAID they set the course so that nobody else would be able to change anything about it again except me. I haven't had any issues since...but I'm not sure if what they said was true with any real mechanics behind it or just that they put a note on the course or something.

I'm confused by the posts from both you and Bill. UDISC allows a random person to change the PAR rating on a hole, but when you (or Bill) go to change it to it's assigned PAR, UDISC says "no"? So, anyone can change it once, but then it's locked down until you provide evidence to an admin?

That is pretty crappy.

As far as assigning 3 to a 700' hole--it's just a number (to me). If I get a 3 and everyone else gets a 4, it's strokes on folks.

 

[KillerKoala777]

What's funniest to me is that you can change your personal pars on any hole to any number without updating the layout. uDisc just saves it to your phone as your personal pars. I have played courses where there is only one layout in uDisc, but in reality a basket has been moved from a par 3 location to a par 5 location. Instead of updating the global layout for the course, I just update my personal par to be accurate. Since this has been added, I am not sure why uDisc allows people to update layouts at all.

 

[txmxer]

What's funniest to me is that you can change your personal pars on any hole to any number without updating the layout. uDisc just saves it to your phone as your personal pars. I have played courses where there is only one layout in uDisc, but in reality a basket has been moved from a par 3 location to a par 5 location. Instead of updating the global layout for the course, I just update my personal par to be accurate. Since this has been added, I am not sure why uDisc allows people to update layouts at all.

that kind of defeats some of the usefulness and purpose of UDISC for comparing your round to others. Of course your goal is to be better than your last round, but it's nice to compare apples to apples as well.

Given that it is now the defacto scoring standard or one of two, it seems this needs to be improved upon.

 

[autocrosscrx]

I pay no attention to ratings on Udisc. Very few make sense as if raters are unfamiliar with disc golf or have little experience but something to say.

Somebody actually removed a layout for one of my designed courses through Udisc. The Blue and White fairly recently had cement pads installed. The reds have natural so a random person deleted the red layout.

I questioned the admin about authority and he made it sound like it's kinda wild west, anyone can post anything. He seemed ok with that.

I indicated that I might be having a bad day sometime and pull all my courses from Udisc since apparently that would be ok as well.

I hadn't really messed with uDisc at all, with exception of measuring throws. I just recently got into using their scorecards. The other day, I was trying to find a previous tournament layout for the course I was playing and between not being familiar with the site and not being able to read my phone screen while staring into the sun, I accidently deleted a layout.

 

[dmoore1998]

I'm confused by the posts from both you and Bill. UDISC allows a random person to change the PAR rating on a hole, but when you (or Bill) go to change it to it's assigned PAR, UDISC says "no"? So, anyone can change it once, but then it's locked down until you provide evidence to an admin?

That is pretty crappy.

As far as assigning 3 to a 700' hole--it's just a number (to me). If I get a 3 and everyone else gets a 4, it's strokes on folks.

I'm not sure what the trigger is...if it's the # of times changed...or because it gets changed multiple times in short succession. I don't know what the trigger actually is, but I imagine they're looking at changes back and forth by different users and at whatever threshold saying "wait a minute, let's get independent confirmation so these idiots aren't changing it back and forth every day".

 

[dmoore1998]

What's funniest to me is that you can change your personal pars on any hole to any number without updating the layout. uDisc just saves it to your phone as your personal pars. I have played courses where there is only one layout in uDisc, but in reality a basket has been moved from a par 3 location to a par 5 location. Instead of updating the global layout for the course, I just update my personal par to be accurate. Since this has been added, I am not sure why uDisc allows people to update layouts at all.

Well I mean someone has to update layouts if people want it to be correct. Imagine I'm the first person to add a layout to UDisc for a public course...and then 10x/year they move pins to secondary locations and then eventually back and UDisc is constantly wrong because nobody can update the layout.

UDisc isn't just scoring. You're updating the personal par...but people using UDisc for other things are going to want the actual layout updated to reflect the location/distance of that new basket being played.