Movement in top 10

[donnyv]

Are they ever really finished?

Nope, always looking to improve.

So, here's my baby. Mill Creek. A work in progress. Awesome so far!

Still not finished building her (22 of 27 holes playable) but I finally reviewed my course after our first year of play ability. I might never crack DGCR top ten (and I'm prob more of a 4.25 right now without foliage) but she does have a good amount of the 4.50 days during the year. Not to shabby for just one guy building a course by hand with no money and no tractor.

A few of the DGCR crew has played it this summer but noticed she wasn't finished yet so they must of held back their reviews. Probably had close to 300 different players try it out this year. Here's a few ratings from others. I never asked anyone to review her. It's up to them to find DGCR or dgscene or whatever else they used to find my course. I just need the donations to keep her going and to fix/buy equipment and fuel. Maybe I could make a decent living off it when I retire in 31 years...

some eye candy

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

I've played many courses that remained "unfinished" for years. I review the course as it presents on the day that I play it.

Well you now have a review for a 9 hole course mixed into the reviews of an 18-hole course. Great job!

 

[Stardoggy]

Well you now have a review for a 9 hole course mixed into the reviews of an 18-hole course. Great job!

If a 9 hole course went to 18, it should have had the 9 hole version made extinct, and a new page made for the 18 hole course.

If I go to a course that's listed on here, and it's 9 holes, I'm going to review it as 9 holes. If you don't want to have that 9 hole layout reviewed, then turn off reviews. Why is that so hard?

 

[biscoe]

No existing course is ever "finished"- none of them, not even one. If a course is open for play imo it is open for review.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

As to the others who mention that a course might not ever "really be finished," in the case of Lake Claiborne - Dogwood, the course was still in the process of being laid out when it was first reviewed. What should probably happen is that the course should be renamed, made extinct and re-listed under the current name as a new course. I'm not certain, but I don't even think that all nine of the holes that were reviewed by the first two reviewers made it into the finished, 18-hole course.

 

[Jay Dub]

So as soon as an upgrade happens all previous reviews would be invalid? Wouldn't that instantly knock that course off the top ten list until enough good new reviews are done?

 

[markmcc]

I agree that if the course was overhauled significantly after the original reviews, then set up a new course in DGCR and start over. But I fail to see where I erred by reviewing an open public course that was already listed in DGCR. It's not like I added it so that I could review it.

Perhaps if they start fresh they can achieve that elusive rating of 5.0.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

I agree that if the course was overhauled significantly after the original reviews, then set up a new course in DGCR and start over. But I fail to see where I erred by reviewing an open public course that was already listed in DGCR. It's not like I added it so that I could review it.

Perhaps if they start fresh they can achieve that elusive rating of 5.0.

Well maybe the problem is with whomever added it or the designer for not adding it first and having the review locked or whatever the Trey courses did to stop reviews before they were ready. And I don't suggest that anyone should rate it in any particular way. Certainly none of the 5 disc reviews have any substance to them. But the first two reviews aren't even reviews of the existing course.

 

[Stardoggy]

As to the others who mention that a course might not ever "really be finished," in the case of Lake Claiborne - Dogwood, the course was still in the process of being laid out when it was first reviewed. What should probably happen is that the course should be renamed, made extinct and re-listed under the current name as a new course. I'm not certain, but I don't even think that all nine of the holes that were reviewed by the first two reviewers made it into the finished, 18-hole course.

If it was that far from completion, then it probably shouldn't have been on the site. I do understand that there is some overzealous individuals that want to be "the guy" that posts a course on here, though.

So as soon as an upgrade happens all previous reviews would be invalid? Wouldn't that instantly knock that course off the top ten list until enough good new reviews are done?

Significant upgrades, my man. As in, the whole dynamic of the course changes. I can't think of a way to track small, incremental improvements. I suppose it's the bane of course ratings. Then again, I'm not all that smart.

I agree that if the course was overhauled significantly after the original reviews, then set up a new course in DGCR and start over. But I fail to see where I erred by reviewing an open public course that was already listed in DGCR. It's not like I added it so that I could review it.

Perhaps if they start fresh they can achieve that elusive rating of 5.0.

If it's available to be reviewed, and you played it, then review away, I say. If I am showing up the day after you (which I'd most likely only do from finding it on here), then I'd like to know what I'm walking into.

 

[joecoin]

How hard is it to figure out by reading the reviews when a course has undergone a revision/upgrade. (Or downgrade for that matter.)?

Use your brain, drop any reviews prior to major changes, add up the total number of discs awarded on the remaining reviews and divide that by the number of remaining reviews to get your new average.

Or just go play the damn course.

As for the top 10 courses, it really doesn't matter. (By the way, Ohio State is the true #1 college football team in the universe.)

 

[sisyphus]

How do you do this? I'm currently fixing a course that's not ready for reviews.

It's my understanding that the course designer can contact TimG to do this. I know Fred Salaz held off reviews of Dunham for over a year, and our very own goosefraba1 is holding back reviews on Black Bear because it's only got half the baskets on site so far (and he's possibly moving ... )

The pros and cons of doing this: you can 'protect' your rating (a little), but folks want to know about courses that are open for play. Can't please everybody. I'm of the opinion that it's best for designers to list a course themselves as soon as baskets go in, so they can get the buzz(z) out, and build traffic (which is good for a new course: we pick up sticks as we play, trample down some of the rough, thorns, etc.). But if they want to hold reviews off, that's their prerogative. I think I'd like to get the feedback, so I'd know where to invest my limited energy and time next.

Maybe we can add a little feature for premium members to see a graph of ratings over time? Courses with vast improvements could earn recognition too. :thmbup:

 

[MikeK]

Excellent discussions. I'll throw in my 2 cents.

A review should never count if the reviewer didn't play the entire course. I'm with Stardoggy, the reviews of LC-Dogwood made when it was a 9-hole temporary layout should be deleted. Sorry markmcc, I really appreciate your accurate reviews of courses but you didn't actually review this course. The course designer of Lake Claiborne was pretty upfront with us on FB that the 9-hole Dogwood layout was not the permanent design, and the rest of the course was under construction when markmcc played it.

I also like Chuck's idea but would rather the counted reviews be from the last 3 years, not 2. Two years goes by like the wind, and some courses don't even get reviewed once in two years.

 

[blazerico]

If a course is "unfinished", it shouldn't be listed, or should be listed as a practice course, so it's not in the general search.

I got blasted this year for reviewing an unfinished course. guy listed the course so people could find it (completely unnecessary because they have a fb page and every local worth a damn was aware of it) but didn't block reviews. he was extremely displeased with my comments and suggestions, then blocked reviews. funny thing is, many other locals agreed with me but didn't say anything because they didn't feel like dealing with the guy's crazy ranting.

So, here's my baby. Mill Creek.

wishlisted. probably playing MI in 2016!

 

[markmcc]

Excellent discussions. I'll throw in my 2 cents.

A review should never count if the reviewer didn't play the entire course. I'm with Stardoggy, the reviews of LC-Dogwood made when it was a 9-hole temporary layout should be deleted. Sorry markmcc, I really appreciate your accurate reviews of courses but you didn't actually review this course. The course designer of Lake Claiborne was pretty upfront with us on FB that the 9-hole Dogwood layout was not the permanent design, and the rest of the course was under construction when markmcc played it.

I don't have a problem with the reviews of the nine-hole course being disregarded, but I guess that my point is that I had no way of knowing what the status of the course is the day I played it. There was a map of a nine-hole course available, I wasn't on the local Facebook page to know the long-term plans, and the park presented the course as playable. So my review is accurate for the course that was in place at the time. I have no doubt that an entirely different course exists less than a year later, and I hope to get back into the area in the future to review it.

On a related topic: What is your opinion of the reviewer who edited his review and changed his rating from 3 to 4.5 sight unseen, based on what others were saying. Kosher??

 

[MikeK]

Wood Chuk is another of my favorite reviewers like you markmcc. He seems to go out of his way to write reviews for out of the way, sparsely-reviewed courses. So I trust him changing his rating from 3 to 4 1/2. Although I haven't personally played LC, several players that I trust have all raved about it. I don't know if LC deserves to be in the DGCR Top 10, but a review giving it 4 1/2 is probably pretty accurate. Myself I've reviewed Lake D'Arbonne which is also in north Louisiana, and I gave that a 4 1/2, and the people that have played D'Arbonne & Claiborne say Claiborne is far superior to D'Arbonne.

 

[scarpfish]

Then why should I care if my review of a partially finished course brings down the average?

This site serves many purposes to many people. If I'm off traveling, and I have to choose to play one course out of many, then I want current reviews reflective of what that course is now. If that happens to bring down a future rating, I really don't care.

Hey, if you want red thumbs from people who read your review after the problems have been corrected, that's your business.

and readers can see what the date was and will be able to tell that parts of the course have been updated by later reviews from others. the information in the review is more significant than however much one score budges the number

This is assumptive that all courses get reviewed significantly enough for these updates to be mentioned, and that the reviewer will mention them. Maybe where you live every course gets a new review every month or two, but that's not the case around here, particularly in rural areas. One stinkpuss review can do damage when its one of less than ten. I've actually had to steer people traveling through on I-70 to a better course with a lower rating due to a couple of numbskull travelers who thought navigation was everything.

 

[reposado]

Hey, if you want red thumbs from people who read your review after the problems have been corrected, that's your business.

people will give thumbs down for all sorts of idiotic reasons. it's better to just let that go then start catering to them

 

[reposado]

This is assumptive that all courses get reviewed significantly enough for these updates to be mentioned, and that the reviewer will mention them. Maybe where you live every course gets a new review every month or two, but that's not the case around here, particularly in rural areas. One stinkpuss review can do damage when its one of less than ten. I've actually had to steer people traveling through on I-70 to a better course with a lower rating due to a couple of numbskull travelers who thought navigation was everything.

and if people just look at the rating without considering the number of reviews.... well then there will never be a help for that. the rating isn't trustworthy with a small number of reviews. never will be.

 

[Stardoggy]

Thumbs down are the least of my worries. I've got a review of Root River that has a few because I played it before a redesign and reviewed it. I haven't been back since, and I'm certainly not going to change my review until I do.

 

[timg]

The idea of limiting reviews to the last [insert time limit here] is one I've toyed with. It would only apply to courses that have been on the site for a certain amount of time while also having a certain amount of reviews. If there weren't at least 20 reviews in the last 2 years for a course (or whatever time limit), I'd take all the reviews that do meet that qualification and then just take the next most recent reviews to get to 20 or whatever number.

Someone earlier asked what the top 10 would look like if it was just reviews from the past year. On the annual top courses list, one of the lists is reviews just from the past year. It shakes things up a bit. I think going by the method mentioned above would result in more diversity in the top 10 without certain courses sitting at the top for years at a time.