To me, the skill level of the reviewer should be disclosed. It matters because you need to know where their game is to understand where they are coming from. I am not saying change the rating system to give more weight to higher rated players, their viewpoint is just as important, but it means different things to different levels of players. For instance, a sidearm 300' flick player may love a course that others don't care for.
Again, you are on my wavelength totally. What I learned here is that lots of reviewers do
not rate from their own personal perspective and their own personal preference points....they rate (the number) from what they think the masses will think. I think the data I went to great pains to gather bear that out.
What lots of Reviewers write (the words) is intended to be helpful to all. I have no beef with that. Lots of people with lots of skill levels can benefit knowing that a given course holds water in puddles/mud for a week after a rain, or has no bathrooms, or has parking issues, or gets really overcrowded on weekends, or is easy to get lost on (so bring a map is advised), or has major mosquito problems, or is very thorny, or offers little shade and has no drinking fountains near hole 9, or is very hilly exhausting but has no benches, etc.
But when it comes to
design, these same reviewers try hard to appeal to the masses too. This simply does not work. Like you pointed out with your Justin Bunnell post, a hole that can be perfect for a mid-level player is boring for a higher rated player AND for a lower level player. Also, many reviewers simply do not understand design in the framework of testing player skills.....they write about things like flow/fairway routing, erosion control, safety. Not that those are bad in and of themselves, but those things belong on a designer group forum, not in a users/players forum.
So, for a player to rate a course based on how well he/she can compete against the course (the single most important aspect in the
sport of disc golf), he/she needs to let readers know how they rate the course in this area. And, you have to rate this area for a specific skill level (and disclose that).
Well.....that was a whole bunch of rambling to let you know that you will not get the very logical thing you ask for from "Trusted Reviewers" ratings since they write (and rate) for the masses (the lump sum average.....the fat part of the bell curve).
And.....all that said, I still maintain that DGCR ratings do extremely well at finding courses for me that I really enjoy. I have found that anything rated >3.5 will only very rarely disappoint and that <2.5 are not worth me going out of my way and spending precious time on if I have other options.
So for say
Flip City, I did not enjoy it to a 5.0 experience that DGCR rates it (it was an A grade 4.0 experience), or
Idlewild which I enjoyed at a B+ great experience....these courses are still wonderful courses but their scoring experience for
me is the primary thing that knocked them down. Conversely,
Yadkin County Park is only rated 3.57, but it has all the elements (especially scoring euphoria) for me that makes it an incredibly addictive experience......if I lived nearby I would go there over and over and over in hopes of conquering it. The better a course is at giving me that reaction, the better the course.....so I gave it an A+ (5.0).
