Why bother reviewing courses...

[ohtobediscing]

Read my review for Vance Park/OR. It starts out, "I really like Vance." Its the only review I have that has more than 1 thumbs down, and it has 4 of 'em. What, the local homers don't want others playing their course?
I like providing humorous anecdotes or course quirks 'cause most of the rest has been covered by previous reviews. And some of those are SO long-winded that I'm tempted to thumb-down 'em. Seriously? Two scrolls and I still haven't reached the end of your diatribe? Shut up yet!
Meanwhile, you seem so thin-skinned you must be a mummy.

 

[iHitTree]

I like reviewing courses because it really helps burn them into my memory forever; if anyone else likes reading them, that's just a bonus. :thmbup:

GoodDriveBadPutt, I think I'll adopt your attitude. The rest of you guys who advise ignoring thumbs, appreciated. I guess my thought was that if your "ratio" sucks, then people won't take time to read your reviews, so my next thought was, why write them? Appreciate the honest feedback everybody.

 

[sloppydisc]

Yep, just do your thing and let the chips fall where they may. And sooner or later you'll get a bunch of thumbs up when you think you're due to get bashed. Sometimes there is no logic to it. Just don't call people idiots. :\

 

[prerube]

Don't review for the thumbs, dude/dudette... life is too short.

This.

I have gotten thumbs down because people do not agree with one sentence out of the entire review, I have gotten thumbs down because I reviewed a course too high or too low, and I have gotten thumbsdown just because people do not like something I said on the forums.

 

[bholy08]

This.

I have gotten thumbs down because people do not agree with one sentence out of the entire review, I have gotten thumbs down because I reviewed a course too high or too low, and I have gotten thumbsdown just because people do not like something I said on the forums.

I vote for a thumbs down in the threads

 

[thrembo]

I vote for a thumbs down in the threads

You can "rate" threads, if that helps.

 

[iHitTree]

I really struggled with the rating admittedly. I flipped twice between a 3.5 and a 4, and ultimately if there was anything in between, I look at this course as a 3.7-3.8...and the feeling I had upon leaving was more "that was tight. What course next time I am free?" rather than "I need to get back here stat." so that caused me to hold back on full 4.

 

[iHitTree]

My previous was referring to Iron Hill that sloppydisc brought up earlier

 

[Disc Fiend]

I gave your Nock review a :thmbup: the other day, thought it was pretty good.

 

[mashnut]

GoodDriveBadPutt, I think I'll adopt your attitude. The rest of you guys who advise ignoring thumbs, appreciated. I guess my thought was that if your "ratio" sucks, then people won't take time to read your reviews, so my next thought was, why write them? Appreciate the honest feedback everybody.

It's a good attitude. Review because you want to, not because you want to get thumbs up. If you have a decent ratio of thumbs up to thumbs down you're probably doing something right, ignore the random negative votes and keep writing reviews if it's something you enjoy doing. Like GDBP, I certainly haven't stopped writing reviews just because I got to a certain number of thumbs up, I write because I like sharing my opinion on the courses I've played and hopefully that can help other people find courses to play.

 

[diamondsplus]

for a newbie like me, I appreciate the reviews, keep doing what your doing.

 

[eegor]

I received a couple of thumbs down for trashing the course closest to my house. In it I said:

This is not worth playing if your in the parking lot, discs in hand and you are itching to play. I'd rather throw on a football field.

I stand by this opinion. It's been played by 70 members of this site, 11 have reviewed it and it gets a stellar rating of 0.77

I suppose some people don't like reading the honest truth.

 

[tom12003]

Need reviews

Most players never take the time to do a review. No matter my "course rating", if I find it redundant to other reviews, I'll skip the effort to provide a review or to do a thumbs up/down.

Case in point--I spent almost a year in developing a new course (Plantation Ruins at Winget, about a 3.6 rated course), and had 576 AM players playing it during the 2012 Worlds. Maybe got one or two reviews. Possibly because they shot worse than their expectations (average was a PDGA rating rating of 935 or so)--welcome to wooded courses.

Unless some of the better players actually participate in the rating process, what are reviews worth?

I would love to find a course rating system without having to do a redundant narrative.

Got dubbed, Sir Tom of Winget for the 2012 Worlds.

 

[dreadlock86]

@ dreadlock, Man, I freaking love that avatar.

But it's true... once I reached diamond, I didn't stop, I just kept going and going and going. I like reviewing courses because it really helps burn them into my memory forever; if anyone else likes reading them, that's just a bonus. :thmbup:

i find this to be true. if i spend the time thinking about all the things i need to in order to write a decent review, i will tend to remember the course really well, even if i only played it once or twice.


zelda love

 

[EJBusch]

I completely understand what people are saying here. I spent some time on one review, then 0 of 6 people found it helpful and I have yet to write another review. It really turned me off of the process when people decided I wasn't helpful. I'm not even sure what wasn't entirely helpful about it...

 

[scarpfish]

Apologies in advance...this is a venting post.

What's the point of taking a half hour or more to put together a ton of information about a course with the goal of helping out of towners get a grasp on the experience of playing a course without "giving away the ending"???

What's wrong with "giving away the ending"? Were not reviewing a movie or book here, but a venue for a sport played by people with different skill levels, years of experience and desires in what they want in a course. When the people who come play the course you're reviewing, their experience will likely be different than yours, especially if they're a one timer versus someone who plays a course freqently, or if the course in question is "adjustable" and they play a different layout.

Each time I write a review, I try to put my personal feelings, score and experience aside and enlighten someone who hasn't played a given course with information such as signage, tee area descriptions, amenities, hole design, difficulty level, elevation changes, length of holes, popularity/crowdedness, technical vs. open, natural landscape/vista descriptions, proximity of a hole to the next, originality hole to hole versus a lot of the same, and any other details circumstantial to the course that would be important to know.

We could use more of that around here. Keep up the good work. :thmbup:

Don't mark "unhelpful" to a long, carefully thought out, time consuming review intended to help just because I made honest attempts to be constructively critical in the Cons section. It seems hometown fans of certain courses can't take negative marks. If you truly feel a review was not helpful, fine, but be honest!

As long as the reviewer doesn't fill the cons section with things that are blatantly false, or things that make it obvious that he's a sucky player who hates any sort of challenge, is using the review feature to vent his frustrations, and essentially is whining about his lack of game more than he's talking about the course, I never do click the red thumb, although I may not necessarily click the green one either.

 

[tarel]

It happens. I wrote some reviews during the disc fever first 6 months of playing when i thought i knew everything,and i read them now"not helpful" i am going to redo them eventually but it happens.

 

[iHitTree]

I completely understand what people are saying here. I spent some time on one review, then 0 of 6 people found it helpful and I have yet to write another review. It really turned me off of the process when people decided I wasn't helpful. I'm not even sure what wasn't entirely helpful about it...

That was my thought exactly when posting the original post.

 

[notapro]

I completely understand what people are saying here. I spent some time on one review, then 0 of 6 people found it helpful and I have yet to write another review. It really turned me off of the process when people decided I wasn't helpful. I'm not even sure what wasn't entirely helpful about it...

I think you were the victim of people thumbing down your rating, and not your review. They didn't agree with the perfect 5, and that was that (especially since the guy above you gave it a 1. :|).

I thought your review was solid, personally. :hfive:

 

[the_pwnerator]

Ya the thumbs system is broken...it doesn't really matter. Its stupid that someone can give you a thumbs down if they think you scored the course too high or too low.