Reviews 2.0
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Reviews 2.0

Reviews 2.0

Andy Bauch - 2021-12-14

TL;DR

  • We are saying goodbye to our star rating fields.
  • If you previously used our star rating fields your data has been automatically migrated to the new rating format, and if you'd like an export of your star rating data we're happy to oblige!
  • At long last you can see what the community, and your friends and people you follow think about experiences. At both a high level, and in detail.

As of today we are changing the way experiences are rated on Morty. We are also adding a plethora of new review features.

While much has been written about issues with online rating systems, this sums it up perfectly:

https://xkcd.com/1098/

We believe that most ratings on the internet are broken. And we believe rating escape rooms, haunts, etc on a 5-star ⭐ or percentage πŸ’― scale does them a disservice. Same goes for other entertainment formats.

What is the difference between an escape room with 82% and 89% scores? Between a haunted attraction with 3.6 and 4.1 stars?

On the Morty team, many of our favorite tv shows and movies are lowbrow swill and weren't met with critical acclaim, but they are still our favorites. Entertainment preferences are deeply subjective, and what resonates for one person won't work for everyone.

Lowbrow swill
Lowbrow swill

So while it's helpful to quantify, to compare one piece of content to another in broad strokes, we think trying to compare and contrast over fractions of a point is often unhelpful or misleading.

What now?

When we first launched Morty we implemented a star rating system without much thought. But after much deliberation, many discussions with community leaders, and hundreds of conversations with enthusiasts we decided it was time to rip the band-aid off. 🩹

We are converting to a πŸ‘Ž, πŸ‘, ❀️ rating system. It is composed of an overall rating and a series of questions you can optionally answer about individual aspects of their experience.

Our hope is that this will make it easy to rate an experience along many axes.

Rating breakdown
Rating breakdown

And you'll see how positive/negative the ratings are across each category.

Aggregate ratings
Aggregate ratings

Plus within a few days we have another major release coming with more improvements:

You'll see a score wheel icon on lists, to show at a glance how positive (reddish orange) the community feedback is.

We hope this will paint a clear picture in broad strokes, without getting hung up on half stars and single percentage points.

Score wheel
Score wheel

You will (finally) see at a glance what your friends and other people you follow think about experiences.

Friends ratings
Friends ratings

And for those who like to go deep you can look up histograms to see just how scary that experience is, if it's good for kids, if the customer service is stellar, and much more.

Rating breakdown histogram
Rating breakdown histogram

For Morty users who have been using our 5-star system extensively β€” we are sorry to change things around on you! Things will work a bit differently now, but your star rating data is not lost and we're happy to export your data for you. We hope you'll see the advantages to the new system and be excited to stick with it.

Bye bye star ratings πŸ‘‹
Bye bye star ratings πŸ‘‹

To our whole enthusiast user base β€” thank you so much for all of your contributions! Your ratings and reviews of experiences help make the community better for everyone. Your suggested edits to attraction listings β€” and submissions of experiences we don't have yet β€” make the database stronger. And your feature requests and feedback are always incredibly helpful. Please keep it coming.

See you around! ✌️