Hate Voting: How to get rid of the problem...

Aidan wrote:
That said there's plenty more that could be done with the episode rating like generating that season average that were discussed earlier, do episode lists based on ranking and so on that could be really fun and even start conversations.

That was my point above. :) If TVMaze doesn't feel that information is a priority, or worth the programming effort, then... it's probably not that important.

I think it might start conversations if the data is seen as important. But right now it just seems to... be there. Because it's "traditional".

Gadfly wrote:
That was my point above. :) If TVMaze doesn't feel that information is a priority, or worth the programming effort, then... it's probably not that important.

I think it might start conversations if the data is seen as important. But right now it just seems to... be there. Because it's "traditional".

We've already done various improvements to increase the amount of ratings on the episode and show level this year. (rating on the general shows page, episode page, week calendar,...) We also have plans to continue improving ratings. To get better averages and to motivate users to give their feedback to better inform others. Or at least generate averages when there is enough data.

Aidan wrote:
That said there's plenty more that could be done with the episode rating like generating that season average that were discussed earlier, do episode lists based on ranking and so on that could be really fun and even start conversations.

Gadfly wrote:
Eh. I don't think it looks good or bad. And if TVMaze wants the site to look "good", why not just add 10-20-50 random votes per episode?

That's why the number don't mean anything to me. Who knows what the site has done to generate those numbers? Have they done anything? The assumption is that they're "real" votes, but who knows? I go to data sites based on the data, not who did or didn't watch a given episode. You could have an episode with 50 votes but no data. I'd rather have an episode page with a lot of data and 0-1 vote, than 50 votes and no data.

With the changes we've done this year, there has been noticeable increase in the amount of votes shows and episodes are getting. On a sidenote, I'd rather look 'bad' with a 'low' amount of ratings and focus on improving things in order to motivate users to vote more than be disingenuous. Our promise is to provide as accurate as possible data and to be trustworthy. This includes the ratings.

Jan wrote:
focus on improving things in order to motivate users to vote more

I can say what will motivate me, for example: a way to vote from watchlist. I'm too lazy to go inside each episode to vote :D

Now the voting and watchlist are kind of mutually exclusive.

The way to encourage users to vote more, IMO, is to give them more thing to use the votes for. To me, that means let me know who is voting, or what else they've voted for, or how it compare to other shows, or how the voting stacks up overall for the show, for the season, for all shows of a similar genre, for all shows, for all shows in the same time slot, etc.

I don't know if that's disingenuous, but to see that an episode has ## votes and an average vote-rating of @@ tells me.. well, nothing. It's a piece of data itself, with no way to compare it to anything. it's like knowing the population of a town. By itself, it means nothing. Compare it to other towns, or figure out how much money it gets from the government based on population, or how it affects revenue or business or tourism, and it means something.

Or to put it another way... context. The more context accompanying the single-episode vote rating, the better.

Jan wrote:
Sure, it's not that much work adding more voting badges. We'll do it soon.

And we've gradually added more ways of voting and marking episodes. So suggestions are welcome. :)

done.

@tnt wrote:
I can say what will motivate me, for example: a way to vote from watchlist. I'm too lazy to go inside each episode to vote :D

Now the voting and watchlist are kind of mutually exclusive.

It's your lucky day! :-D

@david wrote:
It's your lucky day! :-D

yay! :)

I already made a habit visiting episode page just for the vote, but this is brilliant!