Reply for #17 and #18. I disagree about all ratings being equal. A rating of, say...all 2's with a commentary of "Hated it" does me absolutely no good. At least give it a comparison to SOMETHING so I'll know a little about it.

In Reply To #26 Ohhh I definitely agree with that!

In Reply To #26 OK, all HONEST reviews are created equal regardless of when it was made :) Chances are, most of those reviews will not count towards the beer average once the formula is changed. And if a person reviews a dozen beers and always gives them 2's or 10's then they're banned and deleted anyway. I've done that a few times to people who obviously were trying to cause trouble.

In Reply To #28 laying down the hammer!

In Reply To #28 Can and will you do that to anyone who claims (insert macro-name brand swill/pisswater here) is the absolute nectar of the gods? While I respect anyone's right to their opinion, I do NOT have to respect their opinion. You're right, I'm gonna catch a bit of flack about that, but dammit! I've a hard time reading a review of someone who says (insert macro-name brand swill/pisswater here) is the best, then turns around and says a finely crafted brew, regardless of style, is crap. This b.s. throws the whole rating system out of kilter.

In Reply To #30 And how are you going to prove to them that it tastes like crap? You have no right to undermine someone's autonomy. If they honestly do like it, which many people do, then they have the right to give it a high score just as much as you have the right to give it a low score. I have beer rating books by both Michael Jackson and Bob Klein (among others), two of the most well known reviewers of beer in the world. It's almost mind boggling to compare some of their ratings. One would give a beer 1.5/4 while the other gives it 3.5/4, and these guys hardly lack experience. Then I also have a book that i think is called the Beer Log, written by a beer tasting institute where the reviews are written by a panel. Their reviews are so far off from Jackson's and Klein's, it's not even funny. Anyway, it just goes to show that looking at the numbers is almost futile. You have to read what they say and usually after reading a bunch of a particular person's review you can figure out if your opinions are aligned. If not, just ignore them. The only way anyone deserves to have their review deleted is if they write bogus stuff such as "This beer is like sucking on goat". I don't care who you are, you shouldn't describe anything in a way that can't be true, no matter how bad it is. No beer actually tastes close to urine! In the future we'll be deleting reviews that are not written seriously.

Having various beer drinkers with different preferences and different opinions is the beauty of reviewing beers in the first place. Just imagine how boring this would be if everyone had the same opinon and wrote similar reviews? I like coming on here and reading different opinions on beers and the great thing is nobody is wrong. That's just plain ignorance Pk...

In Reply To #30 I agree with pk re: reviews that are off-the-wall. I have seen some on this site where someone in effect gives a five-star rating to a 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 star type of product. Offhand I don't remember seeing one that said (for example) "ALL Alesmith brews are CRAP" but there may well be some like that...? However we would all be bored to tears if there were only technical jargon and precise lists of numbers (German engineering style) for a recreational beverage, correct ? Some latitude is necessary for human beings with different perspectives to all have a voice.

This message was edited by surfsleez at 7/25/2004 3:24:27 PM.