Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down (variety.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Get ready to say goodbye to star ratings on Netflix: The company is getting ready to replace stars with Pandora-like thumbs ups and thumbs downs in the coming weeks. Previously-given star rating will still be used to personalize the profiles of Netflix users, but the stars are disappearing from the interface altogether. Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin told journalists on Thursday during a press briefing at the company's headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., that the company had tested the new thumbs up and down ratings with hundred of thousands of members in 2016. "We are addicted to the methodology of A/B testing," Yellin said. The result was that thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature. Netflix is also introducing a new percent-match feature that shows how good of a match any given show or movie is for an individual subscriber. For example, a show that should close to perfectly fit a user's taste may get a 98% match. Shows that have less than a 50% match won't display a match-rating, however.
My experience with Netflix's star rankings is they matched my inclinations pretty well... except when it came to Netflix-produced content. With that stuff, Netflix invariably told me their "best guess" was between 4.7 and 5.0 stars, every time - but, after watching it, I don't think I gave any of it even 4 stars.
So perhaps they're trying to hide the way they're gaming the system to favor their own products.
#DeleteChrome
Use an extension like this one that gives IMDb ratings on the Netflix page.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...