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.

Comments

I suspect something different

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

Strangely this change is suddenly coming after Amy Schumer's latest comedy flop. And the claims of "review bombing" of course, every person that I've heard talk about watching it said it was a steaming pile of shit and worthy of it's 1 star review. A few people I know said it was so bad they wished they could have gotten back those precious minutes of their life.

Re:I suspect something different

[rtb61]

What is really stupid about this, it's like computers, duhh, they can only do one thing at a time, in long slow mud monkey time. They could simply do both and people who prefer stars focus on stars and people who prefer thumbs, go with twiddling their thumbs.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

Should be very easy for you and netflix to prove then. After all, youtube does this already. You have to watch(aka play) a percentage of the video in a steady stream for your up/downvote to be counted outside of what's actually displayed. The fact that netflix isn't showing this to be the case, and that the media has simply run with the "review bombing" and giving Schumer a platform to cry over while screaming "harassment/sexism/alt-right/etc" says that it's not a case of that. But people believe that it was simply terrible and were more vocal than normal, especially how much she and netflix tried to hype it up.

This isn't any different then the ghostbusters trailer flop, followed by the movie flop. She along with the other actors and director then went flailing their arms screaming "sexism/misogyny/etc" and the media started falling all over itself promoting that narrative. Despite the fact that it was simply a shit movie, the trailer was shit as well, and people in general hated it.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

How the hell could I prove something like that? I have no access to netflix internal statistics. ...

And you made the assumption just like her that it's review bombing. But we're supposed to take her word on it right? Seems that this is more along the lines of the trend in media and with elites that women are a super-protected class and you should believe everything they say, especially when there's multiple articles all saying exactly the same thing. You really have to believe her. After all, if you're critical of a women it's sexism, misogyny, conservatives or the alt-right. Just like ghostbusters last year.

But I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find it fishy that people who liked her previous stuff would all of a sudden think that the new show was a stinking pile of garbage.

Really? Let's compare it to video games, or a book written by a popular author. You can have an track record of great stuff, and then pump out shit. It happens often enough. You can see that with movies as well, especially the old "curse of the sequel." I don't find it fishy at all. Take a look at these two games: Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. The studio in question(Bioware) had a track record of decades of making great games, and managed to piss off their die hard fans with a single release because it was an absolute stinking pile of garbage.

She also draws big crowds, so some people clearly like her. But if you only read reddit you would never know this. Every single article that mentions her is completely bombarded with posts saying she is the worst comedian they have ever seen.
Not just "she sucks, so I don't pay attention to her", but really "she sucks and I hate her with a passion, so I will mention how bad she is at every possible opportunity" dislike.

The local yuk-yuks also draws huge crowds. But that doesn't really translate into anything. It also doesn't help that every time she opens her mouth, she's simply stolen the jokes, gags and so on from someone else and that has a tendency of pissing people off too. Especially when she tries to tout herself as "unique" and boy there's a lot of unique comedians like her out there these days almost down to the same act.

Obviously it is impossible to know what is really going on, but it does not seem completely ridiculous that there was some coordinated review bombing.

There's that assumption again. I'll just remind you about ghostbusters again, and how she along with the actors and director all claimed it was "review bombing" instead of just a steaming pile of shit that failed so badly that Sony took a $100-250m write-off on it. After all, if it was such a great show then all those fans you say she has would have already reversed it right? But that's not what's happening.

Addicted to Control

[LarryRiedel]

Netflix will control the narrative, with minimal input from pesky users. How long before there's only a heart symbol? How long before they take away comments like IMDB because you don't want them.

Nothing like fudging the number

[evolutionary]

So basically, they figured that 3/5 starts is a "thumbs up" and there will be more positive ratings (and making their offerings look better) while abstracting (hiding) the "meh" factor. Gotta love marketing.. I remember an old phrase from my math tutors: Statistics can lie. :D

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[ChromeAeonium]

Could be. I'm playing a game I got on Steam right now. It is thoroughly mediocre. I want to rate it, but Steam has only a positive/negative system as well, and this game deserves neither. So which do I give it? If I round up, it makes the game look better than it is. If I round down, I am being giving an inaccurate portray of how I really feel. I either am inaccurate, or I make tht game look better than it actually is in the rating aggregate, which will increase the likelihood of Steam making a sale.

In Netflix's case though, seeing as how you've already bought the subscription, I don't see how this will help them, but maybe that is their angle. Either way, as someone who gives far more 2-4 stars for things than 1 and 5 stars (because most things tend to fll somewhere between total crap and absolutely amazing), I do not welcome this change.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're going to convert my 2000+ ratings to thumbs up / thumbs down, then they better choose 4 as the cutoff for thumbs up.

5 = great ("top 100 of all time; would recommend to everyone")
4 = very good ("thumbs up / would recommend to other people, but only if I know their taste in movies")
3 = okay ("I've seen it / it's not good enough to recommend, but not bad enough to badmouth")
2 = bad ("thumbs down / would badmouth to anyone that asks")
1 = awful ("one of the worst things I've ever watched / never watch another movie from this director again")

I've only rated close to 100 titles each as 1 and 5, and about 300 - 400 titles each as 2 and 4. All the rest (i.e. the majority) are 3's.

tl;dr: For me, a rating of 4+ means "would be willing to watch it again."

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[antdude]

I'd prefer up, down, and medium. Just three choices.

Glad to see the star ratings go

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I'm sure there are many exceptions amongst the Slashdot user base, but hardcore critical thinkers aside, people don't use anything but "5 Stars" and "1 Star" anyway. They love it or they hate it. This change will make the experience more honest...now we KNOW it's just a bunch of crap. I'll be much less tempted to believe the recommendations now. That said...the recommendations Netflix used to give me, using the algorithm they used back in 2005...those were uncannily accurate.

Netflix becomes PC

[Silvergoat]

Great. Now the PC world has invaded online movie reviews. Sorry, haven't seen Lena Dunham or Amy Shumer, mostly because I dislike their material. Maybe it's a generational thing. Netflix is now invalidating their recommendations because some whiny Hollywood types got their feelings hurt. Has anyone ever seen Heaven's Gate? Seriously, if Netflix can't stand the heat of their ratings system, why even have a ratings system? Is Reed Hastings (Co-founder and CEO) so needy for West Coast adulation that he's gutting their system? Sad.

Blech. Two stars down

[Ted Stoner]

The current rating system works for me. I generally only consider shows with 4 stars or above. It seems to correlate with my expectations. I have tried to watch stuff with 3 stars only and found it lacking. If the new system blurs 3 stars versus 4 then I will end up watching more crud that I don't want to. However, I guess we will have to see how it plays out.

In Sweden, Netflix changed to the thumb up system.

[MindPrison]

I think it was 2 years ago, it's so long I don't remember it anymore, but I really hated when that happened.

I liked to see what stuff had one star rating, because it usually told me it wasn't worth watching, now I have a HUGE list of "continue watching..." that won't go away, simply because there's so much trash that Netflix "guesses" that I want to watch.

Bet the thumb system was introduced to stop people from complaining about too few movies and series, and watch "whatever" is available instead of being selective about what we watch.

Beyond Popcorn!

[naturjunge]

This is obviously what Reed Hastings meant as innovation that traditional theaters couldn't deliver.

Use IMDB

[hcs_$reboot]

Use an extension like this one that gives IMDb ratings on the Netflix page.

Fucking Retarded UI

[UnknownSoldier]

What's next -- removing the thumbs down???

What the fuck is the point of having ratings if you are just going to make them homogeneous???

Just because _you,_ Netflix, don't let me rate a movie 0/5 doesn't mean it deserves a 1/5. IF I hate a movie it should get 0/5.

The WHOLE point of a 5 star rating is to provide fine-grained-ratings not some bullshit dual artificial rating. There is a HUGE difference between me liking a movie 50% and 100%. Some movies are 3/5 (60%), 4/5 (80%), and very few are 5/5 (100%). Lumping them these ALL together is fucking retarded. HOW is that helping the system find stuff I _really_ like vs stuff I _kind of_ like???

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[CrashNBrn]

Rating is easy...and you could always change your mind.

1 Star - A Sack of Still Steaming Shit.
2 Stars - Stinks on a Good Day
3 Stars - Meh
4 Stars - Not Bad
5 Stars - Pretty Damned Good

Thumb up/Down only is freaking useless unless it also allowed for 2 Thumbs up, 2 Thumbs down, and Meh (1/2 thumb).

Just like Google Music, there is no distinction between "heard before and it was meh". Like or Dislike is just not anywhere near distinct enough to account for taste.