Sometimes, you give a 10 point quiz, max score = 10 out of 10. Sometimes, you give a 50 point research project, max score = 50 out of 50. And the final exam might be worth 100 points, max score = 100 out of 100. The TER has max score categories, starting with a 7; additional services raise the max score to 8, 9, or 10. But the current TER system doesn't let reviewers distinguish between those categories. A max experience with a 7-max Provider can only be scored a 7, not a 10.
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That's why I am an advocate of an X-out-of-Y scoring system. I have had many FANTASTIC 7-out-of-7s! A 7-out-of-7 is a great score but a 7-out-of-10 is not so good.
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And that's why I think that X-out-of-Y scoring is a 10-out-of-10 suggestion!
Frankly, I've never liked TER's numerical rating system. So, I've always used a grading system similar to what I experienced during my 22 years of education, and which I later used to grade students' written projects and exams when teaching college and law school courses as an adjunct professor.
Lately, I have noticed numerous reviews with scores like 6-5, but when I read the text, the review (imho) was glowing, and in my opinion again, should have been scored higher. Anyone else notice this trend? Just askin'
LLAP,
Swim
Probably the worst I saw about 2 years back the guy described the lady as absolutely beautiful, DDG and described the session as great several times. (Was a bit weak on the actual details but many reviews are.). I think the score was 5 in looks and 6 for performance.
Just reinforced the fact that the numbers are really meaningless and it's the text that really matters. Also means, I think to your that they should have been scored higher, there are probably a number of guys that just moved on to another who may be greatly enjoyed the session they could have had. But I think a lot of the newer members coming in after the down time came from sites that perhaps have a "tougher" scoring culture and think the 5s and 6s are considered good scores.
to me, too. I think there are a lot of newbies that have joined since TER since they came back from the blackout. Few are participating on the boards, so they don't have any insights into traditional scoring practices. They look at the review form, and see that TER says 5 is average and 6 is above average, and score accordingly. If you ask any provider if they think 6 is a good score for an above-average session, you know what they will say. Consequently, I have found myself reading review narratives of reviews scored at 5-6 where I would have skipped those before. it seems counterintuitive to give a girl a 6, and then rave about her in the narrative, saying you can't wait to repeat. I consider that if such reviews were coming from more experienced mongers, glowing reviews like these are generally at least an 8, so I consider that is the correct score for me to consider when evaluating a girl to see off of these types of reviews.
...are the exact opposite of what swim's OP is about. You give a K-girl a 7 but your review describes her as "below average" which means a 5. You really aren't in any position to talk about guys who "don't have any insights into traditional scoring practices." You piss all over TER's scoring system.
yes, my scoring ALWAYS matches the narrative of my reviews, which is what Swim was talking about. Thank you for pointing out that you can rely on a score of 7 from me to mean she was below average day in and day out. I have been consistent since my first review, which was 356 reviews ago. If you have any personal experience with reviews, you should give your perspective to him, too, on how you are able to give only 10's and 9's. You have not given anything lower, so are we to assume that if she's not top notch, you just don't review her at all. That seems kind of dishonest, don't you think? After all, you have more whitelists than you do reviews, so how do you decide who is good enough to make the cut for a review? Are you using your own system, too?
...the narrative of the reviews. That's EXACTLY what you do in your reviews as well. Your narrative will say it was an "under average" session which means a "5" but you give them a "7." Your narrative doesn't match your score.
You give higher scores than they deserve when you had an "under average" experience because, as you have stated, you don't want to hurt the K-girls' business. That's why you give them a "7" when they really should have gotten a "5." It doesn't matter that you have done it consistently for 356 reviews. It is consistently wrong and a consistent betrayal of TER's scoring system.
He won't post a review because it will look like an outlier and people will think he's out to hurt the girls business? Or was it someone else?
If that was him, that's the worst. Imagine having an average session and just because the girl has other good reviews, withholding your review - preventing someone with same taste as yourself from seeing it and at least be aware that the sess can go this way - only because of majority/mob mentality.
I just posted my scoring system on THIS board for the umpteenth time and you were part of that discussion. MY Narratives ALWAYS match the score I give on MY scoring system, and you know that. I don't use the TER numbers. Here's the link to remind you that we just went over this three months ago and you don't remember and bring it up again on this thread. Are you just a troll or should you get tested for dementia? If I can't count on you to remember things we have already resolved just a few months ago, then I won't waste my time with you and you will go back on ignore.
I understand that TER attempts to make the review process objective and scientific,
Bottom line is that how the client perceives his experience is just that...perception. One man's BBW is his idea of perfection, while another prefers spinners.
Just consider the reviews as a SUBJECTIVE interpretation of his experience. Kinda like YMMV, right?
But I have been amused by reviews that say a girl did everything but cook breakfast and she still scored only a 6.
Don't even get me started on the guys who put in a woman's profile that she's "really bi" although he's never seen her eat pussy.
They may also think guys will read their reviews if they score low. I think TER should change its "10" rating from one in a lifetime to something like "Top 10 experience" or something. Some guys take it as literal and argue either "How do I know it's one in a lifetime somebody else better may come along" - and thus will never give a 10. Or will provide a ten once and never give one again. But yeah, guys who write rave reviews and say a must-see then give a six are annoying. That means they deliberately dropped the score by a point.
My suggestion is to create a rate the reviewer as "helpful or not helpful."
That being said, if a provider has an average of 8, she must be pretty good, IMHO.
I have gotten a few of those. I have usually scored higher in the action than the looks. And that's even w TER not allowing a 10 without certain activities being listed on your profile (even if you end up doing them, which isn't my case). But my looks , my impression, I am cute enough, w great, homegrown tits but I am also older and not so girly girl as far as stuff that I can't handle(eyelashes, fingernails, high heels) so I would say I am a 6 or 7. But on here anything not a 7 or better is ugly. Or that's the impression I get. I always do my best to insure a good time but I am not everyone's cup of tea.
But in some reviews the words don't match the numbers. And some people won't even look at the review if the numbers are low. I learned from a blist program to always read the text. This particular program matched the number by the last 4 digits. A client I ended up seeing for awhile kept showing up. After looking into it further I found the reason. The last four isn't a good way to run that kind of thing. Anyways that is no longer in use so I hope it was ok that I mentioned it. But it just goes to show us , we need to be thorough .
That's a never ending debate. I think a 7 is "good looking" I'd say a 6 is "average" and 5 and below are less desiarable.. I think 10 means a fanboi review. 8 and 9 can be natural or entirely makeup.
Or you could just use the descriptions provided by TER for the numbers. 6 would be nice looking and 7 would be attractive.
Of course that still leaves a lot of subjectivity by the reviewer but I'm less sure that nice looking = average looking in most reviewers minds.
You can take any review system you want, restaurant, provider, even performance ratings. People are subjective entities, period. We all like different things, have different standards, a different perspective, and even when review guidelines are crystal clear, some totally ignore/or fail to use those guidelines.
TER does a decent job of steering reviewers in the right direction by providing basic, narrative examples for each rating. Problem is, some have either have no clue how to apply them or simply ignore them.
Bottom line, history has proven, it is very difficult for human beings to be objective about subjective activies--or even worse, pay attention to rating criteria.
Whatever the scoring system (points, stars, boners, etc), scores are subjective.
I noticed the disparity in providers reviews a couple of years ago. My solution is, when I see a review (low or high) that is uncharacteristic, I check the reviewers history too. I usually find that they just typically review everyone low/high. I then take that into account.
This method requires that both the provider and the reviewer have a meaningful history. But, I'm not going to contact a provider anyway who doesn't have enough reviews to establish a pattern. And, if the reviewer doesn't have a history, but a significant majority of the providers other reviews are favorable, I take it as an anomaly and don't worry about it.
Seriously. Unlike some threads that are useless duck fights, I learned a thing or two here.
Most if you guys a very intelligent and insightful.
I agree that a 1-10 died not make TER an outlier.
The rating system on TER is overdetermined. If you want to be fair to a lady, you can't give her a rating that matches the description that goes with the rating. For example, 5 on performance isn't "average," it is way out into the lower tail of the distribution (probably bottom 1 or 2 percent). People new to the site sometimes don't get this, and give an "average" lady a 5 performance rating instead of the true average which is probably about 7.5 to 8. I don't think this is new. Established reviewers try to give number ratings that match their true place in the distribution and then square the circle with the text. However, this just adds a third element to the consistency problem.
For me, I look at the numbers and compare them to the other reviews from the same person, and then read the text and try to read the tea leaves about what the true bottom line is. I don't think the best solution is to go with thumbs up and thumbs down as Mya suggests. These get converted to numbers by the sites anyway in one way or another (e.g., percentages of thumbs up or stars.
You have to read the text, and even then tastes differ. Some (M and F) want one hour or 90 minutes meetings and would feel uncomfortable with anything longer. Others (again M and F) like the GFE and BFE experience and like longer dates that really feel like dates, overnights, and especially travel together. At least this can be explained in the text.
Not sure I actually agree with your headline, though largely agree with your posts points. But I certainly don't have a solution to the problem you point at in the headline.
Your comment about new comers though did make me think perhaps TER could update it's Newbie FAQ/Instructions to include a "How to Use Reviews" not merely the how to search. Many of the points you make have been made by others as what they consider best practices:
1) Numbers are subjective and will have a (sometimes wide) distribution.
2) Numbers as useful as starting filters in a screen for reviewed providers but only the starting point.
3) The text is more important
4) Looks for reviews from reviewer with many (not just a few) reviews.
a) check for how much they actually vary their scores.
b) check to see if they reviewed someone you have seen - that gets you a key baseline to assess the review
5) Look for other reviewers who seem to review the same as the review you were looking at and follow 4a and 4b as well
6) Using reviews actually requires one assess the reviewer before you can use the review to assess the provider.
It's neither the arithmetic mean nor median
This is pure nonsense to me...why have a ten point scale if you only use 3 anda half numbers? Makes no sense. Why not follow the grading scale that is offered by the platform and not the "make provider feel better about herself" scale?
It isn't about making the provider feel good about herself, it is about trying to fit the review to the norms on the site. Between descriptions tied to the numbers and the numbers themselves, it is impossible to be consistent with both the numbers and the descriptions. It is possible to be consistent with the norms though.
By the way, I think your average performance rating is 7.1 with no rating below 5. This 7.1 mean is a bit lower than the 7.5-8.0 range I suggested for the overall all-reviewer mean, but much closer to that than 5.
36363jensen's suggestions seem good. Rule #8 also seems to need some modification, because it further muddies the waters by tying performance ratings to services that the client may not even want or know about. For example, how can you know if she is really bi unless you are getting into real friend SB/SD territory. One gal who isn't bi told me how she did a threesome with a friend who wasn't bi either, and she explained to my gal how they can fake it in threesomes in ways that don't actually involve bi sex, but are convincing to us. Also, why should she be penalized if she offers anal but you think it is gross.
Thinking norms are derived from some sample size is pretty, ahem, let's say naive because I don't want say harsher words just yet.
I've definitely seen girls with performance less than 5,its just I wasn't able to get reviews for them off.
People don't establish the norms, the platform does. I happen to think the norms established by ter are good. I enjoy a 1-10 scale because it gives a lot more nuance. When I give someone a really high score people who know me and my tastes know it's a real good provider that is exceptional. Whereas if some gives everyone 8s and 9s, there is zero differential between good and exceptional.
Same thing about bad and average. Or below verage but not worthless.
Frankly, I've never liked TER's numerical rating system. So, I've always used a grading system similar to what I experienced during my 22 years of education, and which I later used to grade students' written projects and exams when teaching college and law school courses as an adjunct professor. So here's how I assign numerical scores in my reviews:
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My 10 is virtually perfect, like giving a student 100% on an exam. While one might see a few of those in the looks category in their lifetime, they are extremely rare in the performance category and unobtainable from me on TER because I don't do anal any more nor do I do threesomes in the hobby.
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My 9 is truly exceptional, but just short of perfect. Her pictures are real, or are a very fair depiction of her current look, and I find her beautiful. An A student in looks and/or performance. Somewhere between 90 and 99%. These are rare, but they're out there. The gradations between 90 and 99 would be apparent from my narrative descriptions.
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My 8 is above average. Very good but not great. Her pictures are real, or are a very fair depiction of her current look, and I find her very attractive. She's a B student. Somewhere between 80 and 89% in looks and/or performance. This is my score for a lady who goes above and beyond, but could have done more. Again, the gradations, and things that I thought were missing or could have been better, would be apparent from my narrative descriptions.
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My 7 is for the average looks and performance. A C student. Somewhere between 70 and 79% in looks and/or performance. She meets my expectations but is only average. Her pictures are real, or are a very fair depiction of her current look. She delivers the promised services, but they're just ok. The gradations, and things that I thought were missing or could have been better, would be apparent from my narrative descriptions.
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My 6 is a disappointment for me. Somewhere between 60 and 69%. Her pictures are old, fake, excessively photoshopped, and/or are not a fair depiction of her current look. Alternatively, the pictures are her, but she's gained weight, changed her appearance, or done nothing to make herself presentable for our session. In terms of service, she delivers most of what I was promised (either in her ad, by text, or in her TER profile) but it's below average, lacks passion, and is barely better that a failure/disaster. The gradations, and things that I thought were missing or should have been better, would be apparent from my narrative descriptions.
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Anything 5 or below is a disaster. A failure. I rarely give a 5 or below, but when I do the reasons are well explained in my narrative. The difference between a 1 and a 5 doesn't really matter to me, but for example a 1 would be a rip/rob, and a 5 would be a very poor session. 'nuff said.
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That's how I assign my numerical scores. It's not perfect, but it's similar to what we've all experienced in the American educational model, and it's comfortable to me. Before any rules folks tell me it's not TER's system, I KNOW THAT! But at 66 years old I just have an issue calling anything that's 50% of the scale average, because in my entire educational and professional life someone who delivers a 50% output is a failure to me. If a lawyer lost 50% of his/her cases he/she would either be a public defender or wouldn't have any clients. If a salesperson meets 50% of his sales quota is he/she average? If so he/she works for a company that is soon to be out of business! Heck, bring home 50% of your usual salary and see how your spouse/partner responds. That's my story. Sorry it's so long, but I'm sticking to it!
Sometimes, you give a 10 point quiz, max score = 10 out of 10. Sometimes, you give a 50 point research project, max score = 50 out of 50. And the final exam might be worth 100 points, max score = 100 out of 100. The TER has max score categories, starting with a 7; additional services raise the max score to 8, 9, or 10. But the current TER system doesn't let reviewers distinguish between those categories. A max experience with a 7-max Provider can only be scored a 7, not a 10.
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That's why I am an advocate of an X-out-of-Y scoring system. I have had many FANTASTIC 7-out-of-7s! A 7-out-of-7 is a great score but a 7-out-of-10 is not so good.
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And that's why I think that X-out-of-Y scoring is a 10-out-of-10 suggestion!
Frankly, I've never liked TER's numerical rating system. So, I've always used a grading system similar to what I experienced during my 22 years of education, and which I later used to grade students' written projects and exams when teaching college and law school courses as an adjunct professor.
I’m good with that system. I’d also like to do away with the anal/bbbj/duo requirements to get beyond a 7.
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I also like the LASER system that a former site used, scoring each of Looks, Attitude, Service, Experience, and Repeat on a 1-10 or a narrative basis.