Car Thread ratings

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George-Jung
18
Joined: 29 Apr 2014, 15:39

Car Thread ratings

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I noticed the following (@ May 22nd, ratings and pages will change) about the car thread ratings..

Toro Rosso topic: 20 pages / 130 positive ratings = average of 6,50 positive ratings per page.
Marussia topic: 11 pages / 65 positive ratings = average of 5,91 positive ratings per page.
Sauber topic: 16 pages / 51 positive ratings = average of 3,19 positive ratings per page.
Williams topic: 34 pages / 105 positive ratings = average of 3,09 positive ratings per page.
Ferrari topic: 130 pages / 397 positive ratings = average of 3,05 positive ratings per page.
Force India topic: 13 pages / 33 positive ratings = average of 2,54 positive ratings per page.
Red Bull topic: 97 pages / 239 positive ratings = average of 2,46 positive ratings per page.
Mercedes topic: 141 pages / 338 positive ratings = average of 2,40 positive ratings per page.
Lotus topic: 38 pages / 83 positive ratings = average of 2,18 positive ratings per page.
McLaren topic: 125 pages / 267 positive ratings = average of 2,14 positive ratings per page.
Caterham topic: 19 pages / 27 positive ratings = average of 1,42 positive ratings per page.

Could I therefor conclude that 'we' can find the (in average) most informative posts in the small/medium sized team-topics?
and that (in average) the bigger the team gets, the less informative the posts become?

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turbof1
Moderator
Joined: 19 Jul 2012, 21:36
Location: MountDoom CFD Matrix

Re: Car Thread ratings

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I think this correlates to the amount of posts which aren't related to the technical "touch and see" (those 3 words must been said so many times) side of the car. For instance the mercedes topic was a while ago absolutely plagued with off topic jibber jabber: posts about lap times, generic intercooler talk, "holding back updates", etc. In the smaller topics we barely ever have to step in, since people discuss matters on topic without exception. I even go as far as saying that moderation goes down as votes/page goes up. We of course have outliers, like the caterham topic.

However, I think it's wrong to average out good posts and bad posts. If we leave out the non-relevant posts in the big-team car topics, and just look at the relevant ones, then I think quality-wise it's the same.
#AeroFrodo

Richard
Moderator
Joined: 15 Apr 2009, 14:41
Location: UK

Re: Car Thread ratings

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I think it is inevitable for a number of reasons:
  • Threads for small teams are self selecting - People will only bother to even look for the thread for a minor team if there is have something to justify the effort. In contrast big teams attract a bigger fanbase, hence more fanboys asking if the team will have 4 wheels on the car in the next race. (by the way they'll have 5).
  • Small teams only catch attention if they do something extraordinary, their mediocre stuff goes unnoticed. In contrast there is so much noise in the press about big teams that some noise ends up in the respective threads.
  • I also suspect failure against expectations drives quality down due to people getting frustrated. For example McLaren attracts a lot of posts lamenting that the car is rubbish, while others blindly say they should create a Frankenstein car that copies the Mercedes FRIC, Red Bull diffuser and the Lotus nose. We saw a lot of that with Merc in recent years.
As it happens, I have suggested to Steven that votes should be shown as a % but that's not an out of the box function unfortunately. Some of the best quality threads have few posts but those posts are brilliant. I also wonder if we should have a star system graded from 1 to 5 so we don't get too caught up on individual votes.

I also suggested that we anonymise the car threads to avoid fan bias. For some reason Steven hasn't taken me up on that idea :?

George-Jung
18
Joined: 29 Apr 2014, 15:39

Re: Car Thread ratings

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So basically this confirms what I tought.. That bigger teams have a bigger fanbase and therefor their topics attract less informative posts... Something that is not directly clear if you look at the absolute number of upvotes.

So it perhaps is a little bit 'misleading' to show the absolute number of upvotes.. instead of the average upvotes per page.
Because for example the Marussia car thread has one of the most average upvotes per page, but if you look at the absolute number you would not immediately expact that..

A system with stars could indeed be a solution.. So for example if a topic has an average of 5 upvotes per page, you get 5 stars.. And if the topic has an average of 2 upvotes per page you get 2 stars.

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