A question about how people rate teases

[fapnip]

I often see good teases get beat up in ratings for no understandable reason, so it got me thinking about why people rate teases the way they do.

I'm sure it's over simplified, but I'm guessing that those that rate teases fall into one these categories:

1. I only rate teases that are applicable to me. I give an honest 1 to 5 rating on teases based on my enjoyment of them. I understand that 1 star is reserved for teases that, objectively, should never have been published.
2. I rate all teases, even if the description tells me it's not my cup of tea. I give an honest 1 to 5 rating on teases based on my enjoyment of them.
3. I only give 5 star ratings. if I don't like a tease, or feel it falls below 5, I don't rate.
4. I always give a 5 star rating to my favorite tease/author. Because I'm also an ass-hat, I insist on giving 1 star ratings to any tease that currently has a rating competitive with my favorite. (I'm sure there are far more of these than are willing to admit.)

So which one are you?

[intermolecularpyro]

Often it seems to be niche fetishes or tastes which suffer most rating-wise.
I will only rate teases if I've played them the whole way through, or close enough, and only play ones which will appeal to me. I mean, why would I play a tease concerning something I'm not into, then think "I didn't like the subject matter, and that's why I'll rate it low".
I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for a few.
I'm working on a BBW based tease right now, and fully expect it to be rated lower than my others based on the theme (assuming the quality is the same, hah).

I wonder if it would be good to be able to change your rating of a tease after the first time?
If the tease shows real promise, but there's a few big bugs, I just won't rate it until it's fixed so I can make a fairer view of it.
There must be a few where the first few ratings are much lower than the rest.

We all use this site to see content made by other people, so if there is a 'competitor' to a tease I've made or enjoy, why rate it low? I'm not going to 1star all maze teases because I want my own one to look better. I want to encourage more of them to be made!
In any case, i'm not that precious about how my teases are rated. I do care, don't get me wrong, but getting qualitative feedback feels like a bigger deal than just the number (winning TOTM was awesome though)!

This has become a bit of a ramble, but I might as well post it anyway! Maybe someone can relate.

[fapnip]

I wonder if it would be good to be able to change your rating of a tease after the first time?

Yeah, I think you should be able to change your rating. I've fat-fingered the wrong rating before, so I tend not to rate teases much since then.

We all use this site to see content made by other people, so if there is a 'competitor' to a tease I've made or enjoy, why rate it low? I'm not going to 1star all maze teases because I want my own one to look better. I want to encourage more of them to be made!

Absolutely. Unfortunately, after extrapolating some rating data out of curiosity, I noticed that even the "great" teases collect a fair number of 1 star ratings, even after the ability to rate teases was restricted to members only. It's what prompted me to wonder -- why? What motivates an individual to do that? Surely they can't all be mistakes?

In any case, i'm not that precious about how my teases are rated. I do care, don't get me wrong, but getting qualitative feedback feels like a bigger deal than just the number (winning TOTM was awesome though)!

Yes, good feedback is the most important thing -- though I have the think most authors are affected by ratings, even if not consciously.

[r0nin47]

I'm partial to story driven teases, so I tend to rate them higher, and anything I enjoy gets a five star rating.

[Roblsforbobls]

Sometimes I check new teases out without physically playing them, and then give a rating before reaching the end. My rating is never based on kinks, and I only rate teases that I am interested in playing. My rating is based on style, writing, quality of instructions, image choice, player involvement and design, and general concept.

All that being said, I have fairly low standards and frequently give out five star ratings to teases that I enjoyed and found entertaining. On occasion I have given less than five stars: one tease received a 3 star rating because it had a crazy number of pages, and the resulting 5-10 second lag in every transition made the tease essentially unplayable. Another tease got 4 stars because it was too repetitive and had very little effort put in, so it got stale.

So basically I am #1, but instead of rating from 1-5 I find myself rating from 3-5.

If you look at ratings for most things - Google play apps, Amazon reviews, Yelp, etc. - you'll find that even the most highly rated things often have a lot of 1 star reviews, while 3 and especially 2 star reviews are uncommon. People who don't like something often only go out of their way to rate if they feel strongly about it, and so are most likely to give a 1 star review. Maybe a similar thing is going on with tease reviews?

Also I agree with intermolecularpyro that niche teases, including those in other languages, often get bad ratings. If I didn't know any better, I'd say a handful of users seek to discourage such content by dishing out poor reviews simply because they can't enjoy them or aren't interested in the kinks involved. This kind of gatekeeping behavior is detrimental to the site as a whole.

[OrgasmPhantasm]

I tend to #3 most often and rate only teases that are 4-5 stars. It's partly due to the fact that I don't want to discourage potentially new or learning tease-creators from continuing to develop their skills - even if their current work is sub-standard. I'd rather have an abundance of content of all quality levels than a very sparse amount of very high-quality content. The former encourages innovation, improvement, learning, and discussion.

We wouldn't go to a student music recital and tell the learners "sorry, 1/5 stars... you suck, GTFO". Therefore my preference is to give written feedback to teases/creators that I feel have potential but need some direction or specific input.

The only time I give a 1-2 star rating is if I feel the tease was created in bad-faith - such as a troll tease or something created to be intentionally low-quality. But that's rare as I tend not to even click on teases that aren't already at a 3* and above rating.

[thatsprettyhot]

5. I rate all teases I understand or can relate to, and especially smash* those teases with ratings, that either are especially innovative or good, or are especially much against good taste or common sense or the welfare of the community/site

- while leaving those teases unrated, that I feel I don't understand

*Especially, teases with monetary interest (Milovana shall not be a moneymaking site for anyone) or failure to understand that the site is in english, and does not benefit from teases written in wrong languages

**Edit/disclamer: My opinions are my own and no one else's, and no one shall ever convince me to act otherwise with my ratings

[Waverunner02]

I give anything I love, or have elements of something I love that I want to encourage the author to do more of a 5.
4 I give if it meets the same criteria, but has something that tempts me to close it out based on timing or wording.
3 I may give for effort in any regard, but I often will just close out and not rate.
I've never given out a lower rating as of yet.

[bennygrimm]

I usually rate teases if they scratch an itch, or if I really enjoyed the writing.

I am deeply unlikely to rate a tease low unless it's aggressively bad (like, poorly written, lazy, captions instead of actually writing any story, etc).

I don't usually play teases if it's not something I'm into, and if I don't finish a tease, I almost never rate it (unless I quit because the writing is so bad).

If the person's first language is clearly not english, I don't usually take points off.

Overall, I appreciate the work *everyone* puts into their teases, and hope that they help people to grow as writers of erotica!

[fapnip]

5. I rate all teases I understand or can relate to, and especially smash* those teases with ratings, that either are especially innovative or good, or are especially much against good taste or common sense or the welfare of the community/site

I guess I don't see how that's much different than 4. "especially innovative or good" == your favorites. Subjective things like "taste/welfare/common sense", etc. == things that compete with your favorites. But thanks for at least being honest.

A couple questions:
1. Care to point out some example teases from the past months that deserved to be "smashed", and why?
2. Have you created multiple Milovana accounts to aid in this "smashing" crusade?

[Waverunner02]

my first time through i used the rating search, then i started filtering based on award nominations, then based on eos.

I'm curious though if everytime i play through the same one if i should rate it again. I assume not, but just curious if that is able to be done. Though a case could be made that if someone literally plays through an entire tease again, that does affect some type of rating scale, if "repeated views by same viewer" were another category of itself. I would certainly filter teases based on repeated views of same viewer weighted evenly per viewer lol. That would be an awesome filter to use.

Then of course now i always do the new ones. Is always really fun to see a new one pop up.

[fapnip]

I'm curious though if everytime i play through the same one if i should rate it again.

You can't**. You can't even change your rating**.

** I believe you can change your rating if you change your IP address. Although, I'm not positive if that's a rating change or a multi-rate thing. IIRC, I think it only changes your rating.

[thatsprettyhot]

5. I rate all teases I understand or can relate to, and especially smash* those teases with ratings, that either are especially innovative or good, or are especially much against good taste or common sense or the welfare of the community/site

I guess I don't see how that's much different than 4. "especially innovative or good" == your favorites. Subjective things like "taste/welfare/common sense", etc. == things that compete with your favorites. But thanks for at least being honest.

A couple questions:
1. Care to point out some example teases from the past months that deserved to be "smashed", and why?
2. Have you created multiple Milovana accounts to aid in this "smashing" crusade?

Hey, I wrote my response pretty hastily, and the main idea was to add to your poll: that I try to vote objectively on all teases based on effort taken to create, fun had while playing, innovativeness and the overall feeling of playability.

EXCEPT:
- if I smell it's revolutionary, I tend to give 5/5. (Most of my votes ever cast are 5/5)
- if I smell it's working against the good of the site/community (monetizing, language), I tend to over-emphasize 1/5 or 2/5

ADDITIONALLY:
- I try to never vote on teases I didn't even play
- I don't even know it it's against the rules, but I would never spend my time creating and relogging on more accounts just to push my opinion. I feel that my vote already is enough, because I already apply this emphasis on highs and lows when the tease is exceptional. And bcs then the overall result is democratic when everyone just uses 1 vote. If I see my vote didn't make an impact, such is my fate to be proven wrong.

I hope I could clear it up more

[thatsprettyhot]

Just to add, I think it would be stupid to vote teases based on who created them. Everyone deserves a chance to make whatever they are in the mood for and get rated on the end result, not their personality, old deeds or personal opinions.. bcs it's for everyone's good that we get nice new teases!

[thatsprettyhot]

My previous posts in controversial topics have been more about me not being afraid to take on controversial issues, and I'm not the droid you are looking for! *Preforms Jedi-mind trick*