Delete old chart ratings and comments? - Suggestions

CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

In light of learning how quickly overall charts start depreciating, it got me thinking about chart feedback some more. If overall charts are constantly depreciating, it kinda makes chart feedback look silly. Charts themselves lose value, but the ratings and comments stick to them forever?

I'm sure we all have ratings and comments on our charts that are no longer relevant, because our charts are dynamic and always changing. So for example, a user may have ratings on their chart from 2011. Of course, that rating was based on what the chart looked like in 2011, which can be (and probably is) significantly different from what it looks like now in 2020. And comments easily lose relevance, e.g. if someone mentions an album on a chart, and that album is leaves the chart at a later time.

So what can be done? Could get rid of chart feedback altogether, but I don't think most users would want that. At the same time, I don't think it makes sense to clear ratings and comments after every single update, because sometimes changes are very minor.

I propose chart ratings should be automatically cleared after a certain amount of time. I think that could encourage users to look at other user charts more often and re-rate them accordingly based on what the charts look like now. And I think getting rid of old chart ratings is a logical thing to do for reasoning mentioned above. What do you all think?

As for old comments, I don't know. But I do know it's silly that charts depreciate in value but the ratings are there forever.
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

Interesting idea. Maybe the weights of older chart ratings could simply depreciate as a share of the chart's average rating over time.
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Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

I think watching charts for updates is a more proper method. I don't want to keep rating the same charts over and over again.
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CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

baystateoftheart wrote:

Interesting idea. Maybe the weights of older chart ratings could simply depreciate as a share of the chart's average rating over time.

I don't know. That seems complicated, and doesn't account for how the charts change. Look at this user chart for example: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=3154
This chart has been around for nine years, and I can tell ya it has changed a lot in nine years. So why should ratings for this chart between 2011-2015ish even have a depreciated value? I think they just be deleted after a certain amount of time. I was thinking 3-5 years. I don't know, does that seem reasonable?

Spyglass wrote:

I think watching charts for updates is a more proper method. I don't want to keep rating the same charts over and over again.

That would be ideal, but I think clearing ratings would actually encourage users to look for updates as you say. And if ratings are deleted after, let's say 3-5 years, you wouldn't have to be constantly re-rating the same charts over and over, just once in a while. Furthermore, some users simply can't or won't look for chart updates because they're no longer active, or got banned from the site.

Spyglass
Resident Metalhead

Gender: Male
Location: The red dot on the map

But if their ratings are deleted, then they lose points. What if they go down a level? What if they lose their right to year charts or custom charts because of it? Then they have to do it all again from scratch. It's not a good idea to delete ratings based on dates at all, especially if someone rates a lot of charts like I do.
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CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

Spyglass wrote:

It's not a good idea to delete ratings based on dates at all, especially if someone rates a lot of charts like I do.

What would be an alternative solution? You gotta admit it's dumb that chart ratings never depreciate no matter how much the chart changes over the years, while charts themselves depreciate on a daily basis. And while it's nice that you check charts for updates, and perhaps re-rate them or leave new comments accordingly, most active users don't do that, let alone users who are no longer active. Again, what would be a good alternative?

Spyglass wrote:

But if their ratings are deleted, then they lose points. What if they go down a level? What if they lose their right to year charts or custom charts because of it? Then they have to do it all again from scratch.

Those are very good points I hadn't thought of. Has someone ever gone down a level? If so, did their yearly or custom charts actually disappear, and had to be done all over again? I don't know if that's how it works. AM would probably know. Heck, I'd be willing to try it as an experiment. I'm only a few hundred points from the next level. I could totally simply rate a few hundred tracks today, gain the next level, make a new chart with that level's privilege, then delete all those ratings to level back down, and see what happens.

But anyway, chart ratings account for so few user points, the probability of someone leveling down if they were deleted after 3-5 years would be very slim. For example, Spyglass has rated 143 charts, each rating worth a half point. So chart ratings account for only 72 out of his nearly 13,000 user points, and those points wouldn't even go away for 3-5 years under my proposal, by which point Spyglass might have 50,000 points. Thus, the chances of leveling down = 0 if you're an active member. Even LedZep, BEA's champion of chart-rating, has rated 1,015 charts which account for only 508 of his 11,362 points. Even he wouldn't level down if his all of chart rating points were cleared, which they wouldn't anyway under my 3-5 year proposal because they were mostly gained in the last 3-5 years. And for somebody who loves to look at charts, I think LedZep would embrace the idea of going back to see how charts have changed since his last rating and give them a new one (LedZep, if you read this and my assumption is wrong, please chime in Smile

). Point is, if you're an active member, you gain way more combined points from posts, mods, album ratings, and chart size than you do from solely chart ratings. And if someone actually leveled down by losing chart ratings, so what? They're extremely likely inactive members anyway.

Romanelli
Bone Swah

Gender: Male
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

My opinion:

Ratings could be deleted if the user has not logged in for a pre-determined amount of time. I don't think that it's the ratings that are expiring...it's the users. Someone who is still an active user shouldn't have their ratings deleted. And because they are current users, they can always update their older ratings.

Comments should be permanent. Just because someone isn't here anymore doesn't make what they said less important. The comments can also serve as a history of what people have thought of the album on site...and having the comments doesn't effect the ratings at all. If we start deleting comments because they are old, we're going to be erasing a lot of really good content that people put a lot of thought into. That hardly seems fair.
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

The reason why I think old ratings should be re-weighted within a given chart's average rating and not deleted is largely about volume. With the size of our user base and the current activity level rating charts, there simply aren't that many total chart ratings compared to levels of feedback on the albums/songs themselves. The most rated chart has less than 200 votes, while the most rated albums have thousands of chart placements and ratings. If this were implemented, a lot of charts would soon have few or no ratings. It would make browsing through the top-rated charts less fun/useful.

If someone wants a fresh start on ratings/comments because they think the old ones don't reflect the chart, they do have the option to delete the chart and replace it with a new one.
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CA Dreamin

Gender: Male
Location: LA

Romanelli wrote:

My opinion:

Ratings could be deleted if the user has not logged in for a pre-determined amount of time. I don't think that it's the ratings that are expiring...it's the users. Someone who is still an active user shouldn't have their ratings deleted. And because they are current users, they can always update their older ratings.

Good point on the first and second sentence. I would support deleting chart ratings of no longer active users. As for the third and fourth sentence, I don't know. It circles back to Spyglass's point that active users can (and probably should) update their ratings. It's ideal. But honestly, I only know of a few users who do that. Is there another way to encourage it?

Romanelli wrote:

Comments should be permanent. Just because someone isn't here anymore doesn't make what they said less important. The comments can also serve as a history of what people have thought of the album on site...and having the comments doesn't effect the ratings at all. If we start deleting comments because they are old, we're going to be erasing a lot of really good content that people put a lot of thought into. That hardly seems fair.

Good points. You sold me there.

baystateoftheart wrote:

The reason why I think old ratings should be re-weighted within a given chart's average rating and not deleted is largely about volume. With the size of our user base and the current activity level rating charts, there simply aren't that many total chart ratings compared to levels of feedback on the albums/songs themselves. The most rated chart has less than 200 votes, while the most rated albums have thousands of chart placements and ratings. If this were implemented, a lot of charts would soon have few or no ratings. It would make browsing through the top-rated charts less fun/useful.

Ok. Those are good points. For example, if all pre-2017 chart ratings were cleared, you would go from having 51 total ratings of your overall chart to 29. My overall chart would go from 74 to 34. However, our 29 and 34 ratings that remain would more accurately reflect our charts in their current form. But I can totally see how your proposal to have older ratings remain but lose weight makes sense. I would definitely support it. It could keep chart-browsing fun as you point out. And it avoids the point-losing issue Spyglass brought up. Would it be difficult to implement, though? Mine and Romanelli's proposals sound easier.

baystateoftheart wrote:

If someone wants a fresh start on ratings/comments because they think the old ones don't reflect the chart, they do have the option to delete the chart and replace it with a new one.

Hah, yup that's also an option. Some users have done that.
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albummaster
Janitor

Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

The answer might be some kind of weighting taking into account how much a chart has changed since the rating was made (some edits bigger than others) but maybe this is over complicating things. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of chart ratings per se as the lists are so personal to each user but do agree that ratings should reflect a reasonably up-to-date version of the chart.

Not sure about deleting old ratings, good points have been made about the impact that might have, and some old ratings are still valid if the chart hasn't been updated since the rating was made. Maybe a rating could be disallowed if more than half the chart has been updated since the rating was made (or something like that, but this would be quite complicated to add and the scale of an update is difficult to define e.g. if detailed comments have been added with no changes in rank etc).