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Review inflation on ENworld
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<blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 432832" data-attributes="member: 172"><p>Allow me to thoroughly disagree. There are a few important things you are missing.</p><p></p><p><strong>1)</strong> First, nothing about the ENWorld rating system says that is is a ranking system that is strictly relative to one's peers. The only thing that says what the numbers mean is the short description on the review page:</p><p></p><p><strong>1 - Appalling</strong></p><p><strong>2 - Poor</strong></p><p><strong>3 - Average</strong></p><p><strong>4 - Good</strong></p><p><strong>5 - Superb</strong></p><p></p><p>Note that those ratings <em><strong>don't</strong></em> say</p><p></p><p><strong>1 - Bottom 20 percentile</strong></p><p><strong>2 - 20th-40th percentile</strong></p><p>etc.</p><p></p><p>Nothing I have reviewed strikes me as "appalling." Nothing. That is not to say that there is not anything appalling out there. This leads me to point number 2.</p><p><strong>2)</strong> You assume that all of the staff reivewers have reviewed a fair cross section of the material available out there. This is not the case.</p><p></p><p>There are a few factors at work here.</p><p></p><p>First, while some publishers do contact me, for the most part I solicit the publishers that I would like to see review material from. I wont solicit companies whose material I consider poor to begin with. As a result, I typically get material that is above the d20 average to begin with. I am in large showing you reviews of the companies that I consider the best d20 publishers.</p><p></p><p>Second, when publishers are rated badly, they tend to not want to send you review material anymore. There is not a company I have given a "2" to that sends me material anymore. Many publishers take it pretty hard when I give them a "3".</p><p><strong>3)</strong> Third is the moving average. Material has significantly improved in quality over the last 2 years. But I try not to shift my standards as time goes by. When a person comes to the board and looks at ratings, those ratings have to stand up irrespective of when the review was posted.</p><p></p><p><strong>4)</strong> The primary content of the reviews page is the reviews, not the numbers. Anyone can put up a poll of what people thought of product X or Y, but in the end, those are just subjective measures. The numbers don't tell you how the reviewer came to that conclusion, and the reviewer's criteria may be irrelevant for your puproses. The best way to determine what the value of a product is is to you is to...</p><p></p><p>(<em><strong>drum roll...</strong></em>)</p><p></p><p><strong>READ THE REVIEW!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Psion, post: 432832, member: 172"] Allow me to thoroughly disagree. There are a few important things you are missing. [b]1)[/b] First, nothing about the ENWorld rating system says that is is a ranking system that is strictly relative to one's peers. The only thing that says what the numbers mean is the short description on the review page: [b]1 - Appalling 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Superb[/b] Note that those ratings [i][b]don't[/b][/i] say [b]1 - Bottom 20 percentile 2 - 20th-40th percentile[/b] etc. Nothing I have reviewed strikes me as "appalling." Nothing. That is not to say that there is not anything appalling out there. This leads me to point number 2. [b]2)[/b] You assume that all of the staff reivewers have reviewed a fair cross section of the material available out there. This is not the case. There are a few factors at work here. First, while some publishers do contact me, for the most part I solicit the publishers that I would like to see review material from. I wont solicit companies whose material I consider poor to begin with. As a result, I typically get material that is above the d20 average to begin with. I am in large showing you reviews of the companies that I consider the best d20 publishers. Second, when publishers are rated badly, they tend to not want to send you review material anymore. There is not a company I have given a "2" to that sends me material anymore. Many publishers take it pretty hard when I give them a "3". [b]3)[/b] Third is the moving average. Material has significantly improved in quality over the last 2 years. But I try not to shift my standards as time goes by. When a person comes to the board and looks at ratings, those ratings have to stand up irrespective of when the review was posted. [b]4)[/b] The primary content of the reviews page is the reviews, not the numbers. Anyone can put up a poll of what people thought of product X or Y, but in the end, those are just subjective measures. The numbers don't tell you how the reviewer came to that conclusion, and the reviewer's criteria may be irrelevant for your puproses. The best way to determine what the value of a product is is to you is to... ([i][b]drum roll...[/b][/i]) [b]READ THE REVIEW![/b] [/QUOTE]
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