MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Netflix changing its rating system

Netflix changing its rating system


Is it a good thing or a bad thing? From stars to thumbs up/down

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I get that not enough people are rating what they watch on Netflix. Making their recommendations not precise enough.

With the "thumb system", MORE people are rating what they watch. Yet it can't be precise enough, it's way too binary. Meaning that those who really care about the ratings won't be involved anymore.

So yeah, I think it's a bad move.

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If the problem was not enough people leaving ratings on Netflix, that's their own fault; they don't make it easy. All they had to do was have on the next page, after a film or show ended, "Rate [movie/show]?" and the ability to do it.

Instead the next page defaults to one's home page, or whatever. To rate something, you have to run a search and then rate it. People don't want to have to do that.

Typical stupid corporate-type solution to a problem they themselves created.

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(Sorry, been away a few days)

> All they had to do was have on the next page, after a film or show ended, "Rate [movie/show]?" and the ability to do it.

It's already the case, but apparently people aren't rating so they're going for a dummy-friendly system... I really hope they won't go through with this.

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Really? I've never noticed a screen like that after a film or show is over. If I had, I'd have been happy enough to give a rating most of the time.

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Really really.
Anyway, I just logged on Netflix and it's using the thumb system now... Fuck.

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Weird, because I've watched many shows and films on Netflix, although granted I've fallen asleep at the end of many as well, and have never seen anyplace to rate anything, only a return to either the or my home screen, and the only way I'd have to rate anything is to do another search and then rate them.

In any event, we both are in total agreement that the thumbs up/down rating system sucks.

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Yeah, it seems like we're stuck with it for now :-/

So from my experience, there's a little "rate this show/film" under the thumbnail (where the credits are still rolling) when you're done watching a movie or a full season of a show (or after the series finale? Can't remember).

It's quite discreet, though.
Oh and maybe it doesn't matter, but I'm only watching Netflix on my PC. Maybe it's different with the dedicated app?

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I watch on both my PC and (more often) my iPad. Maybe it is different on the different platforms. All I know is I've never seen a screen where I could leave ratings. Regardless, thumbs up/down is a bad move on the part of Netflix.

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I mostly watch on a PC and I always have the rating screen. It's there after you watch something. It's there for movies you have not even watched yet on Netflix (like maybe you saw it in a theater). It's even there next to every movie on my streaming list and on my dvd Queue list.
So there's 3 places you can rate films:
- after watching it on a special screen
- on the movie details page for each movie
- on your list/queue

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It's different on an Ipad, which is how I watch Netflix and have for perhaps a year now. No place to rate anything. After the film or show is over, the screen goes automatically to whatever other show or movie their algorithm thinks you'd like best.

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Do you see red/grey stars there? Click on those to rate.

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No, as I recall the stars were gray and yellow. If i liked -- or disliked -- a film or show enough, I'd run a search and rate them. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

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On my DVD queue I still have the stars, on my 'watch instantly ' List, they are gone.
On the DVD queue they are red for the existing ratings (by other people) and grey for the extra stars.
Like if a movie has a 4 star rating, 4 stars will be red and one will be grey.
Then after I rate the movie, my stars will be in yellow and the extra will be grey.
So if I rated it 2 stars, there would be two yellow and three grey.

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Good for business, bad for film accuracy. First off, I don't take ratings seriously. What a joke. But a lot of people do. And they won't watch something if it doesn't have an 80 percent passing grade. 4, 5 stars, whatever. So having movies and shows rated poorly on a star system is a product Netflix isn't selling. So they switch to a meaningless thumb system, which has been proven abundantly pointless by youtube already, and now people don't know what to watch or not so they'll give anything a chance.

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Hum just so you know, the Netflix ratings you see aren't an "average of how all Netflix users rank".

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I tried Netflix last summer and didn't see mentioned anywhere that the ratings also are from a recommender system, just like https://movielens.org/.

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A bad idea, it's just a way to make ratings look more positive.

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I don't even have Netflix lol

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Terrible thing. I get the feeling that some higher-ups in the movie industry have been putting screws on several of the most popular movie-rating sites to make it so that they could continue to churn out mediocre or poor movies without being called out on it. Replacing the 5-star system (which wasn't wasn't perfect itself, and was somewhat vulnerable to petty 1 and 5 star ratings) with a thumb up/down only makes things much vaguer and, especially if the trend of Internet message boards closing down continues, makes it so that people will have to watch more movies to see for themselves instead of making the decision to possibly not see them due to low ratings.

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I just took a look and their new system doesn't even make sense. I'm looking at something popular like "Finding Dory" and it says in green "98% match".

What does that mean? They've made it more complicated and don't give an explanation. Bring back the stars or use the 1-10 rating system. This thumbs up/down idea (from what I can see so far) is terrible, because it tells me nothing about how others rated an obscure movie, documentary or low budget horror film. The less popular titles - of which Netflix has many - are the entries that really need a rating system, to let us know if it's worth our time.

[edit] And taking a look at more titles like The Shining or Frasier, they have nothing right now. What kind of horrible rating system is this when viewers can't see what others have given it. I guess I will only get a green "%" match shown if I rate more TV shows and horror films like The Shining?

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It means you have 98% chance to like it.
Even with the star system you couldn't know users ratings, it always was a recommended rating, now they just made it clearer.

Not that I'm defending the new system, just explaining.

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"Even with the star system you couldn't know users ratings, it always was a recommended rating, now they just made it clearer."

But where did those recommendations come from? They had to be an aggregate of all the star ratings of Netflix users, right?

I'd look at some horror films in their library, to give them a try, and I see some of the weaker ones got 2/5 stars, and some better ones got 3.5/5 stars. After watching them, I would almost agree, and it feels like the general consensus was right. So where did those star ratings come from, if not from Netflix users? (I myself barely rated more than 10 films and never any horror films).

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It's just profiling.
They base their recommendations on the things you watched/rated/added to your list.

So yes in a way it also comes from Netflix users since their ratings make recommendations more "accurate". Still, it isn't an average of everybody's ratings.

Here's a link explaining how it works.

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Jurassic Park shows me a 97% match, while the horrible Alice Through the Looking Glass is 96% (keeping in mind I don't really rate that many movies on Netflix anyways).

Great system, Netflix. It's like you really know me. Alice is just as good as Jurassic Park.

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I just discovered:
On my 'watch instantly ' List, all the ones I have already rated, my ratings are completely erased. They did not translate the star ratings I already did into a thumbs up. They just wiped the slate clean, and I have been rating things for 16 years.
I used the ratings as a way to keep track of which shows I had already watched, vs which ones I had not watched yet. And now everything looks the same- no ratings at all. So I would have to go back and RE-rate everything I already rated. What the actual fuck.
NETFLIX PLZ STOP BREAKING EVERYTHING.
If you want to switch to a moronic thumb system okay, but what possible purpose is served by ERASING all my previous ratings?

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"I used the ratings as a way to keep track of which shows I had already watched, vs which ones I had not watched yet."

That's what I did, Popcorn Kernel. Oh, well..

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Go there.
You should be able to see every previously rated shows/movies. It's still in their system, nothing has been erased.

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Thanks Traveler, they did show up there. But the ratings don't show on the List itself so I can't instantly tell watched from not yet watched from the color coded stars.

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