The absolute value of a judgment

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Rubens
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The absolute value of a judgment

Post by Rubens »

Hello to everyone,
I have been a Criticker user for more than 10 years and I still think, as on the first day, how brilliant the idea of ​​the PSI system that Criticker has proposed is.
However, the choice of using the percentile always made me think.
English is not my native language, so forgive me for any mistakes. However, I ask you to read me completely, because what I'm about to talk about is an aesthetic-philosophical concept, not just a way of organizing a website.
I think that an aesthetic judgment, like what each of us gives to a film that has seen, has an absolute value, not a relative one.
What I want to say is that if we believe that a film is beautiful, the fact that we believe that there are many or few more beautiful films than it, does not change that rating at all.
Likewise, if you don't like cheese, the large amount of foods you like less than it won't make you say "Well, cheese isn't so bad after all."
When I say that an aesthetic judgment has an absolute value, I do not mean that it is not possible to compare two ratings, but only that the relative value of the judgment must be understood in reference to the scale of values ​​we use, not based on the number of judgments we have expressed.

I know, I confused you. So let's stop philosophizing and go straight back to our wonderful website.
I do not think it is correct to establish how much I liked a film basing on how many films I judged to be more beautiful than it. Why should that rating affect everyone else? When I rate Pulp Fiction I am not evaluating if I liked it more than Forrest Gump or less of Modern Times, but only how much I liked it compared to my scale of values.
In addition, each of us is led to avoid watching films that he already knows he wouldn't like. In this way the set of films watched cannot be representative of a system of judgment, since it is already biased.
Of course, there would still be the problem of standardizing the scales of values ​​if we are to develop TCI.
We Criticker users use different rating systems: someone uses a scale from 0 to 100, others from 1 to 20, or from 1 to 10. And nothing would prevent me from using one from 43 to 59 ...
Value scales should be standardized if we are to generate the PSI system correctly. But to do this, we are not forced to use the complex percentile system. It would be enough to divide the difference between the highest and lowest score used by each user and divide it in equal parts (100 or another number is a secondary matter).

Suppose that John's scale of values ​​goes from 1 to 10, that of Peter from 0 to 20 and that of Mary from 50 to 100 and suppose that all three rated Pulp Fiction.
John's score: 9
Peter's score: 19
Mary's score: 60

As I said before, to standardize their ratings on a single scale of values ​​expressed, we should simply apply the following proportion for each of them:
(rating - min score) : (max score - min score) = x : 100

Therefore
John's score = (9-1) * 100 / (10-1) = 89
Peter's score = (19-0) * 100 / (20-0) = 95
Mary's score = (60-50) * 100 / (100-50) = 20

I believe that by following this method, and not that of the percentile, we could obtain more accurate and truthful TCI.
I'd like to know what you think.
Thank you

Rubens
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Re: The absolute value of a judgment

Post by Rubens »

The Tier method worked the same way, but it worked on 10 instead of 100. The mathematical principle is the same: each of values is calculated considering the set of all your ratings.
It's a sort of championship standings where, at the end of the season, what matters is not the points, but the place in the standings.
I'm not sure this is a good criterion.

ShogunRua
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Re: The absolute value of a judgment

Post by ShogunRua »

I understand that saying "movie X is beautiful" has a certain significance.

What, however, is the significance or "judgement" of "movie X is 90"? What is the definition of the number 90 and how does it relate to a movie's quality? Without context, it's meaningless.

And since we're ranking with numbers and not words like "beautiful", we need context for what the hell the former means, even beyond standardizing the rating interval.

Incidentally, the OP doesn't even do that correctly. Someone might rank on a scale of 0 to 100 but not have used 0 or 100 yet. Someone might rank on a scale of 1-4 normally but use a 5 for a movie of special personal significance that no other film can achieve regardless of quality.

Most significantly, however, if a user gives 1 movie a rating of 1, 50 movies a rating of 9, and 100 movies a rating of 10, 9 would be considered a very high rating by the OP's system, while there are signicant reasons to doubt that conclusion.

To GIVE context to a number, the only way is to see what numbers one has given other movies. No, percentiles and tiers aren't perfect, but they're better than the OP's suggestion.

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