As I mentioned in the last post, when I created the second version of FoodFinder.net, one of the cornerstone pieces was the Reputation Engine. It affords an information seeker the ability to discern between a meaningful review (written by a foodie who is well-traveled and whose opinion is greatly respected) and a less meaningful review (written by someone with limited dining experience, a restaurant's owner, or somebody who otherwise has a bias). In the first version of FF, I saw this all the time...even more so because I allowed anonymous ratings. This issue, one of "Cit-Crit" vs. restaurant critics is often debated, and is a problem that I wanted to take a stab at.
Rating by Reputation
The overall ratings on FoodFinder are now calculated in a completely new way. First, anonymous ratings and reviews are gone. They still appear at the element level (i.e. menu item, comment card, or restaurant aspect), but they no longer figure into the calculation of a restaurant overall review. Instead, a rating for a restaurant is weighted by the reputation of the foodie. This is obvious when seeing the effect on the top restaurants page. For those of you who don't live in San Diego, believe me...this is a much more accurate list (although there's still room for improvement IMHO).
Based on the early success of this new approach to rating, I may expand it to include menu items, and the other restaurant aspects (food, service, and atmosphere). What do you think...am I on the right track?
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