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Comment by jdmichal | Hacker News Reader

In relation to your comment about the review: If anything less than 5 stars is unsatisfactory in Uber's eyes, why do they even have stars? If the rating is boolean anyway (5-stars or not-5-stars), then just put a single choice: Was this ride satisfactory? It shouldn't be my responsibility to know that rating a driver who was slightly late or slightly lost 4 stars is a Bad Thing. However, if you ask me whether that same ride was satisfactory or not, I'd probably say that it was. I don't necessarily want to punish people for one mistake, but I shouldn't need to rate them perfectly either.

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Hmmm... are you supposed to rate 5-stars for acceptable service? I've been rating 3 by default - then plus or minus depending on extraordinary things.

Yes, very much so. Have you seen the drivers' ratings? They usually hover around 4.8-5.0. If you're rated below 4.7 for both Lyft and Uber, I believe you're either on 'probation' or removed from their service.

You accidentally rating someone 3 for an average service can actually cost them their job. I'm hoping their algorithm uses some sort of a weighted average to offset the ratings of individuals such as yourself who consistently rate very low.

Well I didn't accidentally rate them a 3 - I picked a median score for standard service. I don't remember being told to do anything else when I signed up. If you rate 5 by default where do you go for truly special service?

Shouldn't it be the service's responsibility to determine what you are rating as a median score and then recalibrate your scores to their drivers?

i.e. If I always rate 3, but sometimes rate 1; then that might be similar to someone always rating 5 but sometimes rating 1-3.

> i.e. If I always rate 3, but sometimes rate 1; then that might be similar to someone always rating 5 but sometimes rating 1-3.

Ah, but then a user might throw an Internet Fit(tm) and cause a public outcry about ratings being manipulated by Uber etc. etc.

There's no way to easily verify how companies are actually calculatign the displayed ratings, and I doubt the average user would care or be savvy enough to find out. I assume it's a given most services see the input ratings as a personal indicator modulated by how reliable/benevolant/... each user is. Reddit votes, for example, are fairly nonlinear and visibility priority is even more complicated.

What does "truly special service" even mean for an Uber ride? Breaking traffic laws for you? Being especially friendly? Owning a very expensive car?

There are a lot of ways in which a ride can be unsatisfactory (smelly, creepy, crappy car, poor driving, loud music, etc.) but not that many in which it can be exceptional. Unless they show up in a Tesla Roadster or something.

Being especially friendly, accommodating and efficient in their driving, yes.

I just came across this in watching an enjoyable LISA presentation by Elizabeth Zwicky. At http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C4r... is a story about customer feedback for a company which has, broadly speaking, engineers and admins.

Quoting from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C4r...:

"Engineers do not give out 5s. If you tell an engineer that the possible rating scale is 1 to 5 and they like you, they give you a 4. Because tomorrow they might love you and then they would give you a 5. They probably won't, but they might, so they give you a 4 so that they have room. We all are totally okay with this. But the world is also full of this other class of people who if they like you give you a 5. They're quite consistent about it. 'I like you. I see nothing wrong with that. I'm giving you a 5.'"

The graph (with, admittedly, artificial data meant to portray an example) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C4r... shows it most clearly, with the satisfaction numbers from engineering clearly trending down. Apparently, engineers don't like to fill out forms, while admins do, so satisfaction survey results also have a sample bias in favor of the 5s of admin staff.

Its not just Uber, I often get "reminded" of an upcoming quality survey where anything less than perfect is equivalent to a tragedy.

I believe this is yet another case of managers using data without actually taking the time to understand the domain, or use it to identify problems and develop solutions. The approach seems to be nothing more than a facade of customer service.

In my mind, the question should be "was your service acceptable (yes/no)" followed by a comment box where you could leave anything worth noting. I guess you might have to sort comments via humans, but then you'd actually know what was going on as well. I suspect relatively few people leave comments as well, but what they did tell you would likely be a lot more than silly star ratings.

I don't disagree but it seems to be the norm with P2P rating systems on the Internet. I haven't used eBay for ages--at least in its original flea market sense--either buying or selling. But there was definitely a sense back then that even giving a neutral (e.g. problem with shipping but seller resolved or something else along the lines of not ideal, but generally worked out) was giving a major black star. And people zealously guarded their perfect positive ratings--because it did make a difference.

B2C seems a bit different though you still see more 5s than deserved. Personally, I have no problem giving 4s for good to very good, but not truly outstanding.

One argument for the resolution is a perception as to whether the ride is improving or not - a binary indication of this will only tell you that you've gotten to the best ride, whereas a scale will, over the course of time, show improvement or detriment (subject to the different standards of the rider). Also, one person's "satisfactory" might not be another's, so having a range to select from will provide a much richer piece of feedback capable of being weighted than a simple yes/no.

A worthy argument, but one that falls a bit flat when the acceptable range of "passing" scores is .3 (4.7+) out of 5.

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