Highest rated whisky (homepage)

Apparently when you click the little "popular whisky" button, you get another ranking, with different (but still incorrect afaik) ratings? Could this be a monthly calculated rating?

Hi @WhiskyNotes, that's a fair question.

When calculating the average rating for a bottle we take into account the mean average of all reviews, combined with the mean average of the scores given when a bottles is rated in a user's cabinet. This explains the difference with your calculation.

Glenmorangie Signet and Highland Park 30 year old each have an average score of 92 and should appear in the same order on both charts (the Top 10 on the homepage and the top 50 on the Popular Whiskies page) - I will investigate the sorting issue shortly.

I hope that helps to answer your question. We plan to develop the visible statistics further in the coming months, if you have any thoughts on this we'd love to hear them.

It would be good to be able breakdown the averages from reviews separately to the averages from cabinets. And, not to sound like a stats nerd, but it might be good to show something like standard deviation (or overall spread, or highest and lowest scores) to see what the difference in marks is like. Some drams tend to polarise people yet can still end up with a decent average, while others tend to get pretty consistent scores, and it might be nice to be able to show that, but possibly not on the 'most popular' page (or on the front page).

It might also be nice to see the average score on the same page as individual reviews (in a much smaller font), and on the page where you go to find out more about a whisk(e)y, it might be worth having averages and all the other statistical info there (like the standard deviation sort of bollocks above)...

Just an idea...

@Jean-Luc, is there a minimum number of ratings that have to have been made in order for a bottle to appear on the 'Top 50' list? I ask, based on my research of American whiskeys, specifically Parker's Heritage Collection. There are two reviews of this (awesome) bottle with an average score of 92.5. Of the 12 members that have it in their cabinet, only one (of the 9 members listed, see below) has rated it, with an 80. Assuming even weighting between cabinet and review ratings (which would skew the overall rating lower), an 86.25 gets generated, which should put it around 21st or so.

As a side note, I noticed a couple other small issues when checking Parker's Heritage. Even though it shows that 12 people have the bottle in their cabinet, on the main page for the bottle, only 9 are listed when I went to 'view all'. Secondly, the ordering of the list of members with the bottle would change every time I went back to that page after going to a members' page to see if they had rated a bottle.

I love the 'Top 50' features as a nice reference point for data.

Sorry Jean-Luc, one other bit of weirdness with Parker's. When you use the new(er) search field and type parkers, the hits that are brought up seem odd (for example, only one of the two reviews is listed). Thanks for looking into this!

@jdcook - thanks for the input, some good suggestions there. @Pudge72 - see my response to your points below:

• "Is there a minimum number of ratings that have to have been made in order for a bottle to appear on the 'Top 50' list?"

Currently there needs to be four reviews before a bottle appears the list.

• "Even though it shows that 12 people have the bottle in their cabinet, on the main page for the bottle, only 9 are listed when I went to 'view all'."

This may be due to bottles being moved to a user's "Cabinet History" I will double check.

• "Secondly, the ordering of the list of members with the bottle would change every time I went back"

This list is randomised, something which we can address

• "When you use the new(er) search field and type parkers, the hits that are brought up seem odd (for example, only one of the two reviews is listed)."

The search index is updated daily, there can be a small delay before new pages are listed in the results. There was a slight glitch over the weekend which prevented the index from running which may explain the odd results, but both Parker's reviews are listed now though :)

It might also be interesting to compare the reviewers averages, the old idea that some people rate higher than others. Compare reviewer averages to the average score of all the drams they have reviewed and give them a weighting. So scores would be viewed as either positive or negative - a positive number means that the average for that persons reviews is whatever the number is high than the overall average, and a negative number would mean that the users average for reviews is that much lower than the overall average. Would have to go somewhere in the reviews part of a users page I would imagine.

Not a high priority though I would imagine! ;)

@Jean-Luc...thank you for the feedback and explainations...great work as always! Your efforts with this forum are truly appreciated. @jdcook...I totally agree with your idea about showing the reviewers average score. About a month ago, I had suggested a less involved version of what you wrote, through the 'community support' page that's linked as part of the footer on each page of the forum. I like the additional details in your writeup.