Like the title says, the ability to rate reviews in the same way we rate maps should be implemented, and even give reviewers an overall star rating based on an average of all rated reviews. Thoughts?

That would be a good idea, except it would have to have the same policy as voting for maps: you would have to be a member and logged in to vote with the chance of only voting once but can change your vote after because I have read a couple of the maps comment section which have comments from non-members and members that generally like to throw the vote balance off with a vote or even a numerous amount of votes of 0 or 1 and then on the other hand, have non-members and members throw it off balance with a vote of 10 (This was before the new voting policy had taken effect).

The throwing off balance of votes of a 0, 1 or 10 are generally done more by non-members but I'm not going to go into an argument with the non-members about the topic. If the members vote a 0 or 1, I can understand why depending on the situation and on personal preference but you would still have to give a reason why you gave it that vote, unlike some non-members which give a 0 or 1 (Or just saying this map sucks) without giving a reason.

On one hand, I hope no offense was taken by the non-members about this comment and on the other, I hope the members can understand my point.

Again, it would be a good idea to rank reviews.

PaN61
Edited 2.5 minutes after the original posting.

Good idea. I'll add another option to the mix, an alternative: simple "Like" and "Dislike" buttons like those ones on YouTube. Or something like that.

@PaN61: Yeah it could function like map ratings do - you've got to sign in to rate. And only reviews that have been rated at least 10 times are added to your overall rating. Maybe even have a 'top reviewers' list.

@GuitarMan: Like a thumbs down/up type thing, that could work! It might be better than a rating out of 10 since you generally either agree or disagree with a review.

I guess something like this could work. Here are a few options, but open to more:

1. Did you 'like' or 'dislike' the review? - Currently X% like it (Y like, Z dislike)
2. Rate review - 0 to 10 scale - Currently X / 10 after Y votes
3. Do you agree with the review? Yes / No - Currently X% agree (Y yes, Z no) - same as a thumb up thumb down, just worded differently

You would need to be logged in to rate a review for sure and I think you should be able to change your rating just like now with the votes.

I think the ratings should be shown (somehow) on the member pages as well.

It would be a little while until something like this can be added, I'm a little busy at the moment, but please keep talking about it :]

Yeah well after Guitar's like/dislike idea I think the 0-10 rating wouldn't work too well for reviews somehow.

If it were like/dislike (thumbs up/down icons to make it more streamlined) then the reviewer could still have an overall rating. My suggestion is consider only reviews that have been rated a minimum of ten times, add up the relevant likes and dislikes in all the considered reviews and give a final percentage (likes divided by total ratings x 100). This percentage could even be converted into a 5 star rating.

With this final percentage you could have a 'top reviewers' list, and this could help encourage not only better quality reviews but also encourage more people to submit reviews. You could even include criteria such as a minimum number of reviews submitted and/or minimum overall rating for someone to be added to such a list. On the other end of the scale you could have 'worst reviewers' list, to name and shame seriously bad reviewers.

Only major drawback I can see is that not all reviewers have a reviewer page and their names linked to their reviews (ie: old reviews). Also, people would need to be encouraged to rate reviews and thus a section on the home page showing a list of random reviews to rate should be added.

Anyone else want to add something?

I think the "Like/Dislike" idea would be a good choice, although the words should be "Agree/Disagree" so it doesn't sound too harsh; as TheMuffinMan said, you generally either agree or disagree with a review.
That would work for most of the reviews (old and new) on the site.

But also I've been thinking about some reviews that are great or straight out of the box, completely different to all the others; reviews like this one:
lvlworld.com/review.php
they deserve a special award or something like that. :P

A 1-10 rate for reviews seems best for me, since people can then easily compare review and map voting as they are both having the same evaluation base (a scale from 1-10, simple but effective).

What about rating comments like they do on You Tube?

Like thumbs up -Thumbs down sort of thing?

A like/dislike thing would be awful. A 0-10 rating is more sophisticated, you can rated it 3, 4, 5, with like or dislike you can't.
Edited 2.05 minutes after the original posting.

Sorry for bumping an old discussion yet again, but I think rating reviews could be good to show how helpful they tend to be. Maybe to make it harder for people to do spam voting would be to only allow members with a certain reputation count to vote.

@«-·'¯'·.Ð駧í©á‡éÐ ©ó®þ§é.·'¯'·-»: I like that idea. Although maybe the rating of the review could affect reputation, but I guess that would be making things too complicated.

Review ratings like it is with maps rating now (stars scheme), that would be nice :) Simple (dis)agree is also good idea, but quite black&white though... Rating 0 to 5 stars with halfing a star is more accurate and corresponds to nowadays map rating scheme. But I would not affect reputation by this. If it was simple yes/no, then agreeing would increase reputation by 15 point for example and disagreeing will decrease it by the same value (but only if review is linked in reviewer's account). Since there are only top maps listed (the ones with highest rating), there should be in the analogy just top reviewers section with reviewers of top rating (which will be displayed after enough votes will be casted)...

One big problem with ratings for reviews. A mapper (and all their friends) may down vote a review if the map author does not like the review.

Personally, I think leaving a comment about the review is the best as this will help to discuss the map on a personally level. For example, if you disagree with something that a reviewer said, then you are voicing a difference of opinion, which is a good thing to have.

Leaving a comment also helps to open discussions about what the reviewer may have stated and how they said it.

Finally, a lot of the reviews get edited before they go up. Some even get re-edited once the review has gone live for one reason or another (even years later). This may lead to a review with a technical error or editing (that I did) that was later corrected, however the reviewer has suffered negative feedback for it. Again, leaving a comment about the error lets me correct that mistake without a negative impact on the reviewer.

Well, I must say it was just a suggestion, which does not have to be implemented in sites. And this problem changes anything, mapper (if he has account here) and his friends also with an account would really vote down review if they do not like it, to at least in part of that to avoid it, trying to separate members with reputation lower than 100 and 100 plus higher, members with lower reputation (below 100) will give/subtract 5 reputation points (which is less than in comments), members with reputation 100 and beyond that will have same operations, but with value of 15 (more vaulable votes), but there someone can abuse that he has achieved 100 reputation points (maybe by map votes) and his vote will automatically be represented as high-valuable. So yes, you are right that comments are better, it's always better to say that something's wrong and even say what. And reviewer can (dis)agree the negative comment :) I got high reputation by reviews I wrote months before reputation was introduced in this site, just as Tig has added the reputation increased by 20 points by reviewing map retrospectively (including all reviews by member released before). That way I want to say thank you, Tig, there are now more top members than before it, which is quite good for sites as reviews are always checked out by Tig and there would never happen that too weak review will be added. Again thank you, I'm glad that there works this unique and outstanding sites with Quake 3 custom stuff :) Great thump up for you, Tig :)