See what I mean?
I honestly don’t know at this point. Only been rating for 3 years and have no plans to stop right now, I don’t feel like it’s a chore.
Like most here I’m not happy with the direction RB seems to be going, and I’m not happy with how joet has handled our concerns and criticisms, so the outlook is pretty poor at the moment.
My premium membership expires in September. If bugs are fixed and features improved by then then I will renew, if not then I can’t see any reason to renew. I don’t know if I’ll continue rating here if not renewing though, I may use my own semi-private website and/or spreadsheet for that. We’ll see how things go.
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See? That doesn’t work for me at all. There’s no social component. When I started out here, I was close to giving up after a few months because, while I could read and write all I wanted, there was no direct interaction, no human contact. So I went to the forums to get to know people a little. It made others ratings more enjoyable. Now if I start rating just for myself and stop visiting here so often, I’ll be back to where I started.
Untappd might give me the social parts, but it misses the forums.
Hm. Maybe I’ll give BA a shot. The european forums there seem populated. Any ABInBev association I should know about?
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I will keep rating so long as other people do. Seems pointless to always be the one with one rating. Excel and whatever are not really worth it but I may continue that way if this dies. Y’all should stay to keep me rating. RB’s problems have not affected my rating much except by scaring away other raters.
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Of course, after I read a few things in this thread, I click on forums and get nothing. Have to get all the way out to get to another topic. Kinda figured the multi-million dollar backers would at least get rid of some of that kind of shit. Guess not. If anything, there seems to be more bugs/issues than when I started.
I plan to continue as long as I can physically, as well as fiscally do. I do enjoy putting targets to myself, such as who to catch next in the top raters list 
That made me reach top 5 in NY beers and brewers, and there’s still room to go.
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As for the Excel lists, I still have a backlog of around 400 I had put into an excel sheet, before I started writing full rates, and I have been thinking whether it would be fair to add them to my rates.
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Till they pry it from my cold , dead hands.
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I’ll rate beer as long as RateBeer.com and I are still around. If I live to be 100, if the Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl, if Hell freezes over - I’ll still be rating beer.
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I’m in it for the long haul. Besides a shitty mobile app, what are you guys so upset about? I don’t really any problems with the new search engine. The forums here are dead and rather weak but that is more of a user problem. I think Ratebeer should help promote seasonal gatherings and strengthen the sites community.
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I agree, I’m only worried if RB shuts, I’ll keep going. I can’t see the point or enjoyment in entering useless data in a worksheet, instead of RB, wow that’s dull. I use RB to search for and keep on top of the likely best beers in UK and Europe and any new releases. It functions in this way in the regions where there is a critical mass. In France as an example though, I find I am often the only one entering and adding new IPAs and beers, there’s a great growing craft scene there and I guess UT is what is being used. I also enjoy the stats, great fun and easy to work.
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Are the forums all that different than in the old forums? I suppose I don’t see some quite the same level of interaction as you used to be able to find (nothing quite like those 30+ page threads we used to get), but it really doesn’t seem too far off of where it used to be.
Overall the new forums are a huge improvement for me, but I seem to be in the minority. I’m generally not a huge fan of change, but it was really needed. The forums were ancient. I’m glad that RB didn’t simply replace it with one of the standard generic forums that you see practically everywhere else around the web. That I don’t have to click through dozens of pages on a single thread and that it saves draft posts for later is a huge plus.
For the day-to-day things, I really don’t see many changes that have made the site any worse than before. The search could use some additional improvements. I’ve noticed some issues with keeping me logged in depending on where I am at (just on a regular page, forums, or search), but I suspect it’ll be fixed soon and I’m patient enough to put up with some of the growing pains during the these updates/upgrades.
I never liked any iteration of the mobile app, and with some of my older phones, it was just easier to use the web interface.
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The only reason why I’d “leave” RB is if the social aspect for me totally disappeared.
For the first 5 or so years on RB, I had almost no social interaction with anyone, but I was new to the craft beer game and it was a good way for me to keep track of the beers I had. To be honest, Untappd does pretty much the same job (keeping track of the beers I’ve had). However, there isn’t much of a “social” aspect on Untappd in the sense that I can only think of one person out of ~100 random people that I’ve never met before becoming any kind of real-world friend. I have real-world friends that I sometimes pay attention to, and the rest of the people are just faceless avatars.
The DC tasting group has shrunk a lot since it’s height about 5 years ago (mostly from people moving out of the area). We used to be able to easily get new beers to 10 ratings, now they struggle for most beers to hit 5 total ratings, even at a tasting. A number of users have gone radio silent, and at least one user nearby has made it clear to remind everyone of why he left RB each time we see him.
There’s a ton of newish users in the area who we’ve made the effort to reach out to, but they never respond. I’m still not sure if it’s because our tastings aren’t your typical “bottle share” - at least in the beer nerd sense.
Very few of the DC crew really care all that much about rarity at these events, so anyone can come and bring anything they want - we just hope that it’s something most of us haven’t had before. It’s not even about ticks - just about sharing things you might not normally have or just haven’t had. That might turn off some of the whalez hunters out there who won’t bother showing up if they aren’t having something incredibly hard to secure, but I don’t think that’s many folks on RB anyway.
I wish we could figure out how to get these people active outside their rating bubble. I think that would make me more enthusiastic about my future on here.
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My wrong input for Brotherhood Steam found it somehow. An improvement!
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I don’t post too much, and I’m not involved in any social aspect of Rate Beer, so the changes haven’t effected me like they have others. For myself, I’ve used Rate Beer as a place to learn about beer, discover where to drink and buy beer, and of course rate and log the beers I drink. I do not know how much longer I will rate, but if Rate Beer ever ceases to be, I imagine my rating career will be over. I really appreciate the free resources that Rate Beer has provided me over the years.
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Unknown. Ive been on for 14 years. The app issues over the last few years caused me to drop my premium membership out of frustration and irritation at the site. The place database is worthless compared to other sites so it no longer assists me when i travel.
Pittsburgh is dead. Almost everyone quit when the AB purchase happened. There are like 3 people still entering new beers here. Which means the beer database is becoming worthless locally. I have to go on to untappd to find out anything about local beer. Anything I have locally I generally have to enter the beer into the system, which is more effort that I often want, so I have a large backlog of ratings which doesn’t inspire me to go out and collect more - just makes more work for me later.
It’s like my favorite hobby and favorite site supporting it is dying a death of a thousand cuts.
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Until I find or build a better platform. Rather than focusing on the geek culture that pays, ownership is going to a mass market culture that doesn’t. Seems counterintuitive to me and what I deem important will never be a priority. So hopefully sooner rather than later.
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I’d hate to see you go. It’s always nice to see you at gatherings and you’ve certainly been a really popular member of the community.
It’s sad it’s come to the point that we may lose so many valuable members because of a shaky transition and bad communication from management. Hopefully, the bugs get worked out soon?
No better platform for ratings and community. Like the vast majority of users I have learnt a lot about beer from reading other ratings, meeting others at tastings, making mental notes of where beer was bought frequently in ratings and visiting those places, checking the map feature and planning trips around where the good beer places are and returning the favour by adding new places and ratings… In general I’ve just got a better understanding of the overall beer community in a way I can’t do with Untappd.
So despite the way this site has headed, with all the many frustrating things that aren’t getting fixed, I’ll stick it out. Like I’ve said before, I don’t want AB Inbev to win this.
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Make sure to remind me and I will start rating again.
