The new Ratebeer app is great

Oh i agree thats a Problem

But theres a MASSIVE difference to me, this returns Far to many results, meaning i need to look further, as it could exist.

where as the APP returns NO results, there for the conclusion is that it doesnt exist. But often thats just not true and the search has failed

Is these False Results that are the problem. Id far rather too many results and know i need to refine my search that be given no results. Because there then no way to ever be sure that itys just not giving it to me

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I definitely feel the app returning no results when I feel it sohuld be able to frustrating as well, so with you there.

As far as this, I actually find this incredibly dumb (the site’s inability to show Stone IPA first). One, because there isn’t an awful lot more than Stone IPA written on a Stone IPA bottle (It’s not like I had truncated “Old Chimneys Good King Henry Special Reserve” down to “Old Special” and gotten too many results). Two, because Stone IPA is one of the most likely beers a new beer geek is susceptible to pick up and rate (in the US), and a simple site search would not find it for him - Untapp’d here I come for that kid.

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Stone IPA (India Pale Ale)

I’d say the (India Pale Ale) needs to be removed from the name.

Special characters seem to screw things up

I think that’s not so much the site search as whoever entered it - and the admins should correct it

I am having some issues with the new app, tbh I use web interface cause it’s unusable to my most common use cases:

  • Unless I am doing something wrong I am missing information about the beer being in the top50.
  • When you search the beer and enter the beer page you are not informed about the beer style - what is up with that? Don’t you think it is an important piece of information?
  • When browsing a beer there is no way to easily switch between the favourites/friends ratings, lowest, highest and so on - this is something I use the most often - in many cases what ppl I trust think about a beer is more important to me than what others say
  • Cause the beer style is obsured/missing from the beer page, it became harder/impossible to browse the beer style and check out the top50
  • Why is not the whole rating visible? Where was the UX designer when this was designed - asleep? If I want to check out a beer on ratebeer on most cases I am interested in it’s rating! Why o why would you prefer to tell me that it’s 92/100 rather than it is 92 style 80 overall and 90 average? I do not want to tap through this info each time I enter a beer page.

That’s for now. It’s unusable in this state

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That’s not actually the issue here though. It’s an issue with the way Ratebeer handles search queries on the database. If you search “stone ipa” it will find literally every beer with the word “stone” and “ipa” in it. With ‘stone’ being a very common suffix in English and with IPA being the most common style, you can see how this returns thousands of results.

Now, Ratebeer only displays the top 50 results from a search query, and the problem with this is that it does so alphabetically. “Stone” comes pretty far down the alphabet so the actual beer people are looking for is never seen. A similar issue occurs when searching breweries for just “Stone” as it comes too far down alphabetically for it to be shown.

There are two solutions to this problem

  1. Weighted results. A higher ‘weight’ will be given to more popular/common beers/breweries and results sorted by that (i.e. those with more ratings will appear at the top of the search as this in most cases will be the most relevant)
  2. Fix the partial matching to match from the start of the word, rather than anywhere in the word. This means that Stone’s beers would appear at the top, and partially matching beers (such as Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA) would not appear.

Both BeerAdvocate and Untappd solved this issue long ago (seriously, go and search “stone ipa” on both sites, you’ll find exactly what you want straight away). I don’t know why RateBeer hasn’t yet fixed it. But yeah, there’s no issue with special characters in the name, it’s just how RateBeer handles the search results.

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I like the new app, quite a bit. I will jot down notes when trying a new beer in a note on my phone and assign it a score. Then, when I feel like working on the backlog, I will search for the beer in the app, copy and paste the notes and boom, done.

Sorry, I’m late to the party. What was better about the old app?

Now, apart for the Offline Ratings, and maybe some sorting options for ratings and brewers (can’t remember) probably nothing else

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Not sure why you want to downplay the issues with the mobile app, but I strongly disagree.

First of all, offline ratings is paramount!

No custom lists, no friends list, no messages, the stupid ‘give scores before you can write down notes’, no real avg (not on the site either anymore, weighted avg is useless with so many beers with few ratings!), bad use of screen estate, constant nagging about location services, general useability, etc.

The new app is not written with raters in mind, the flow is just wrong.

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Did the old App (Eric’s App) had all of this? I know it had the Offline ratings but didn’t know for the rest, almost never used it…I don’t want to downplay it, I know it just sucks actually and I still have to use the website most of the time instead of the App…
Beeryoudo just asked what was better on the old app vs the new…

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Yes Eric’s app had all that, except for the messages which was not yet implemented in Eric’s newer old app (but was in the first incarnation of his app).

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Well RB still have a lot of work to do to at least reach old standards then…

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Yes! Give me this and I’ll give the new app a shot even if I have to give scores prior to rating (wtf?!? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:)

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Biggest is Off-line
followed by you can write txt before you score, as for me at least, i cant know score till ive taken all my notes and considered it,

after that for me the original and i still think superior search

Brewery list shows me all the beers, with if i have rated them or not. thats all i need if i want txt i will follow links through. It also scrolls smoothly , doesnt keep sticking as it loads in the rest.

Its also alphabtically sorted. so i can find beers as they are in predictable order.

Oh and scoring uses a nice drop box thats easy to use, the new app doesnt register half the time or clicks the wrong point and im guessing where 15(etc) is on the overall score more often than not

So for me loads. But as ive said before its lack of OFFLINE that is 90% of the reason im never gonna use it regularly

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Thanks for the detailed feedback. Trying to wrap my head around when offline usage would be helpful. Is the issue that you have slow internet service or keep data turned off when using your phone? It would be annoying to not even be able to get into the app or use it in one of those situations.

Offline works with slow internet, no internet, or when the beer is not yet in the database. You simply enter what you want for the beer name and add it/look it up later. Currently with the new app, you first have to look up a beer before you can do anything.

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Ok. So heres the Top3 Offline usages

  1. Im on way home, in a hurry (80% of my drinking is quick nip into a pub and then home for tea)
    I look at the Board, Look up beer 1, its new, SO i start a rating “keg at” look up beer 2 its not new so onto beer 3 its new so i start a rating for that, repeat untill ive looked them all up. ANy i dont find see point 2
    I then order all the beers i want, as they are in a nice handy list of off line ratings on my phone. . I then go through them one by one, taking initial notes. and revisit any any and update the notes. I then upload all at a later point
  1. I looked up beer above , but its not in DB, ahh no prob i enter beer name, and start an offline rating. Then later on i can add beer to DB, and upload.When i hit upload it treats as search if it find matches, it shows them all and i click on the correct one, it then uploads to that
  1. Basment bar with poor or no wifi

  2. festivals where 100’s of people trying to use data so its too slow. I just take the notes offline and upload when relaxed later

The ability to have 5 open reviews is something that i find really usefull. You can also never lose a rating by mistake by hitting back button like you can on a browser, So if halfway through a rating i want to read the review of base beer of soem varient im trying i can just open that along side.

i know that a lot rambly its really dfifficult to explain just how much offline plays in the way i rate beers these days.

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I look up a beer called nonExistant beer it cant be found

so i goto off line beer

add beer name

add my review

then when its added, (in this case ive changed name to unknown beer as its exists)
I then see what its found, and click the one thats right. If it s not clear i goto web and check , but 99% of time its clear

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Yeah, offline usage is for when I don’t have internet or it’s not in the database when I’m in a hurry.

New Zealand phone companies seem to be behind the rest of the world so getting roaming packs when abroad is really expensive / not even possible in some countries (I was in Denmark recently and they just don’t let you have data there). So when I’m travelling my options are offline rates in the app, which can just be searched and added later, or the ol’ pen and paper trick. I am actually coming round to pen and paper, because when drinking alone in Denmark, I got chatting to a lot of people who wondered why I was furiously scratching down notes and got a few ticks out of it too.

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