One 5 star rating is worse than 1000 4.5 average ratings. There's a few ways to deal with this, Bayesian average is one.
I think for most aggregate ratings, thumbs up/down is all the useful signal you can get. If you're reading a review, it can be useful to see someone say "I gave this 3.5 stars instead of 4 because the last time I went there the fries were cold." However, on aggregate, that distinction becomes almost entirely lost given 1) peoples varying rating schemes (my 4 could be your 3 stars) and 2) often lovers/haters will just give 5/0 stars, drowning out any nuance. That's why Steam and Netflix switched to thumbs up/down.
The categories are wonky--under TV shows I found Netflix, a video game franchise, running shoes (!)... Maybe have user generated tags?
But generally: good luck! I've thought something like this was needed for a while. I've considered building similar things in the past, and always couldn't figure out how to get a critical mass of users. Here's hoping you succeed where I didn't even try.
tapping on the muesli vs corn flakes comparison gave me no visual feedback to indicate it was ever going to do anything.
then it died.
when it came back I tried tapping on Visual Studio Code, expecting a page to come up but nothing happened. after enough time to flip back to hn and tap that sentence out (on my phone) and there was a page load happening. another 5s after that, a page with a lot of things on it but very little content appeared.
so a couple thoughts:
if you're going to manage page loads and nav with javascript, visual feedback is not optional. (better yet, don't do it with js at all. you don't have to go full SSR, just let your web server handle more of the effort)
every example you have there is going to boil down to personal preference or context dependence. like corn flakes vs museli, no one is going to make buying decisions based on that. there is no "better" only in that comparison, only "better for my situation". same goes for local businesses, IDEs, and whatever else. these scores don't tell me if it will work for me, only that it's popular. this is why the best review sites these days compare and present the results as "if you prefer X, then consider A. if you're on a budget but want Y, then B is a good choice." people want to know what's best for them. if you've got the data then frame a new users experience around "what are you looking for and what do you care about" rather than this zillionth hot-or-not-with-a-twist clone.
A better AI model could achieve the same result in a few days.
Perhaps you should look at how similar projects do it. Platforms like Hupu and Coolapk have public rating features, and users find them easier to understand and use, rather than staring at the current UI unsure how to rate.
If I'm understanding this correctly, you're going to need a LOT of user ratings before the rating content is worthwhile to most people.
Maybe focus the site on capturing ratings to start instead of sharing ratings for products that don't have many ratings (visual studio appears to be highest rated product with 2 ratings).
If you just showed me two related products and had me click on my favorite, I'd probably do that 10 times for no good reason.
> visual studio appears to be highest rated product with 2 ratings
That's why Bayesian average is superior; if you don't have enough ratings you basically get assigned the average for all products (or, likely, all similar products in this case).
I saw a product, it had a 1 rating. I added a higher rating. The total rating went down... bug?
As always, the problem with this kind of site is that as soon as you gain any kind of traction the marketers and bots will come and ruin the rating reliability.
Not a bug but I understand why it looked like one. We just switched to Bayesian scoring to prevent low vote entities gaming the rankings. Your vote is counted, it just takes more votes for the displayed score to diverge from the baseline. UX is being improved. On the bots point: votes are trust-weighted (account age, consistency, cluster detection) specifically for that reason. Appreciate you reporting it.
> What's actually the best?
Community-ranked products, services, and places. No ads, no paid placements. Just real opinions from real people.
Opinions from REAL people. No ads, no paid placements. - that is what I care.
Remove all metrics (numbers) for now. It looks like scam. You can add them later after initial phase of project.
Design: use base-ui and emilkowalski skills set for redesign. The user interface screams AI and ppl are starting to leave such sites quickly. (Churn rate is high.)
Domain: I would use something else. Io tld and missing “e” in peaked make it hard to remember/memorate.
Looks done to me, no need to lose more time. Just needs a business model.
Best business model for you is "managed content", allow companies to disguise their own ads as ads for your site. I.E. car company pays you to generate a "which is better" between two of their car models and embed it into an ad.
Rankings are trust-weighted — account age, voting consistency, and cluster detection make ballot-stuffing impractical. Companies pay for analytics and visibility, not influence over scores.
Thanks! Business model is already live — companies can claim their page (£99/mo for analytics, respond to reviews, manage their listing) and buy promoted placements that are clearly labelled as sponsored. Rankings themselves can never be bought. The trust is the product.
We have rank change notifications, personalised feeds based on your interests, and weekly digests already — signing up unlocks all of that. Glad it peaked your interest.
A few thoughts:
One 5 star rating is worse than 1000 4.5 average ratings. There's a few ways to deal with this, Bayesian average is one.
I think for most aggregate ratings, thumbs up/down is all the useful signal you can get. If you're reading a review, it can be useful to see someone say "I gave this 3.5 stars instead of 4 because the last time I went there the fries were cold." However, on aggregate, that distinction becomes almost entirely lost given 1) peoples varying rating schemes (my 4 could be your 3 stars) and 2) often lovers/haters will just give 5/0 stars, drowning out any nuance. That's why Steam and Netflix switched to thumbs up/down.
The categories are wonky--under TV shows I found Netflix, a video game franchise, running shoes (!)... Maybe have user generated tags?
But generally: good luck! I've thought something like this was needed for a while. I've considered building similar things in the past, and always couldn't figure out how to get a critical mass of users. Here's hoping you succeed where I didn't even try.
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well it took 10s of second to load very little.
tapping on the muesli vs corn flakes comparison gave me no visual feedback to indicate it was ever going to do anything.
then it died.
when it came back I tried tapping on Visual Studio Code, expecting a page to come up but nothing happened. after enough time to flip back to hn and tap that sentence out (on my phone) and there was a page load happening. another 5s after that, a page with a lot of things on it but very little content appeared.
so a couple thoughts:
if you're going to manage page loads and nav with javascript, visual feedback is not optional. (better yet, don't do it with js at all. you don't have to go full SSR, just let your web server handle more of the effort)
every example you have there is going to boil down to personal preference or context dependence. like corn flakes vs museli, no one is going to make buying decisions based on that. there is no "better" only in that comparison, only "better for my situation". same goes for local businesses, IDEs, and whatever else. these scores don't tell me if it will work for me, only that it's popular. this is why the best review sites these days compare and present the results as "if you prefer X, then consider A. if you're on a budget but want Y, then B is a good choice." people want to know what's best for them. if you've got the data then frame a new users experience around "what are you looking for and what do you care about" rather than this zillionth hot-or-not-with-a-twist clone.
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A better AI model could achieve the same result in a few days.
Perhaps you should look at how similar projects do it. Platforms like Hupu and Coolapk have public rating features, and users find them easier to understand and use, rather than staring at the current UI unsure how to rate.
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If I'm understanding this correctly, you're going to need a LOT of user ratings before the rating content is worthwhile to most people.
Maybe focus the site on capturing ratings to start instead of sharing ratings for products that don't have many ratings (visual studio appears to be highest rated product with 2 ratings).
If you just showed me two related products and had me click on my favorite, I'd probably do that 10 times for no good reason.
> visual studio appears to be highest rated product with 2 ratings
That's why Bayesian average is superior; if you don't have enough ratings you basically get assigned the average for all products (or, likely, all similar products in this case).
Good point — implementing Bayesian averaging so low vote entities don't dominate the leaderboard. Cheers
Bayesian averaging is live
ood point — we're in the early cold-start phase. Working on a quick-vote mechanic (pick A vs B) to drive volume fast. Appreciate the feedback.
do what reddit did and just fake a ton of content and try and egg the fanbois into a ratings war
I saw a product, it had a 1 rating. I added a higher rating. The total rating went down... bug?
As always, the problem with this kind of site is that as soon as you gain any kind of traction the marketers and bots will come and ruin the rating reliability.
Not a bug but I understand why it looked like one. We just switched to Bayesian scoring to prevent low vote entities gaming the rankings. Your vote is counted, it just takes more votes for the displayed score to diverge from the baseline. UX is being improved. On the bots point: votes are trust-weighted (account age, consistency, cluster detection) specifically for that reason. Appreciate you reporting it.
I hit the back button before the page finished loading
Thanks for the feedback. We had a caching issue that's now fixed. Should be fast now if you want to give it another try.
Wow, how convenient that the "community" ranked your own site the "best service"...
Ha, fair catch. That's from testing during development and shouldn't be ranking. Removing it now.
I love your headline here :-)
> What's actually the best? Community-ranked products, services, and places. No ads, no paid placements. Just real opinions from real people.
Opinions from REAL people. No ads, no paid placements. - that is what I care.
Remove all metrics (numbers) for now. It looks like scam. You can add them later after initial phase of project.
Design: use base-ui and emilkowalski skills set for redesign. The user interface screams AI and ppl are starting to leave such sites quickly. (Churn rate is high.)
Domain: I would use something else. Io tld and missing “e” in peaked make it hard to remember/memorate.
Good luck with the project.
The page does not need a cookie popup.
Already working on it.
Looks done to me, no need to lose more time. Just needs a business model.
Best business model for you is "managed content", allow companies to disguise their own ads as ads for your site. I.E. car company pays you to generate a "which is better" between two of their car models and embed it into an ad.
Clever. And since its subtle its not like the usual amped up noise blurb of many ads.
But what if your product loses? Fake votes to make your Ford F-150 win vs a Rivian?
Rankings are trust-weighted — account age, voting consistency, and cluster detection make ballot-stuffing impractical. Companies pay for analytics and visibility, not influence over scores.
Thanks! Business model is already live — companies can claim their page (£99/mo for analytics, respond to reviews, manage their listing) and buy promoted placements that are clearly labelled as sponsored. Rankings themselves can never be bought. The trust is the product.
Clicked on a random link and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Not sure I would do it again though. Caught me at a good time.
Peaked my interest. And bam. Gone again.
We have rank change notifications, personalised feeds based on your interests, and weekly digests already — signing up unlocks all of that. Glad it peaked your interest.
Remove the emdash from the front page
Good eye — done!
I like corn flakes
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