[Ned Scott]

This is a side-effect of another request about making an option to disable ratings display in Confluence. Rather than making it a user option, maybe the issue can be addressed in another way.

For example, when viewing a list-type view of TV show episodes, when you sort by "episode" (number) or "name", the optional data column shows the approval rating. In other sorting modes the column will change. For example: sorting by "date" shows the airdate, or "play count" will show the number of times the video has played.





I'd like to question this and propose either nothing be displayed while sorting by "episode" or "name", or use something else as default like the date.

The approval rating is pretty useless to the user, especially for TV show episodes. Show-level or movie approval ratings are a little more useful (and likely have more people submitting ratings), but even those are often of little interest to many XBMC users. They probably like the videos they have added to their library and don't need to see what someone else thought. It's also a rating that is not configurable within XBMC, so unlike music, it doesn't provide very useful feedback.

[removed151214]

Have to agree a rating which users are unlikely to use to decide what they want to watch (due to the fact that they can't set this themselves and are probably going to like any videos that are in their library - meaning public ratings are of limited value) probably should be removed from the views.

Personally, I wouldn't replace it - there are the recently added views if people want to watch recently added videos and, otherwise, I can't see why people would be that desperate to know the date of the video when deciding what to watch.

[jmarshall]

XBMC is filling that, not the skin (skin can override, but it would be doing it regardless of sort, which would be less useful).

The intention is to show some information about the show that pertains to the current sort. Obviously if the sort takes place on the already displayed information (episode/title) then the second label isn't particularly useful. We fill it with a default, which was chosen to be rating, as at least it provides some information as to the chance that this episode is a good one compared to others in this season.

This seems reasonable to me unless there's other information that would be more useful in this episode view - I can't think of any. Reason it makes sense is that those that rate episode 3 higher than episode 5 are likely those that like the show anyway, so in this case the rating is likely a reasonable measure of comparative episode rankings.

[removed151214]

XBMC is filling that, not the skin (skin can override, but it would be doing it regardless of sort, which would be less useful).

Not quite sure what you mean by this. All information is provided by XBMC (what I presume you mean by 'filling') but the skin always chooses what to show here. The question is whether this information is relevant to the user in choosing what video to watch from their library.

The intention is to show some information about the show that pertains to the current sort. Obviously if the sort takes place on the already displayed information (episode/title) then the second label isn't particularly useful. We fill it with a default, which was chosen to be rating, as at least it provides some information as to the chance that this episode is a good one compared to others in this season.

OK, I'm with you more on this one - to me, though, the question is whether this information is useful not whether it is pertinent. Arguably, production code for an episode is pertinent - it's not useful in deciding whether to watch an episode, though. Bear in mind the original request was for videos in the library generally and not just TV shows, arguments have been given for the usefulness of this particular information. Specifically regarding TV shows it could be argued that most modern TV series aren't 'drop-in, drop-out', so wether one episode is highly rated or not is moot. You have to have watched previous episodes for any given episode to make sense. Not the case all the time, but another case when the rating isn't relevant.

This seems reasonable to me unless there's other information that would be more useful in this episode view - I can't think of any. Reason it makes sense is that those that rate episode 3 higher than episode 5 are likely those that like the show anyway, so in this case the rating is likely a reasonable measure of comparative episode rankings.

Useful for those series where comparative measure is appropriate. Not so when it isn't, or for movies. And even when it is appropriate, it's someone else's comparative measure, unlike in the music library where at least it can be the users own measure.

[jmarshall]

Not quite sure what you mean by this. All information is provided by XBMC (what I presume you mean by 'filling') but the skin always chooses what to show here. The question is whether this information is relevant to the user in choosing what video to watch from their library.

It's label2, which is filled by XBMC dependent on sort mode. While the skin can override, it's better if it doesn't, as the user may lose information during special sorting, particularly in a long-form list such as the above. In the above screenshots for example, it's clear that the items are sorted by date as date is shown on the second label.

OK, I'm with you more on this one - to me, though, the question is whether this information is useful not whether it is pertinent. Arguably, production code for an episode is pertinent - it's not useful in deciding whether to watch an episode, though. Bear in mind the original request was for videos in the library generally and not just TV shows, arguments have been given for the usefulness of this particular information. Specifically regarding TV shows it could be argued that most modern TV series aren't 'drop-in, drop-out', so wether one episode is highly rated or not is moot. You have to have watched previous episodes for any given episode to make sense. Not the case all the time, but another case when the rating isn't relevant.

Depends on the genre (and possibly the show) - for a comedy (say you're wanting to watch an episode of TBBT) you may well just want to drop in - rating is just as reasonable a choice as anything else in this context.

Useful for those series where comparative measure is appropriate. Not so when it isn't, or for movies. And even when it is appropriate, it's someone else's comparative measure, unlike in the music library where at least it can be the users own measure.

For the most part I agree, however, as rating is useful in some circumstances, unless something else is more useful, dropping it seems to give less information to the decision making process (what am I gonna watch tonight...)

i.e. it's not perfect, but it's useful in some circumstances, and doesn't overly clutter the screen, so dropping it seems less than ideal.

[jmarshall]

IMO a better suggestion than just offering a toggle to turn it off or just turning it off full stop is to instead simply provide the user the opportunity to rate their videos as they wish. i.e. make it useful.

[removed151214]

It's label2, which is filled by XBMC dependent on sort mode. While the skin can override, it's better if it doesn't, as the user may lose information during special sorting, particularly in a long-form list such as the above. In the above screenshots for example, it's clear that the items are sorted by date as date is shown on the second label.

Which is why I know I am a very much a beginner skinner, and long shall be! (and why I consider the skinning documentation to be severely lacking! But that's for another thread )

Depends on the genre (and possibly the show) - for a comedy (say you're wanting to watch an episode of TBBT) you may well just want to drop in - rating is just as reasonable a choice as anything else in this context.

For the most part I agree, however, as rating is useful in some circumstances, unless something else is more useful, dropping it seems to give less information to the decision making process (what am I gonna watch tonight...)

i.e. it's not perfect, but it's useful in some circumstances, and doesn't overly clutter the screen, so dropping it seems less than ideal.

Exactly! It's useful in "some circumstances". The debate becomes, therefore, just how useful it is (forget if something else could be more useful in its place - why have something that is largely irrelevant there at all, it just leaves more space for the info - be that just title and hd flag - that is actually relevant). Now, this will vary by library of course, but myself I have approximately three times as many movies as TV Shows, and approximately 3/4 of those shows are not 'drop-in, drop-out'. That means, for the vast majority of my library, this information has no interest to me and is just taking up space.

Is the rating useful in the majority of circumstances? If not, in the minority of circumstances, is the information easily accesible elsewhere for those who need it - like the video info dialog...

I fully agree that the information is sometimes relevant. However, I would suggest that the instances where this is true are in a minority to those where is isn't relevant, and is still accessible in those circumstances.

Perhaps just removing it for movies, where we at least seem to agree it is of limited value.

Even more useful, of course, would be to allow the users to rate their own videos the same way they can their music. The rating instantly becomes useful then...

Oh, and because you're also a fan, may I just say "Bazinga".

[Ned Scott]

IMO a better suggestion than just offering a toggle to turn it off or just turning it off full stop is to instead simply provide the user the opportunity to rate their videos as they wish. i.e. make it useful.

I think even with the user being able to set the ratings, it's still something that is a niche feature/data on the episode-level. It's filling in the data simply for the sake of filling in data.

While I'm open to the idea that people use XBMC very differently than I do, I find it very hard to believe that ratings would ever be useful on the episode level. The only time I can think where it might be helpful is for a smart playlist for shows that have very stand-alone episodes, but that can still be done even if the ratings aren't visible in these views.

Ratings have their own "sort by" option which will show ratings, so it's redundant. If it's going to be redundant, then why not be redundant with something else, like the date? For a default view/sort order, I would find that a lot more useful in a list view than ratings, even if I had filled out the ratings myself.


EDIT: and since this is apparently not a skin-level feature, could someone move this thread to the Feature Suggestion forum?

[shess757]

Just my 2 cents from a semi new user. I use Nox and Confluence on separate units, I can't say I've noticed this in Nox but I don't really use list view. I actually noticed this the other day in Confluence and wondered why it was there, it seems out of place to me. I agree with many of the points from this post and the other and can see everyones point of view.

For me personally (hopefully not to add fuel to the fire) I would not miss them if it were gone forever. However if it was changed to useful information I would be inclined to use it, e.g. adding my own rating. I'm not to old to remember where I left off watching a show, but when I have 9 or 20 seasons to sort through remembering my favorite episodes becomes a challenge. Creating a smartplaylist using MY ratings would allow another level of customization I think would be useful to the average user.

Scott.