I apologize if this has already been asked -- not having much luck with the search function.

Has anyone used the "poor"/"very poor" ratings for quizzes? I've been tempted a few times to rate a quiz "poor" but it's because of one question, and I feel that's too petty. Has anyone used the "very poor" rating?

I have. Quizzes without Interesting Info, quizzes with poor spelling, quizzes with ambiguous answers. To be fair, most of these are *very early* quizzes...

I've only used "very poor" once or twice. At least one was a quiz were there was a snotty comment in the interesting info. Something along the lines of "I hope you weren't stupid enough to miss this one!". I don't think I even missed the question it referred to, just thought the comment was obnoxious. Can't remember the category or quiz.

I've used "poor" more often. I think it's fair to give a lower rating to quizzes that seem like someone just tossed them off when there are so many quizzes on this site that people have put a lot of time and effort into.

Any quiz with no interesting info, I give a generic average rating. This is because I feel you can slap up a Q and A with no info in five minutes. Every question has a world of information that can be added to it. To offer none doesn't really get one enthralled with a quiz.

Personally, I don't use "poor" and "very poor" - I use a 3 point scale instead of a 5, where default is "good", if there are things I don't like about the quiz it then goes to "average" and if I think the quiz is unique, quirky or very interesting I will give an "excellent" but I use this very sparingly. The vast majority of quizzes I rate are "good" and "average".

I am sure I read on here sometime back that the "poor" and "very poor" ratings don't count towards the ranking? Can someone clarify this or is it just my imagination running riot?

No, I don't think I ever have. Since writing quizzes myself, I tend to be pretty generous with ratings. If there's something I don't like about the quiz I will more likely not rate it at all (I know this defeats the purpose of ratings, but still ... ).

I, for one, as a quiz author would like to see a more detailed breakdown of my quiz ratings. How many averages, poor, etc. - not just "good" and "excellent."

I don't think I have ever used Poor or very poor. Back in the earlier quizzes, interesting info wasn't needed, so I don't think much of it. I do agree though, I have seen a LOT of questions that say something like "I hope everybody got this one! It is so easy!" It makes you feel bad if you don't know the answer.

I have yet to rate a quiz very poor. I have rated quizzes poor before. Poor quizzes to me are pretty much any quiz without any extra information, the only exceptions would be brain twists or themed quizzes. I rate most quizzes average or good. I rarely rate a quiz excellent, it would have to be very entertaining and it would have a very nice flow to it. Here are the ratings I use the most, one being the most five being the least.

1. Average
2. Good
3. Poor
4. Excellent
5. Very Poor

Sure...if it wasn't meant to be used then it wouldn't exist.

I have rated some very poor, mainly early ones with spelling mistakes, no interesting information, ambgious(sp) questions.

I remember a thread awhile back that said if you didn't rate at least (X), then it wouldn't count, so not all ratings count. Guest ratings do not count at all.

Ambiguous questions drop quiz ratings when I rate them.

I don't know if it's been answered before, somewhere, but I would like to know whether ratings count from non-gold members after they reach their 301 quiz scoring limit. I know they won't be counted towards the badge, but it would be nice to think they were going into the feedback for the author.

I don't use "Poor" and "Very Poor" ratings often, but I guarantee that any music/literature/movie quiz which asks questions about inane or obvious plot points and then uses the interesting info to rephrase the questions will get a bad rating from me!

I guess I've been too generous. I don't really mind if there isn't interesting info, but I don't like it when there's an answer that needs an explanation and none is given. And I really don't like stupid questions (yes, there IS such a thing as a stupid question) -- like, what a license plate number was in a particular scene of a movie or tv show. Unless it has significance to the plot or it's quirky, why would we care?

Someone mentioned not rating bad quizzes, and I confess that's what I've been doing. I give the majority of quizzes "average" ratings, a couple or so a week "good" ratings and a few "excellent" ratings.

I think the "poor" rating is there for a reason, and I use it. If there is nothing really wrong with a quiz, but it hasn't anything special about it, I rate it as average.

I use "good" as the default rating. If a quiz is unique in some way, very clever or funny, or especially well researched, I'll rank it "excellent". I use "average" for some of the older quizzes that don't contain much interesting information, or seem rather pointless to me. I've only used "poor" once, and that was a quiz that I found very offensive.

I have never given a "very poor" and only once or twice "poor."

Most quizzes are pretty decent, or they wouldn't have been approved by the editors. However, some of the older quizzes, compared to the newer ones, do seem lacking.

I tend to give a lot of "good" and "average" ratings, and I reserve the "excellent" ones for well-researched and well-written quizzes. I normally score terribly on the quizzes I rate "excellent." :-)

The only time I'm tempted to give a "poor" rating is when authors ask inane questions about irrelevant dates and such. Even then, I typically just give an "average" because I know they put some effort into the quiz.

I have a quiz that proved to be somewhat "controversial" and from it's ranking, and the percentage of good and excellents shown it HAS to have been rated poor and very poor a fair number of times. It's not a bad quiz, it's just one that people tend to feel strongly about and rate accordingly.
I have, I think, used the poor rating twice for absolutely dire quizzes and have never rated one very poor.
My score doesn't affect how I rate, I can get just one or two right and still rate a quiz excellent if I enjoy it, learn something and appreciate the effort and work that has gone into writing it.

I have mellowed with age. In the early days I rated quizzes 'Poor' or even 'Very Poor' if they contained serious factual inaccuracies, misunderstandings of the subject matter and showed no evidence of research.

Nowadays I rarely use those ratings.

I use "Good" as my generic rating - I don't think I've ever given an 'very poor', but I do know that I have given a 'poor' - because it was pretty obvious that there had not been a lot of thought go into the quiz-writing, and I hate the statement "That was an easy one" - Easy for who? Is always my response. Just because you know the answer doesn't mean everybody else should.

If the quiz prompts me to find out more on that subject - so much so that I'll open another window before I finish the quiz - it will get an 'Excellent'. If you can keep my mind on one subject, you deserve it!

I have so far never rated a quiz 'poor' or 'very poor', and only a handful 'average'. But after now playing over 2000 quizzes, I feel a little less generous at times.

Quizzes with questions like 'how many blades of grass are there in the garden in scene 12?' and 'what colour socks was Chandler wearing under his shoes' (not actual questions obviously but you know what I mean...), basically means that the quiz author has had to watch that episode/film with the express purpose of finding difficult questions that they themselves would not be able to answer unless they had done that.

However, I have yet to be brave enough to rate a quiz 'poor', knowing how much effort normally goes into making a quiz. So, still 'excellents' all round then...!

I use the Poor and Very Poor ratings when there are sloppy errors akin to:

3. Which of the following is a mammal?

a. Human
b. Pig
c. Snake
d. Butterfly

However, as a rule -- I tend to rate high.

I totally agree with you, Dopple44. It drives me crazy when authors ask inane questions that have no purpose other than to be nearly impossible to answer. Now, if a quiz is difficult because I don't know the subject matter, that is totally fine. I love to learn something new. But when you get those "how many blades of grass are there in the garden" questions, it turns you off from the whole quiz.

I rarely use the poor or very poor ratings. I'd tend to use them for glaring errors that affect my chances of getting the question right. Another peeve is too many irrelevant questions - for instance if the quiz is about the date of 30th June - "flight 161 crashed into the pacific on 30th June - how many people were on board? 350, 354, 356, 358 - that would be acceptable on a quiz about aircraft disasters, but not on a general history quiz. Similarly, "Which member of Boyzone was born on 30th June" belongs in a quiz on Boyzone!