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I love everything about this site so far except for one thing: the way star ratings are implemented. I wish my own ratings were much more prominent. Once I have rated a recipe myself, seeing the aggregate ratings of other users is no longer helpful. I would like to be able to scan a list of recipes I've bookmarked as made, favorites, etc., and see my own ratings at one glance for the list.

The current method of hovering my mouse over average ratings is more onerous and time consuming when deciding among multiple recipes I have already made, but what is even worse is that I cannot see my own ratings at all when using your site on my phone (which is how I will want to use it the vast majority of the time). Given the way the site is currently set up, the best solution I can come up with would be to create a bunch of bookmarks covering 1-5 in .5 increments, but this is an inelegant solution that won't scan as easily and will create more clutter than ideal in bookmarks.

I would suggest Good Reads as an example of a site that handles this very well. On Good Reads, the average user rating is shown when a user hasn't rated a title themselves. Once they have rated it, their ratings is the one that dispalys, and the stars are displayed in a different color to clearly show that this is the user's rating and not the average rating. (Average ratings can still be seen by clicking through, but your hover method reversed would work fine also.)

This is a wonderful site, and I am thrilled to have discovered it - the one issue notwithstanding.

I have passed this to our developers to see how feasible that is. But I would welcome feedback from other members if this is an enhancement they would also like to see. That your own rating will show in a different color and the hover over pop-up will show the average rating from other members for those ratings. Books/recipes you have not rated will continue to show in green.

I think this is a good idea. It would be nice to have my own rating more prominent, because that is how I feel about a recipe.

Originally Posted by: averythingcooks

Here is my take on this issue : I never actually “rate” recipes with stars ….my comments reflect my opinions , my “make it work for us” stuff and my likelihood of repeating. I also write in my books (repeat , awesome, don’t bother plus other comments helpful to me . I also don’t really look at the stars assigned to a recipe - I’m all about the written comments from other members (what worked , what didn’t work and what substitutions were fine ( sorry , but when you live / shop in a small town - pop 3500 - there’s just a million things you can’t get and substitutions really matter). It’s also always interesting to see the same user names that share many titles on your own bookshelf …..you learn to trust the comments from specific people who seem to share your likes / dislikes :) But again , that’s just my perspective on this issue, every member has different priorities .

I agree, I look at notes not stars and don't do star ratings myself. If I want to look at a recipe I've already made I read my review. When searching recipes I sort by 'buzz' which I believe is the number of notes. As for finding members who share many books in common, I have not found them. If I compare, I usually only have 1 1/2 - 2 pages of books.

Just my two cents : I ususally both rate and comment recipes I made, but I like to see the aggregate rating personally to see what others have thought, and I rely more on my notes to remember my own thoughts on it... 

Originally Posted by: averythingcooks

Here is my take on this issue : I never actually “rate” recipes with stars ….my comments reflect my opinions , my “make it work for us” stuff and my likelihood of repeating. I also write in my books (repeat , awesome, don’t bother plus other comments helpful to me . I also don’t really look at the stars assigned to a recipe - I’m all about the written comments from other members (what worked , what didn’t work and what substitutions were fine ( sorry , but when you live / shop in a small town - pop 3500 - there’s just a million things you can’t get and substitutions really matter). It’s also always interesting to see the same user names that share many titles on your own bookshelf …..you learn to trust the comments from specific people who seem to share your likes / dislikes :) But again , that’s just my perspective on this issue, every member has different priorities .

Yes I agree that it would be nice to see which members share your book :) You can currently see it by clicking on the people icon next to the book on your bookshelf, which I use, but it is not very obvious that way! -> I am editing this as I just saw the book in common clickbox! :) so cool :)

Also one thing that I would love is to be able to classify other members' as "favourites" (and be able to see their forum posts, notes and ratings easily) and have a private messaging capability. I know, you can do that by searching the name and clicking on it, but that involves remembering the person's pseudo and its spelling.

Speaking of star rating, I sure wish members leave some notes with star rating. When it is low, I like to know why. 

Originally Posted by: Rinshin

Speaking of star rating, I sure wish members leave some notes with star rating. When it is low, I like to know why.

Yes! There are so many 1 star ratings with no note - I'd love to know if they accidentally clicked the star or something.

Like others I try to write notes rather than rate in stars.  I will even say things like one kid loved this and the other didn't, so I can consider when looking at foods to make.  I do really appreciate other people's notes and would love it if more people started making them :)  I often find that they are helpful.  I made a recipe recently in my quest for my family's favorite butter chicken and one of the notes was that the recipe was good but they needed to use some cornstarch to thicken the sauce a little at the end as it was too thin.  They were exactly right.  We have lots of talented cooks on here and it is great when they share their ideas.  

I agree 100% with Curtis, and have asked for something like this many years ago.  I use star ratings for most of the recipes I've made, and seeing these ratings at a glance when looking at my filtered list is an important tool for meal planning.  Hovering over every recipe made - I have hundreds - is a pain.  General user ratings at that point are useless to me.  Nevertheless I still use star ratings because if I narrow my made-recipe list down to a few, by using filters, hovering over each of them becomes feasible.  Jane's proposal would be perfect, and wouldn't change anything for those users who don't use stars.

(My second request, still waiting for it to climb up development priority, is to be able to filter/show recipes by selecting more than one bookmark at a time.  The custom bookmark feature is great, but not very useful if I want recipes that satisfy two or more of them - say, "I've cooked this" and "Entertaining" and "Barbara's favs.")

While we wait for the new feature Jane described of different color stars for "my rating" (vs. current green "other members rating"), I wonder if another suggestion can be an interim solution.  For search results, is it possible to modify "Sort By" by adding "My Rating" in the dropdown categories along with the current Rating, which could be renamed "Members Rating"?  Sorting this way, along with selecting the bookmark "I've cooked this", would rank order results based on my rating, even though the displayed green stars would not reflect it.