Update To Course Reviews Section - MacInsiders - Student-run McMaster University Help Forum

**Chad**

Hi Insiders,

I wanted to let you know of a recent change we've made to the Course Reviews section of MacInsiders. All course review threads now display posts in reverse chronological order, meaning that the newest review posts will be at the beginning. This way it is easier to see the newest, freshest reviews first before reading through to ones that may be from previous years.

Hopefully this makes it easier for you to review courses quicker rather than having to go to the last page of the review thread each time.

Thanks.

Ownaginatios · 02-10-2014 at 08:33 AM

Now the actual course review is at the very end and all the questions about the course are at the front... this doesn't seem like a great idea to be honest.

icecubz · 02-10-2014 at 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Now the actual course review is at the very end and all the questions about the course are at the front... this doesn't seem like a great idea to be honest.

X 2

liked it the way it was before!!!!!

**Chad** · 02-10-2014 at 10:48 PM

The first initial course review is at the end, but other subsequent reviews that were made as replies to the thread are now at the front. The problem being that the original reviews for some courses date back as far as 2008, and new users visiting the section saw how dated the first few reviews are and don't realize there are newer ones on the last page. Also that the older reviews for some courses are now inaccurate as the course changes over the years.

It's true, some discussions/questions are in those review threads, which can look odd since they are now reverse chronological in order. But those threads weren't meant to be discussion-based, each reply post should be a separate self-contained review.

Any other suggestions or feedback for changes we can make to correct those major issues is welcome. What do you guys suggest as an alternative solution? The only one I can think of is removing some of the older reviews, but can't be certain which are no longer useful and which are still valid even though they may be older.

ashleighp · 02-11-2014 at 07:22 AM

I really appreciate this - six year old reviews aren't generally all that helpful, for some courses the prof may have changed six or seven times since then.

GCSM · 02-11-2014 at 08:53 AM

Can you allow the option for a new review in the thread to be posted? ie include the ratings bar and other things that as of now are only in the parent post?

**Chad** · 02-11-2014 at 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GCSM

Can you allow the option for a new review in the thread to be posted? ie include the ratings bar and other things that as of now are only in the parent post?

Ya I'm looking into that, it seems the review bars system I setup doesn't work in reverse chronological. So I may have to remove that system and leave the forum as a normal thread layout. When leaving a review people can put in their ratings into the post itself.

To be honest, the system isn't very good since you didn't get to see the rating bars on each person's individual review post (aside from the original poster). It just summarized all of the reply reviews into a box on the OP.

**Chad** · 02-16-2014 at 12:52 PM

Because the reverse chronological order affects the ratings system in the course review section (you couldn't view the summary of member ratings at the top), and members giving feedback that the review threads became confusing because discussion replies in the threads were now reversed, the course reviews section has been reverted back to the old style, in chronological order.

A note has been added to the top to make newer users aware that the newest reviews are at the end of the thread.

Sorry for the inconvenience.