More thoughts on our scoring system

Adding on to last week's explanation of how we review/score BBQ joints, I have a few comments about the scores themselves. Some people may wonder how a score in the 8-9 (out of 10) range would put a joint somewhere in the bottom half of the pack. I mean, how could a score above an 8 not mean that you're one of the best places?

Well, first, we've been to some awesome places - presumably some of the best joints in Texas. So, the bar's set kinda high. Second, remember that an official Man-Up score is the average of all of the scorers' overall-experience scores for that visit; and each person may factor into an overall-experience score anything and everything he/she wants - the company, for example. Thus, if someone gives a joint a 9.5, it doesn't necessarily mean that that scorer thought the food was good enough to grab a 9.5 but rather that that person thought the experience (the food, the atmosphere, the service, the company, whatever) was a 9.5. Admittedly, many of our overall-experience scores are bumped up (even higher than the food scores) because of the great time that we have together.

When it comes to scoring, we have never told scorers in what range, say, a "great" experience should fall. We've never categorized, for potential scorers, the level of experience into scoring ranges and never will. However, simply based on the reviews and corresponding scores to date - and just to give you an idea of how to view our scores - I'd roughly categorize our scoring ranges as follows:

Below 5: Terrible
5-7: Bad
7-8: Eh
8-8.5: Okay
8.5-9: Pretty good
9-9.25: Good
9.25-9.5: Very good
9.5-9.75: Great
9.75-10: Outstanding

Obviously, there are plenty of ways to score and numerous opinions about what score a "good" experience should get or what score a "great" outing should get, but this is how we do it.