What is an 'average' rating for a club

I've seen a ton of reviews just like you've described. Personally, I've given a club as low as 2's and 3's in stuff. I very rarely give a 10, and never across the board (as far as I can remember anyways!) I've also given a club 2-3 on a visit when I've given that same club 7-8 in the past. It's all about your individual experience that visit.

But yeah... I agree that a good number of people don't really put much effort into their reviews unfortunately.

As long as this positive bias is being applied to all clubs, I don't see the problem. Two points to keep in mind - ratings numbers are relative, and individual ratings are useless. They're only useful for comparing the cumulative scores of different clubs.

I guess I tend to give ratings in the 6 to 8 range, because I try to go to clubs that are better than average.

I may be overly generous on ratings most of the time, but there are, at least within my experience, few clubs which are truly horrible. While there are no clubs which are 10's, there are also no clubs which are 1's, either. Also, there is a selection bias at work. I could go to some of the bikini bars near me and give them low ratings, but I don't go to those places. Also, I could see a place with a bad rating here and decide it's not worth it.

What's average? For me that begins with a rating of 5 as a benchmark signifying a place with reasonnably pleasing women to look at with the scale going up from there. Below average would have to mean bad looking, out of shape dancers, despite anything else that the place may have to its credit.

Better looking dancers adds on points, contact adds on points, extra fun can add on points. The fanciest of clubs is not necessarily a 9 or a 10. It's a combination of club service and reeasonable cleanliness, dancers-their looks, attitudes and how they deliver, which adds up to VALUE. Which I think is the key number.

Having said that, however, the numbers are not that informative. Since there is no subjective criteria, all the ratings are personal based on the most recent encounter, which is fine, we understand that. You just have to take that into account when looking at them. What I find interesting is whether a particular club's rating is rising or falling. That can be somewhat revealing.

I find FONDL's article on "Diffferent types of strip clubs" to be the most helpful way to distinguish between everything that's out there. Unfortunately, the ratings mechanism doesn't incorporate that information.

I think most of us judge and then purchase by impression and reputation more than anything else. That is, can I find what I'm looking for at X club based on what others have found. However, as a marketing type, I know we always make buying decisions based on both both left brain (statistical/scientific) and right brain (creative/emotional)inputs. On TUSCL the ratings numbers provide the left brain rationale while the reviews provide the right brain rationale for our decisions on where to spend our time and money.

See what happens when I respond to these things during working hours!

"While there are no clubs which are 10's, there are also no clubs which are 1's, either."

Sure there are...we just don't see them anymore cuz the Bottom 10/40 got booted again. :)

The overall score is really just an average of the three individual scores that a reviewer gives a club anyways. I never worry about the overall score myself...I just focus on trying to get the individual scores "right" IMO. There are a lot of different ways to get to a "6.7 overall rating"...

Looking at my ratings over time, an average club would be around a "6":

5 and below = Mediocre to Awful to Avoid or Closed
6 = Just OK to Average
7 = Above Average to Good
8 = Good to Great
9 = Great to Elite
10 = I've only given one triple 10 rating in a review I didn't post for GGC in Baltimore. Hitting the hat trick on my scale is no easy feat.

Because of how I rate the clubs I see, the numbers tend to be consistent from trip to trip. There are clubs I've reviewed that still received good ratings even though I didn't enjoy the visit. I also tend to pay more attention to the write ups than the numbers, but do take the numbers into account when setting up my hit list for a town.

There is no way to really know if there is an upward bias in the ratings because there are no guidelines for any of the rating categories. Each is left up the individual writing the review to interpret which pretty much makes them meaningless.

For example what exactly does Club rating mean. Does it mean rate this clubs facilities, atmosphere, location, mileage, staff or all of the above in combination? What constitutes a 1 club a 5 club or a 10 club. There is no standard in which to judge your review against.

How high of a club rating would you give the following place? It is a near dive neighborhood type strip club with no private lap dance area. Lap dances are given in the open on rock hard chairs that look like they are from a 1950's dining set which are lined up against one of the walls. Lap dances are mostly grinding and there is no skin to skin touching of the privates allowed below the belt. Extras are not available. Most of the liquor is of the cheap variety, beer is mainly the domestic types such as Miller and Bud. The atmosphere could best be described as dark. There is no high tech lighting system an average sound system no DJ the dancers use the juke box. Service varies from waitress to waitress and is usually average so order by the pitcher to make sure you don't run out.

So would you rate this place a 10 how about a 9 or 8. Well the place I described is the number 7 ranked club in the US here on TUSCL the Hip Hugger. I personally would not give this place a club rating above 5 but there are many here who give it a 9 or a 10. I wonder what they would give the Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas?

So you see that without some kind of guidelines and standards to base a numerical rating system on it is pretty much useless. Just read what people write about a place. There is where the value is in the reviews and ignore the numerical ratings.

I did the statistics on my reviews and found:
My average review is 6.50, with the range between 3.33 (lowest) and 10.0 (highest).