That is something we'd like to support longer term. We chose not to support it for launch because:
- We currently don't have updated time stamps beyond the most recent set of ratings.
- We ideally would provide synchronization capabilities so ratings pulled don't get out-of-sync with the Netflix set, if that is what the user desires.
I second this idea. To get the current ratings we have to poll their rental history, then fetch the rating for each one. This way excludes anything they've rated that they haven't rented too.
I'd certainly rather have outdated info than no info :)
There is a lot of data we could provide with any request, but we had to normalize the API resources to some extent or risk making the responses larger than some applications would desire. The good things is, with the way the API is designed, you can fulfill almost any user need with two sets of sequential calls, one to get your list of titles, one set of parallel requests to get whatever title-centric user data you need, e.g. ratings, title states, etc.
We also have a number of performance improvements in the pipeline that will make the latency on these sequential calls better.
I'd very much like this as well, I can think of a few very viral widgets that could be built if this data were available that would be of benefit to Netflix and encourage users to rate more movies.
To expand on JR's comment, we feel that we need to loosen our 24 hour data retention restrictions for API-sourced data for user ratings. Given that change, we also need to inform the user on how that retained data will be used, e.g. what controls they have over the data in the third-party app.
Sadly, I don't think we can give a better estimate than "real soon". There are a fair number of parties involved, and they all have different time schedules and priorities. My personal, very rough, probably-not-at-all-accurate guess would be something on the order of two months. Bear in mind how old this thread is, however.
We are very much pushing to get this done, but there are some things we simply can not make happen faster (no matter how much I whine about it).
Just a quick update since I posted about this on another thread. It's something still on our "to do" list, but sadly, we've hit a few extra snags on our side which will delay us getting this out. (As noted on the other thread, it's a case where we have to wait for a few other groups to go forward before we can, and they've got plenty of higher priority items to work on.)
My apologies for the unexpected delays. We really do want to make this available, but sometimes the obviously easy things become a great deal less so once you start digging into it.
Perhaps allow a one-time access for now? Or at least a way for users to download rating data in a structured form and upload it to our applications? As a user and potential developer, either would rock while the details are sorted.
1. User privacy warnings/permissions
2. Change to the TOS to allow caching ratings
3. Updated rating time stamps
1. Privacy wise, I would ask that you do an all-or-nothing access system like Twitter. This allows the user to choose up front if they trust the application enough to give it the access it needs. Facebook uses a more fragmented system of asking separately about each permission item. This is much more cumbersome/annoying for the end users, as well as being more of a pain to code around, since you are not guaranteed to have all the data you want for your application.
Twitter just informs the user on the authorize page what type of access the user is requesting. That said, I'm a privacy advocate but the difference between 10 ratings and all ratings seems like a trivial distinction. Reviews or the user's name seem much more interesting/sensitive than numeric ratings, and we already have complete access to both those items.
2. I would wager that many people would like to have 24 hour (no caching) access to the ratings, even if you aren't able to get the TOS changed. Is it possible that we could see a release very soon with those restrictions, and worry about allowing us to cache the data at a later date? Personally, I'm not even interested in the numeric ratings, I would just like a complete list of movies the user has rated, though I can see other people building interesting applications off the ratings. On the technical side it seems like you have most of the code you need to serve up ratings already written for the reviews.
3. I don't know if you solved the time stamps issue, but it seems like it would be acceptable to generate time stamps for the older material, each title being one second older, for the titles it doesn't exist on. That would allow an updated_min argument to work properly.
For API methods such as users/userID/ratings it would be nice to have an additional optional argument updated_max to compliment updated_min. This would help with the issue of updates happening while trying to read all the ratings. (assuming allowing us to access them is implemented)
Functionality:
updated_max is set to a date, and only ratings/etc. previous to this date are returned.
if both updated_min and updated_max are set then only titles in the date range between them are returned
if updated_min is greater than or equal to updated_max then an error is returned (no valid range)
Is there any possibility of full ratings access happening in the near future? Clearly there are some issues with other departments concerning privacy of caching users ratings, but I believe non-caching access would be preferable for many people than no access at all. Certainly for my uses I have no need to keep the ratings, and I'm sure many others would be able to use them for things such as deriving recommendations without needing to cache them.
An alternate solution would be to expose an API that only gave us a list of movies that the user had rated (rather than a feed of the ratings themselves) - which would force developers to fetch each title to see the actual rating - no different privacy wise than the current implementation. Obviously this is a workaround at best - but if it is something that could be pushed out the door quickly it might be a good interim solution if a proper ratings feed is expected to take another 3-12 months of inter-department wrangling.
Is there any expected release date for full ratings access (or some interim solution that would allow viewing of all titles that have been rated)? We're on the verge of releasing a feature that uses the titles watched by the user - but it would be much more useful if it could encompass the titles they've rated as well. (I know I rate many movies on Netflix that I don't actually watch, since I've seen them previously)
Not looking for an exact date, just a general time period (a week, month, 6 months?)
Ratings are currently only available for a specified title:
users/userID/ratings/title
I would like to retrieve all ratings for a user (like how reviews are handled):
users/userID/ratings/
Message edited by dsims 5 months ago
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Michael Hart – 3 years ago
That is something we'd like to support longer term. We chose not to support it for launch because:
- We currently don't have updated time stamps beyond the most recent set of ratings.
- We ideally would provide synchronization capabilities so ratings pulled don't get out-of-sync with the Netflix set, if that is what the user desires.
Kallahar – 3 years ago
I second this idea. To get the current ratings we have to poll their rental history, then fetch the rating for each one. This way excludes anything they've rated that they haven't rented too.
I'd certainly rather have outdated info than no info :)
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
There is a lot of data we could provide with any request, but we had to normalize the API resources to some extent or risk making the responses larger than some applications would desire. The good things is, with the way the API is designed, you can fulfill almost any user need with two sets of sequential calls, one to get your list of titles, one set of parallel requests to get whatever title-centric user data you need, e.g. ratings, title states, etc.
We also have a number of performance improvements in the pipeline that will make the latency on these sequential calls better.
Bruinor – 3 years ago
Definitely interested in this feature. Is it possible to stage the release of this API call?
First phase: An API call to return list of all movies rated for a user (regardless of time stamp).
Second phase: Add synchronization capabilities?
Sundar – 3 years ago
I need this too. The current way to retrieve rating is too cumbersome.
Greg Gershman – 3 years ago
I'd very much like this as well, I can think of a few very viral widgets that could be built if this data were available that would be of benefit to Netflix and encourage users to rate more movies.
Aaron Weber – 3 years ago
Hello Michael, any update on this topic? This is something that is critical for our project as well.
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
I expect that we should be able to support this by the end-of-June at the latest.
Aaron Weber – 3 years ago
Thanks for the quick response Michael. Did Jinni.com get the limit removed? They seem to be able to pull in all of a user's ratings.
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
There is no "limit" to lift; it simply isn't implemented yet.
Chris Miller – 3 years ago
Michael, It is now the end of June? Any update on this?
Chris Miller – 3 years ago
Does anyone have an update on this? I am working on a project that this is critical to have.
JR Conlin – 3 years ago
We're still trying to go through the various privacy issues regarding this.
Michael Hart – 3 years ago
To expand on JR's comment, we feel that we need to loosen our 24 hour data retention restrictions for API-sourced data for user ratings. Given that change, we also need to inform the user on how that retained data will be used, e.g. what controls they have over the data in the third-party app.
Chris Miller – 3 years ago
Thank you both for the response. Any idea what the time line is?
JR Conlin – 3 years ago
Sadly, I don't think we can give a better estimate than "real soon". There are a fair number of parties involved, and they all have different time schedules and priorities. My personal, very rough, probably-not-at-all-accurate guess would be something on the order of two months. Bear in mind how old this thread is, however.
We are very much pushing to get this done, but there are some things we simply can not make happen faster (no matter how much I whine about it).
acorr191 – 2 years ago
Hi JR! Do you have an update regarding this feature? I couldn't find an API listing all user ratings.
Thanks!
JR Conlin – 2 years ago
Just a quick update since I posted about this on another thread. It's something still on our "to do" list, but sadly, we've hit a few extra snags on our side which will delay us getting this out. (As noted on the other thread, it's a case where we have to wait for a few other groups to go forward before we can, and they've got plenty of higher priority items to work on.)
My apologies for the unexpected delays. We really do want to make this available, but sometimes the obviously easy things become a great deal less so once you start digging into it.
Andy – 2 years ago
That is a sticky privacy solution to solve.
Perhaps allow a one-time access for now? Or at least a way for users to download rating data in a structured form and upload it to our applications? As a user and potential developer, either would rock while the details are sorted.
Thanks!
unfair – 2 years ago
Reading through I see three issues:
1. User privacy warnings/permissions
2. Change to the TOS to allow caching ratings
3. Updated rating time stamps
1. Privacy wise, I would ask that you do an all-or-nothing access system like Twitter. This allows the user to choose up front if they trust the application enough to give it the access it needs. Facebook uses a more fragmented system of asking separately about each permission item. This is much more cumbersome/annoying for the end users, as well as being more of a pain to code around, since you are not guaranteed to have all the data you want for your application.
Twitter just informs the user on the authorize page what type of access the user is requesting. That said, I'm a privacy advocate but the difference between 10 ratings and all ratings seems like a trivial distinction. Reviews or the user's name seem much more interesting/sensitive than numeric ratings, and we already have complete access to both those items.
2. I would wager that many people would like to have 24 hour (no caching) access to the ratings, even if you aren't able to get the TOS changed. Is it possible that we could see a release very soon with those restrictions, and worry about allowing us to cache the data at a later date? Personally, I'm not even interested in the numeric ratings, I would just like a complete list of movies the user has rated, though I can see other people building interesting applications off the ratings. On the technical side it seems like you have most of the code you need to serve up ratings already written for the reviews.
3. I don't know if you solved the time stamps issue, but it seems like it would be acceptable to generate time stamps for the older material, each title being one second older, for the titles it doesn't exist on. That would allow an updated_min argument to work properly.
unfair – 2 years ago
For API methods such as users/userID/ratings it would be nice to have an additional optional argument updated_max to compliment updated_min. This would help with the issue of updates happening while trying to read all the ratings. (assuming allowing us to access them is implemented)
Functionality:
updated_max is set to a date, and only ratings/etc. previous to this date are returned.
if both updated_min and updated_max are set then only titles in the date range between them are returned
if updated_min is greater than or equal to updated_max then an error is returned (no valid range)
Is there any possibility of full ratings access happening in the near future? Clearly there are some issues with other departments concerning privacy of caching users ratings, but I believe non-caching access would be preferable for many people than no access at all. Certainly for my uses I have no need to keep the ratings, and I'm sure many others would be able to use them for things such as deriving recommendations without needing to cache them.
An alternate solution would be to expose an API that only gave us a list of movies that the user had rated (rather than a feed of the ratings themselves) - which would force developers to fetch each title to see the actual rating - no different privacy wise than the current implementation. Obviously this is a workaround at best - but if it is something that could be pushed out the door quickly it might be a good interim solution if a proper ratings feed is expected to take another 3-12 months of inter-department wrangling.
JR Conlin – 2 years ago
Thanks, we'll consider adding these to the road map.
unfair – 2 years ago
Is there any expected release date for full ratings access (or some interim solution that would allow viewing of all titles that have been rated)? We're on the verge of releasing a feature that uses the titles watched by the user - but it would be much more useful if it could encompass the titles they've rated as well. (I know I rate many movies on Netflix that I don't actually watch, since I've seen them previously)
Not looking for an exact date, just a general time period (a week, month, 6 months?)
Thanks!
Michael Hart – 2 years ago
I'm sorry, but we don't have a release date at this time. Development of other APIs that have no privacy issues keep bumping this one down the road.