OTHER APPLICATIONS

The Wilson score confidence interval isn't just for sorting, of course. It is useful whenever you want to know with confidence what percentage of people took some sort of action. For example, it could be used to:

- Detect spam/abuse: What percentage of people who see this item will mark it as spam?
- Create a "best of" list: What percentage of people who see this item will mark it as "best of"?
- Create a "Most emailed" list: What percentage of people who see this page will click "Email"?

Indeed, it may be more useful in a "top rated" list to display those items with the highest number of positive ratings per page view, download, or purchase, rather than positive ratings per rating. Many people who find something mediocre will not bother to rate it at all; the act of viewing or purchasing something and declining to rate it contains useful information about that item's quality.