Standing up for the 3 star rating

I find ratings by themselves of little value.  The people applying them may or may not know much about music or they may simply be applying an immediate emotional response.  Neither of these mean much - you can't know why somebody gave that rating.  But reviews are another thing.  With those, I can make a better judgment on the album and the reviewer's ability to say something meaningful, informed, and intelligent beyond "This sucks," or "That's great."  My pet peeve is the reviewers who write about how bad an album is and still give four or five stars.  I don't think they understand how rating systems work.  Also, with reading a review, as has been stated above, I can find out those whose views and tastes fit best with mine.  We are a diverse community here and I would not have it any other way.

Allowing half-star ratings, or even a ten star system would give us more nuance but would still be subject to the same misinterpretations.

As to one star ratings, I have noticed that many of them are given to bands who did great earlier work but for some reason or another, allowed the quality to decline.  A prime example is Triumvirat: Early albums have high ratings and deservedly so, later ones low ratings, also deservedly so.  They were a band who moved from the heights of proginess to mere pop. BTW, I can enjoy pop, but there too is good pop and bad pop. A good band can put out bad music.  But note, too, that the guidelines for ratings indicate using the one star sparingly.  I agree with that.  There are not many albums that bad, yet they do exist.  Unfortunately, it is evident that many people do not read the guidelines.