The FIVE STAR rating system

Barney, I partially share your frustration in that I abhor the overuse of 5-star ratings by some people, as I feel it should be only given to about the top 5% of albums, true masterpiece albums of the century.  But beyond that, most people are going to tell you (as they tell me) that it is the review that matters, not ratings and numbers.  Most people want an honest appraisal from a human more than a statistics class. 

Your suggestions would certainly be interesting but with all of the other things on the plate of site's Admin, I doubt they will be implementing such a system.  But you never know, good luck

^LOL!

Tuzvihar wrote: Wrong section.

I agree with The T about the  half points.

There are a lort of albums that I rated with 5 stars that don't deserve to be at the peak, but neither they deserve a 4 stars.

Mainly becauise we have albums that are ESSENTIAL but not MASTERPIECES, so this albums should deserve more than 4 stars but not the maximum rate.

I think Ivan's model is perfect but concede that it would be difficult to switch and people who have already written many reviews would have to go in and re-edit ratings. That being said I still like the .5 system.

moreitsythanyou wrote: I think Ivan's model is perfect but concede that it would be difficult to switch and people who have already written many reviews would have to go in and re-edit ratings. That being said I still like the .5 system.

I agree with both The T and Ivan in regards to the need of the .5 system. I really don't think it's all that much of a problem to change the options, as people who feel the need to adjust their ratings can either take it up with an admin (as is the usual procedure), or change it themselves (prog reviewers/collabs, etc.)

The switch wouldn't really be that difficult; if someone really doesn't care or feel motivated enough to change their rating, then that's fine! Leave it! At least give others the option of being more precise!

The change wouldn't harm the accuracy of the ratings at all...

Let me use GENESIS as my perfect example of how imperfect is the rating system for me...

M27Barney wrote: Thanks for the replies, What about the problem of a Reviewer, who clearly isn't into Band A, yet reviews all the output and gives them one star! Whats the point? It's like me reviewing  all of Abbas CD;s and trashing every single one! Thats why a review must be from the aspect of the reviewers MAIN taste. Eg. I know Reviewer A has given band X CD Y a four star and I correlate this review with others by the same person  and reason that Rev A has very similar taste to me, thus he reviews another and gives it a FIVE, I would be very interested in that CD. Also high star ratings have lead me into purchasing some right turkeys, I'lllet you guess which ones!

I'd be happy with a 6-star system - anything to remove the middle option.

I think that one effect of the limited choices is that often albums which are really good are only given 3 stars, simply because the reviewer doesn't want to be regarded as a "fanboy" who gives 4 or 5 stars to all his favorite albums. If there were more choices in the upper ranks, this could be avoided. 3/5 stars is the same as 6/10 stars ... and I'm sure that most people would agree that a 6 out of 10 ratings doesn't really look like a recommendation.

I think that the ideal solution for the archives would be to offer two additional choices:

4.5
3.5

You don't really need the fine grained steps in the lower ranks - but even introducing 4.5 alone would be a major improvement. The only question: What to do about the old ratings?