StarblindCelestial t1_j0wsvil wrote
Reply to comment by SufficientStudy5178 in Pro-tip: If a well reviewed book has a Goodread's rating of around 3.5 then it's usually interesting by Proper_Cold_6939
When a 5 star system has like 95% of books between 3.5 and 4.5 I think it's safe to completely disregard them. If you hover over the stars it tells you what they are supposed to mean.
5: it was amazing
4: really liked it
3: liked it
2: it was ok
1: did not like it
Except nobody uses them like that. If you look at the distribution of ratings you'll see 1 and 2 stars are almost never used. So it becomes:
5: liked/really liked it
4: it was ok
3: did not like it
Netflix took a lot of flak when they replaced ratings with thumbs up and thumbs down, but I can see why they did it. If people are going to turn it into binary anyway, just give them binary. It's much less misleading that way.
I still rate things, but I do it to remind myself what I thought of it, not to influence others or give the author a pat on the back. That's why I'll read a full series despite rating them all 3 stars with some 2s and 4s. Others who use the 3-5 method probably see my 3 star and think "if it's bad why do you keep reading it?", but 3 stars actually means I liked it. It's just probably not something I would reread or recommend unless I know it caters to someones tastes.
With the huge advancements in AI I think it would be cool to rethink the way we rate things. Instead of clicking a star/number there could be a text box that you type in a sentence or two and the AI translates that into a star/number that gets displayed. So like "It was enjoyable, I'll probably read the sequel." would give 3 stars.
jefrye t1_j0wxpwu wrote
>If you look at the distribution of ratings you'll see 1 and 2 stars are almost never used.
That's because most people read books they expect they'll at least like, and the traditional publishing process does a relatively good job of filtering out the really unreadable stuff.
I can guarantee you that if people picked books at random then the ratings distribution would look a lot different.
StarblindCelestial t1_j0xic3y wrote
>That's because most people read books they expect they'll at least like
While that does account for some of it, it doesn't make anything I said invalid. 2 star is supposed to be "it was ok" which is an opinion that should happen relatively often, even when you're reading in your preferred genera. Instead of rating it as such, many people give it a 3 or even a 4 because they think 2 stars is too harsh. 2 stars is only 1 higher than the lowest option, which they would only give to the worst books. But it is also only 1 below average and a perfectly reasonable rating for something that was a near miss for you.
>the traditional publishing process does a relatively good job of filtering out the really unreadable stuff
Indie publishing doesn't filter it out, but putting that aside this is why people should use 1 and 2 stars more often. I think they reserve them for if they were rating incoherent garbage, but that just shrinks the scale we can use. Those should be an outlier because including them in the data set messes everything up. A 2 star rating seems like a slap in the face only because it's so skewed by the fact that we've practically made 3.5 stars the new 1.5 stars.
I don't use 1 or 2 stars very often, but if you look at the reviews for even controversial books they often only add up to a single digit percentage of the total reviews. Often a low one.
For example I know a decent amount of people dislike The Name of the Wind for various reasons, but it has 3% 1s and 2s. If we add the 6% of 3s I can see that 9% as a reasonable amount of people who disliked it or thought the story wasn't for them.
The Wheel of Time also gets its fair share of haters for the way he writes women, yet The Eye of the World has 5%. A bit more reasonable, but it still seems low.
A Game of Thrones has 3%. It's a great book, but I would expect more than 3% to be put off by the grim dark a bit. Enough to say it's good, but not really for them. Which is exactly what 2 star or "it was ok" is supposed to be.
It's even more concerning when you factor in that a good portion of those 1%-2% of 1 stars DNF. So like 98.5%-99.5% of people who finished the book (not any specific for this part) thought it was at least ok. Somehow I don't believe that.
jefrye t1_j0xn6aq wrote
>2 star is supposed to be "it was ok" which is an opinion that should happen relatively often,
I'm not so sure. That 3-star midpoint of "I liked it" is generally the minimum expectation people have when going into a book, because who picks up a book they think they won't even like? And, more so, who keeps reading a book when they've realized it's falling short of their expectations?
>I know a decent amount of people dislike The Name of the Wind for various reasons,
I think this really highlights why the rating distribution seems to skew unnaturally high: books are long and complex, and readers can easily have very specific problems with a book while still having an overall 3-star experience because they're rating the entirety of the book.
Personally, I almost never give out 1-star reviews because it's unusual that I finish a book I actively dislike. 2 stars is typically my lowest, because even if I don't like a book, there usually has to be something interesting about it to keep me reading. And then I'm happy to give 3 stars to any book I liked overall, even if it's not something I'm super enthusiastic about.
StarblindCelestial t1_j0xsa87 wrote
If you've never or very rarely picked up a book you think you'll like only to be disappointed you're very lucky indeed. As for continuing a book that is falling short, I'd say it's quite common for many reasons. Bought it and don't want to feel as if it was a waste of money, nothing else to read, everyone else loves it so there must be something in it somewhere that you'll eventually like, discussion/book club/education purposes, a single compelling plot point hiding amongst the drivel, interesting structure/literary technique that you want to see how it's used despite not liking the story, sunk cost fallacy and an aversion to DNF off the top of my head.
All that about ratings may sound reasonable at surface level, and it's how most people use rating systems, but don't you see how it lowers the range of ratings thus making them less useful? If you don't like a book you give it a 2star, but 1star was literally made for books you don't like. It isn't for books that are an affront to humanity that shouldn't have been published. And while you only cut off 1star it should be easy to see how others cut off 2star as well in the same way making it even worse. If everyone decides for themself what the star means for them personally instead of using the defined meanings they become useless. This post for example uses 3.5 star as an example for a terribly rated book that most people would avoid, whereas to me there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 3.5. That's almost 4 which is a very good score.
I think it boils down to many if not most people thinking 1star means it was a bad book so they don't use it. That's not what it means. It just means you didn't like it and there's nothing wrong with that.
jefrye t1_j0xtt1o wrote
>If you don't like a book you give it a 2star, but 1star was literally made for books you don't like.
I think this is actually the crux of the issue: 1 star is for books you dislike. Dislike is an active negative feeling, not simply the lack of a positive feeling.
2 stars is for books that are "okay" and fall in that gray are between "dislike" and "like."
nolard12 t1_j0yquv9 wrote
I use the Goodreads rating system in the first way you described. I’ve rated some 1500 books with something close to a standard distribution bell curve. My ratings average 3.3 or 3.4, but Ive only given 62 5-Star ratings. So many of my friends give 5’s to everything they read! Perhaps, I’m pickier than them or at least I have more critique for books than they seem to have.
faoltiama t1_j0zmqtw wrote
I think my personal rating system goes something like this:
5: Loved it, will rave about it to everyone
4: Like it!
3: It was okay
2: Actively disliked it
1: This is truly hot garbage, will rant about it to everyone
My system tends to default at a 4 if I am happy but not blown away by it. 5's are rare, 3's are a bit meh. So yeah, it's a little skewed positive. This is just for books, movies, craft patterns, mass produced items. If it's a little Etsy business or something my rating system skews heavily positive because I don't want to tank their ratings if they met expectations.
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