

The problem with rating systems - arielm
https://medium.com/p/4a17dc6c4c7

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Arcana
I think a further issue with rating systems is the difference between
individuals.

Some people's 3 star reviews are higher than other people's 4 star reviews so
reviewing the ratings can often be misleading.

I think the issue arises from some people viewing 3 as the default, the
"everything worked, nothing went wrong" rating, reserving 4 and 5 for people
who go above and beyond.

Whereas others see 5 as the default and the "nothing went wrong" rating.

I think 3 should be the default personally, as the article says, if you rate
everything a 5, what do you do when something exceeds all of your
expectations. I think it would help when looking at the quality of a product.

If anything that "does the job" has a majority of 5 star reviews, how can you
tell when something really goes above and beyond?

At the moment it seems review systems have one level of good, and four varying
degrees of poor.

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arielm
> At the moment it seems review systems have one level of good, and four
> varying degrees of poor.

Really well said. And the more tiers there are the worse this gets...

Being less ambiguous about what each rating stands for is such an easy way to
resolve this.

