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It is not the actual "star rating" that is
revealing on Amazon. It is the text accompanying the rating. Someone
might give a book a "one-star" rating and in writing about the book say
something like "exposes like this one on the high rate of theft in Columbia do a
disservice to the country."
So, if you are planning to take a trip to Columbia,
you would take that "One-star" rating as a good reason to buy the book so as to
be aware of the dangers lurking for tourists.
Randolfe (Randy) Wicker
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 8:22
AM
Subject: Re: [videoblogging] Re: Spirit
can not be spoken for
Sunday, November 27, 2005, 4:04:28 AM, Randolfe Wicker
wrote:
> Sorry to say that I disagree with you. Star ratings are
actually
> very important and should be allowed. That is
especially true when
> the star ratings are accompanied by text
critiques.
> I trust the judgment of many over the opinions of the
"anointed few".
To me the point is more fundamental. A "star system" or
any other form
of single rating is at best _evaluative_ without being
_informative_.
In most cases it's ao much worse as to be effectively
useless of even
deceptive.
The problem is fundamentally this: the
author of the rating has to
choose one single "axis" on which to rate a
piece. But this axis is
probably not the one that any given reader wants to
know. Worst of
all, most reviewers don't even make clear _what_ axis they
assumed was
most significant.
Sunday, November 27, 2005, 8:09:32 AM,
Eric Rice wrote:
> For example, what does Peter think is cool? I want to
know. I want
> to look at his personal list of favorites, see how he
ranks them. If
> I'm giving trust to Peter as a filter, then his
rankings really
> really matter. To *me*.
So we have Eric looking
for ratings on "coolness". (whatever that
means).
Sunday, November
27, 2005, 3:16:11 AM, Randolfe Wicker wrote:
> I have been talking about
the need for people to direct us to really
> important vlogs. Let me
take a stab at doing this here. I hope you
> will indulge me and look at
these two links.
Randolfe implies some sort of rating on "importance".
(whatever that
means).
In the past I've read messages on this list
that seemed to prefer
rating on "quality", "brevity", "most personal",
"most professional",
"best editing", "most local", "most entertaining" and
as many other
hard-to-define things as you can think of.
Take a look
at the "star" ratings on Amazon (for example) and see if
you can guess what
aspect the authors of the ratings were considering.
Now look at how the
ratings polarize. "Good" ratings vie with each
other to get better. Bad
ones get worse. Few are left in the middle.
It's a natural process.
Nobody has seen or read everything. So when
you encounter something you
like, you give it a good rating. Then, a
bit later, you encounter something
you like a bit better, or your
opinions change, so you give another item a
higher rating. Then guess
what, a bit later you find something you like
even more. So you have
to give that an even better rating.
Soon, you
find yourself giving everything you like top marks. And the
same effect
happens at the bottom end of the scale. There's always
something you will
dislike more. But fewer of these ratings get
published, for fear of hurting
people's feelings.
Don't get me wrong. I'm wholeheartedly in favour of
reviews. The more
description and evaluation and the broader the range of
reviewers and
opinions the better, especially when they is
qualified
("I thought the camera work was very professional, but I
found myself
skipping quickly through what seemed a dull message. If you
are
looking for a short, punchy and exciting piece, look
elsewhere")
But I feel quite strongly that attempting to assign a
single universal
number to anything is deluding both yourself and potential
readers.
Let them read the review and make their own mind up which aspects
are
important to them. Don't con them into thinking that you
both
understand what they want to know, and can grade it on their
own
scale.
In short. I'm with Peter. Bring on the reviews, but leave
the
fools-gold of ratings at home.
--
Frank Carver
http://www.makevideo.org.uk
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
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