When rating something do you see a 5/10 as average or failing?

[Arkus86]

I see 5/10 as average, but if you take SH ratings as an example of how it actually works, 4/5 is already failing in practice, so there's that...

 

[beast_regards]

Yes, toxic readers gamify the system further by using alt account. In RR, bad ratings often comes in pairs.

So, not one 0.5 star, but two 0.5 stars. because they don't give ratings, they want you to fail hard and fast. because somehow, reading a random free novel that they dislike (because of mismatched genre) is a grave-grave mistake on the author's part. so much fun!

The situation on the Royal Road is further worsened by the excessive competitiveness for the top position - ones which equals readers and views - not only between the competing products (i.e. writers which write for money) but also for hobbyist which do want the attention without necessarily being motivated by money. On the Royal Road, you need to invest money to get readers, and you need to make money to invest that money, leaving the non-paying writers frustrated because they know that people on the top brought their place rather than being that good.

Many amateur writers which don't get any readers simply share the pain with others by bombing other stories of amateur writers so nobody gets anything, while the top brass buys the easy way out, and the Royal Road owners laugh as all that alt-account bombing traffic increase the ad revenue. They even dare the stupid children, how they call their clientele, to troll more, since they could manipulate the chaos from the background anytime they wish...

The system - the stars rating - practically encourages it, since you could give multiple dislikes from the single accounts, and double down with the alts.

Well, all because of the psychological impact of the ratings.

This is, however, not limited to the Royal Road.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Imagine you saw a story with 2.5 on SH. This is below average. Or food ratings too and even products. 2.5 is not good, it's bad.

 

[Gray_Mann]

Personally, I've always seen 5 and below as bad.

My "Average" has always been a 6.

7 is Above Average or just "Good" since to me, Above Average is no different than saying something is just "Good" or "Fairly Okay."

It is only 8 when I believe something begins to be exceptionally notable, or stands out among its competition.

 

[beast_regards]

Imagine you saw a story with 2.5 on SH. This is below average. Or food ratings too and even products. 2.5 is not good, it's bad.

If you were told that 50 people liked the food in some restaurant, and 50 of them disliked, you would be naturally suspicious that the food may be bad, after all there is a lot of dislikes, but you may opt to be the deciding factor that says the one group of people were wrong.

However, if you see 2.5 star restaurant, you would have the tendency to pick the restaurant with better ratings, even though the 2.5 star restaurant would be 50/50 like to dislike ratio. It could, however, be any other combination, as there is a useless scale attached that confuses you, as opposed to the ratio likes to dislike.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

Because 10 is an even number, 5 is actually below halfway (unless you are allowed to rate 0). The lower half of possible ratings are 1,2,3,4, and 5. The upper half of ratings are 6,7,8,9, and 10, As you can see.

So technically, 5 is actually "just below average", and 6 is "just above average".

 

[Deleted member 84247]

If you were told that 50 people liked the food in some restaurant, and 50 of them disliked, you would be naturally suspicious that the food may be bad, after all there is a lot of dislikes, but you may opt to be the deciding factor that says the one group of people were wrong.

However, if you see 2.5 star restaurant, you would have the tendency to pick the restaurant with better ratings, even though the 2.5 star restaurant would be 50/50 like to dislike ratio. It could, however, be any other combination, as there is a useless scale attached that confuses you, as opposed to the ratio likes to dislike.

I'm aware of statistical issues. But isn't this a rare situation. Novels won't have a 50/50 1 or 5 star. And sites like scribblehub actually give you a percentage for each rating, so you can figure out the mode easily.

 

[ElijahRyne]

Imagine you saw a story with 2.5 on SH. This is below average. Or food ratings too and even products. 2.5 is not good, it's bad.

I will usually read a story if it has 2 stars or higher so long as it has more than 100,000 words and looks interesting. Same with going to a restaurant, hospital, or what have you with a 2.5 score. Although I think this is missing the point. Average isn’t good or bad, it is average.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I will usually read a story if it has 2 stars or higher so long as it has more than 100,000 words and looks interesting. Same with going to a restaurant, hospital, or what have you with a 2.5 score. Although I think this is missing the point. Average isn’t good or bad, it is average.

A tangent from this, but I bet 95 percent of novels on SH have a mode of 5. Which brings me back to the idea that star systems are useless.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I will usually read a story if it has 2 stars or higher so long as it has more than 100,000 words and looks interesting. Same with going to a restaurant, hospital, or what have you with a 2.5 score. Although I think this is missing the point. Average isn’t good or bad, it is average.

I think the best comparison would be games. A lot of people play and enjoy average games.

 

[beast_regards]

I'm aware of statistical issues. But isn't this a rare situation. Novels won't have a 50/50 1 or 5 star. And sites like scribblehub actually give you a percentage for each rating, so you can figure out the mode easily.

Scribble Hub have this:

It shows you the exact ratio, which is more than any other site offer, but even then it raises a question what the individual numbers mean....

Is 5-star simply "good" or is it "excellent"? Does the scale go "Excelent>Good>Average>Bad>***"

On the other sites - and I am really struggling not to mention that site again - no one could even agree what those numbers mean. For example, it is a common "troll" argument that 3 is average, hence "Not trolling", while 5 is limited to "masterworks by the certain famous writers"

... but all people, including the "trolls" filter the stories on the range 4.5 to 5 where all sites are free, and couldn't be "masterworks by the certain famous writers" (unless pirated works)

This is especially jarring considering the Scribble Hub, and that site too, host works by amateurs without any experience, training or education in creative writing, and thus cannot be, in clear-mind, expected to stand up to comparison to professionals, but are somehow forced to.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I am really struggling not to mention that site again

I am proud of you!

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I will usually read a story if it has 2 stars or higher so long as it has more than 100,000 words and looks interesting. Same with going to a restaurant, hospital, or what have you with a 2.5 score. Although I think this is missing the point. Average isn’t good or bad, it is average.

Also, I just realized. The average of a 5 star system is 3. So we weren't even talking about average lmao ?

 

[beast_regards]

I am proud of you!

It's really hard to not mention them.

Also, I just realized. The average of a 5 star system is 3. So we weren't even talking about average lmao ?

On the scale 0.5 to 5, 2.5 is really average as it roughly equals to 5/10.

On the scale 1 to 5, no half-stars allowed, average is really 3, but even decimals aren't rounded up or down so it's debatable.

Strangely enough, the Scribble Hub actually allows 0 star rating, though it is not a value per se, but unrated.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

It's really hard to not mention them.


On the scale 0.5 to 5, 2.5 is really average as it roughly equals to 5/10.

On the scale 1 to 5, no half-stars allowed, average is really 3, but even decimals aren't rounded up or down so it's debatable.

Strangely enough, the Scribble Hub actually allows 0 star rating, though it is not a value per se, but unrated.

Average is the sum of all variables divided by the amount of variables. In a 5 star system that number is 3. I don't know if 2.5 can be rounded up to 3 if there are a lot of votes. It would be dishonest math

 

[beast_regards]

Average is the sum of all variables divided by the amount of variables. In a 5 star system that number is 3. I don't know if 2.5 can be rounded up to 3 if there are a lot of votes. It would be dishonest math

If you round up to the whole number, 2.5 really round up to 3.

The Scribble Hub would round up 2.55 to 2.6
The other site (this is getting hard) would display it as 2.55

 

[Hanne]

The situation on the Royal Road is further worsened by the excessive competitiveness for the top position - ones which equals readers and views - not only between the competing products (i.e. writers which write for money) but also for hobbyist which do want the attention without necessarily being motivated by money. On the Royal Road, you need to invest money to get readers, and you need to make money to invest that money, leaving the non-paying writers frustrated because they know that people on the top brought their place rather than being that good.

There was a time when you can wait until you can gather enough patreon and then buy ad. It was slow but sort of work. actually, I believe there's no guide that suggest buying ad from the get go.

 

[3guanoff]

I rarely give more than 8/10. To illustrate, if I were to grade Newton, he would get a 9/10 in physics. Most of my 10/10 ratings were given in the heat of the moment and while drunk.

Most of the things I read are 6/10.
4/10 is failing.
5/10 is that sweet spot in between.

 

[Arkus86]

Imagine you saw a story with 2.5 on SH. This is below average. Or food ratings too and even products. 2.5 is not good, it's bad.

Specifically on SH, and coming back to my previous comment, I was actually curious and checked the practical distribution of novels by their rating on this site (through Series Finder, with no conditions set and sorted by ratings).

The results?
60% of all novels here have full 5 star rating, 28% of all novels are in the 4.1-4.9 range, while only 11% are rated from 3 to 4. The number of novels rated under 3 stars, including novels without any rating, is so small it's practically a rounding error.

 

[Puji-Maki]

Specifically on SH, and coming back to my previous comment, I was actually curious and checked the practical distribution of novels by their rating on this site (through Series Finder, with no conditions set and sorted by ratings).

The results?
60% of all novels here have full 5 star rating, 28% of all novels are in the 4.1-4.9 range, while only 11% are rated from 3 to 4. The number of novels rated under 3 stars, including novels without any rating, is so small it's practically a rounding error.

So based on that, I believe it means that 3 stars is not considered average? Am I right? Don't correct me if I'm wrong, haha.