The Rating System -- Sensible or not?

[Weaver]

Hey, you might know me as "the new guy." Or you might not know me at all. Your choice.

I have yet another question, huzzah! It concerns the "star" rating system, in case the title wasn't noticeable enough. I'll be honest: I don't really understand what it accomplishes. Most of it seems biased and rash. You could easily have a friend of the writer give it 5 stars, when it's, in all truth, horrible. Can you even give yourself a rating? I hope not, as that would be very...strange. You could also have a jealous, spiteful person give a good fan fiction a low score, therefore making the story seem bad to passersby who judge a story based on the amount of shiny stars they have, rather than taking a look.

Shouldn't there be a better method for rating, or none at all? It's all random, based on what kind of person is going to enter that fan fiction's thread. I suppose this rating system applies to all of the forums...not just fan fiction. But still, I don't get what it accomplishes, except for biased results given by random people that might not have even read the story at all.

While it could be an honest opinion based on collections the “one who rates” pointed out by reading the material, it could also be some stupid idea one comes up with – an attempt to lower the writer’s morale.

And, yes, this is because I just had an odd occurrence with my own fan fiction. At first, it was rated 5 stars by 1 unknown user (5.00 average), no comments. I add a new chapter (raising my thread to the top) and my score lowers to 3 stars (3.00 average), no comments. This is 2 votes total. What is that, a 5-star rating from one, and a 1-star rating from another? Honestly, this is why I came up with this subject.

It makes little sense, unless corrected. I brought this to the Author’s Café because I feel it applies the most to fan fiction. I’d like to hear what anybody else has to say on this. It can be a both pleasing and outraging turn of events, based on what scores you get. Talk about random. Could it be improved with, say, an actual list of the people that did rate it, therefore allowing one to identify whether the act was correctly intended or not? Maybe this already exists…and, if so, please tell me. *Evil laugh.*

Thoughts, please.

 

[PDL]

Yeah, the star-rating's far too easily abused by people, and it's possible to give yourself a good rating. (though you can only rate a thread once.)

It would be a good if was gotten rid of entirely, but I hear Joe's a bit stubborn when it comes to upgrades for the site.

 

[Lady Myuu]

Yeah you must be new Weaver, many a thread as been made of this system. Being a mod I have even asked for it to be removed in the secret section of da mods.

But while we can all steam about it, in truth :\ Joe wont remove it. I agree its really just a bias faving/hating system. Someone once went around and started rating fics badly once too. Cheshire-Cat I think wrote a fic about it too.

I could rant about how much I hate it, but I've done it like three times... maybe we need a petition. Haha I'd laugh

Edit:

I would be a good if was gotten rid of entirely, but I hear Joe's a bit stubborn when it comes to upgrades for the site.

Understatment of the yeeaarrrrr or fooorrevveerr

 

[Psychic]

Indeed, you're a little late, Weaver. The subject has been brought up countless times by all sorts of people, some complaining about their own rating, other feeling as if they received an unfair 5 star score, and other just being disappointed that the quality of a fic is being summarized in five little stars.


And it's true- the stars do no good in this section. They're useless, and the truth is that nobody even really checks them when deciding what fic to read. The few times they come in handy is when you want to bring a thread to a Mod's attention- that will usually bring them (them being usually Dragonfree XD) running to se what the problem is. Take that thread by LocK I just posted in. It isn't very good, it breaks some rules, so it has a single star so everyone will know that it's pretty much no good.

But yes, a thread can be rated unjustly. It's happened too many times to count, sometimes out of spite or revenge. Myuu and myself have a friend who constantly gets monostars which she rarely deserves, but when you get on a person's nerves, they'll want to get you back. Ratings seem to help people get back at others. >>

You can have it go the other way, too. I've seen fics that, though they followed all rules, they were still written badly. But if you have a bunch of friends, you just ask them to give you five stars, and it's no hassle at all. Or a person who doesn't know about reviewing or fic quality could give something five stars when it is just barely acceptable as a piece of writing a second grade English teacher would take in.



But in the end, the sad truth is that we have these stars, and they will always be here and they will always be abused. Myuu is right- Cheshire did write a One-Shot about the 'crisis' we had at one point where some kid was running around giving everything one star. And so, The Phantom of the Monostar was born.

But other than make fun of the situation, we just have to live with it.


~Psychic

 

[pokefreak1990]

welcome to the boards Weaver.(gives Weaver a gift basket full of goodies).
to answer your question. it's just like a movie or show. one person would give a movie or show a 4.5 star rateing while someone else will give the same thing a 1 star. it's just their opion and it means nothing for popularity. i'm not sure about rating your own fic but i don't think so. i hope that helped.

 

[Kiyohime]

xDDD When I was new, I made a thread exactly like this too. I do wish they would be removed, but yess....we're all in the same boat here. *sigh*

 

[Isfahan]

It's not a Serebii fic until it's been monostarred! Think of it as breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull of a newly-commissioned ship.

I've seen new threads get monostarred really really fast--I'd hate to think there's some giggly kid somewhere out there camping the forum all day waiting for new threads to slap one-star ratings on, but I'm at a loss for an alternate explanation.

 

[Astinus]

I knew someone else made a thread like this months before I joined. I just couldn't remember whom it was.

Anyhow, welcome to SPPf. Star-ratings are everywhere. For some other forums, they do not show up the on subforums index, instead only showing up at the top of the screen when you click on the thread. On SPPf, you will see these little stars everywhere. In the Announcements section, you will see them. And, to show the consensus of the board members, the New Avatar threads are rated five-stars; the Rules and Enforcement threads are rated one-star.

Star-ratings for fics do not work, in my opinion. As others have stated before me, there have been attacks of the Phantom of the Monostar. This person, or persons, traverse the forums, never posting in the threads that they rated, only rating out of spite. Yes, I was a witness to a rating flamewar with one of Yami Ryu's fics. (I wasn't here at the time. I just checked things out.)

There was a time when the star-ratings were helpful. Dragonfree figured that the reviewers of fanfics would have enough sense to see a thread that breaks the rules, and rate it a one-star so that she can check it out. But, when the Phantoms hit, that went out the window. Good fics were rated one star out of spite.

That all said, the best advice I can give you is to take those stars with a grain of salt. Those fics that have been rated five stars and have become pretty popular have those ratings from dozens of people voting. (The authors do indeed calculate how many votes they get to figure out the average.) Thus, when a reviewer says "Go read those five-star fics", it is assumed that the author would know to read the good ones, and not those that are rated because of friends.

So, my saying is this: Check out the fics that you are interested in. Don't go by the ratings. Go by the titles and take your own look. And hope that others will do the same for you.

-

It would be a good if was gotten rid of entirely, but I hear Joe's a bit stubborn when it comes to upgrades for the site.

Only a bit?

 

[Breezy]

Pfft, even I made a thread on this. It's long been deleted though I think (I'm rather amazed my rant on one of the award threads is still up though. o.o)

Star ratings are more based on your reputation than the actual quality of fic. You can have one of the greatest stories to grace this forum, but if you hit a sour note with some members, you fic can be bombarded with 1-star ratings. You can also be highly praised for the most horrible **** just because people like you.

But I find that 1-star ratings attract my attention more than 5-star. I want to see if they really deserve that rating and what they did to get that rating. 5 ratings are, sadly, more common to see (even though not many deserve it), so it doesn't catch my attention. Criticism is much more fun that complementing. ;D

Yeah, I agree. You aren't a true fanfic writer until you've been degraded via star rating. That means people are paying attention to you.

 

[nashie1]

Normally you can have a pretty good guess as to wether the creator rated themselves. I am more drawn towards 1 stars tough so I can help them out a bit ( Altough some just won't accept that they need it)