Rate 2012 in Trek lit

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Hey, I just nicked Sho's rating system! I thought you guys would appreciate consistency in your poll options

[JWolf]

How about this...

I propose a 10 star rating system that we can use to rate the books. It give a lot more flexibility.

[Thrawn]

I think that ship has sailed. Sho has such a comprehensive list of all of these rated on the same scale; changing the scale would invalidate comparisons for years.

[Christopher]

Besides, ratings are subjective in the first place; different people would have different definitions of what constitutes a 6-star or 8-star rating. Subdividing it further would add more options, but it wouldn't really increase the accuracy. It can be misleading to use more precision than is applicable to the thing being measured. And opinions are very imprecise things.

[Deranged Nasat]

Given that my overall opinion on Trek lit is highly positive, I'm very reluctant to give out "Excellent" ratings. In my personal ranking system, Average pretty much means "good", Below Average means "acceptable but somewhat disappointing", and Above Average means "a favourite". In practice, then, I often rate books lower than the average respondent despite being very enthusiastic about the general quality.

[JWolf]

Thrawn wrote:

---

I think that ship has sailed. Sho has such a comprehensive list of all of these rated on the same scale; changing the scale would invalidate comparisons for years.

I'm not worried about that. I just want to properly rate things and I cannot when the scale is too small.

[JWolf]

Outstanding
Better then Above Average
Above average
Average
Below average
Not quite Poor
Poor

I think that would do. But the wording for the extra two options may be tweaked to sound better. Think of the two extra options as 1/2 stars.

[Lee Son of Pete]

How about:

1. So good it made me do a sex-wee
2. Absolutely outstanding beyond belief
3. Outstanding
4. Better than good but not quite outstanding
5. Good
6. Better than above avererge but not quite good, unless you are overly fond of Trek Lit in which case class this as good
7. Above Average
8. Redshirt
9. Slightly below average
10. Below Decks
11. Worse than Below average but not quite poor
12. Poor
13. Truely awful, so bad it made me violently ill
14. Worse than a Neelix special

[ronny]

I'm used to the 5 tier system because of the way the home town newspaper, sfgate.com, reviews things. There's no 3.5 stars or what ever, it's one of 5 pictures:

outstanding - the little guy leaping out of his chair
above average - the little guy sitting up and clapping
average - the little guy sitting up paying attention
below average - the little guy asleep in his chair
poor - an empty chair

There's no "above poor" where the guy is about to get out of his chair.

Adding "above above average" or what ever really isn't going to change anything. For example, when 90% of the votes for a David Mack book are Outstanding or Above Average, that's all I need to know. It doesn't matter to me if 90% of the votes are scattered across the top 2 categories or the top 3 of an expanded list of options. And what Thrawn says is 100% true, I'm really not interested in having the ratings chart thrown out just so we can start over with a larger set to choose from.

[zarkon]

/5 is the best system. below average/above average are fairly dry identifiers, but the scale is pretty much perfect.

[Deranged Nasat]

I propose the following 13 categories:

1. *Perfection*

2. Outstanding

3. Better Than Above Average But Not As Good As Outstanding

4. Above Average

5. Better Than A Bit Better Than Average But Worse Than Above Average

6. A Bit Better Than Average Because There Was A Funny Joke About Andorian Mating Customs And/or A Small Appearance By A Minor Character I Like.

7. Average

8. Better Than Less Than Average but Worse than Average

9. Less Than Average

10. Better Than Worse Than Less Than Average but Worse Than Less Than Average

11. Worse Than Less Than Average

12. Better Than Poor But Worse Than Worse Than Less Than Average

13. Poor

[JD]

I'm confused.

[Defcon]

There really should have been at least one more option between above average and outstanding, like "Very good" or something like that. There's just a too large gap between those two options IMO.

But I've said that way before Sho started his rating site, and even then I was either ignored or got the "We have always done it this way" routine without a real discussion, so I guess Sho's site is pretty much just the new go-to excuse for something that wouldn't have been changed anyway.

Note: I accept the reasoning now with Sho's site, I just think the system should have been thought through better from the beginning.

[Hugh Cambridge]

The choice in 5 notes seems good to me but the naming is perhaps no so accurate.
Why not:
5/ Outstanding
4/ Very Good
3/ Average
2/ So so
1/ Poor

[Christopher]

Maybe people shouldn't worry so much about the names and just treat it as a 1- to 5-star rating system, or an A-B-C-D-F grading scale. Personally I don't see why "above average" and "very good" can't be synonymous or at least overlapping.