Netflix Replacing Star Ratings With Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down (variety.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: Get ready to say goodbye to star ratings on Netflix: The company is getting ready to replace stars with Pandora-like thumbs ups and thumbs downs in the coming weeks. Previously-given star rating will still be used to personalize the profiles of Netflix users, but the stars are disappearing from the interface altogether. Netflix VP of Product Todd Yellin told journalists on Thursday during a press briefing at the company's headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., that the company had tested the new thumbs up and down ratings with hundred of thousands of members in 2016. "We are addicted to the methodology of A/B testing," Yellin said. The result was that thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature. Netflix is also introducing a new percent-match feature that shows how good of a match any given show or movie is for an individual subscriber. For example, a show that should close to perfectly fit a user's taste may get a 98% match. Shows that have less than a 50% match won't display a match-rating, however.

Comments

I suspect something different

[93 Escort Wagon]

My experience with Netflix's star rankings is they matched my inclinations pretty well... except when it came to Netflix-produced content. With that stuff, Netflix invariably told me their "best guess" was between 4.7 and 5.0 stars, every time - but, after watching it, I don't think I gave any of it even 4 stars.

So perhaps they're trying to hide the way they're gaming the system to favor their own products.

Re:I suspect something different

[PRMan]

Now that you mention it, this seems very likely. All of the most disappointing ratings I've received lately were from Netflix produced shows.

Re:I suspect something different

[knightghost]

I think you hit it on the head. I've rated Netflix produced stuff 1 star 90% of the time. So are the majority or ratings when you look through them.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

Strangely this change is suddenly coming after Amy Schumer's latest comedy flop. And the claims of "review bombing" of course, every person that I've heard talk about watching it said it was a steaming pile of shit and worthy of it's 1 star review. A few people I know said it was so bad they wished they could have gotten back those precious minutes of their life.

Re:I suspect something different

[rtb61]

What is really stupid about this, it's like computers, duhh, they can only do one thing at a time, in long slow mud monkey time. They could simply do both and people who prefer stars focus on stars and people who prefer thumbs, go with twiddling their thumbs.

Re:I suspect something different

[Darinbob]

It does get a bit better over time. Overall rates aren't so great because you never rate something you'd never even bother to watch. Why should I put one stars on all the Rob Schneider movies if I never watch them? But I don't want to rate them either if I haven't seen them (there's gotta be one that's 2 stars, even Jim Carrey had a couple good movies). So Netflix doesn't know to never show them to me.

Likewise I don't uprate a movie unless I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually a lot better than I expected or was otherwise motivated. I don't rate movies based upon whether I want to see them or not, but whether I liked them more than average or something is high quality about them. I'll still slum around with some really mediocre fare even if Netflix thinks I want to see more like Citizen Kane. Up-rating can backfire badly though, they don't know why I liked the show. If I uprated Jessica Jones it does not mean that I would be interested in Supergirl.

A drawback of Netflix getting better at figuring out what I like is that it very often suggests shows I have already watched; sometimes if I've already seen then on Netflix itself... And it won't suggest titles that I may find good but which don't fit the formula Netflix has for me; instead I seem to get broad categories like 50s scifi or quirky mysteries.

Re:I suspect something different

[rundgong]

Quite clearly a case of "review bombing" to me. It is not her best work, but if you like her other stuff, chances are you will like this one too.
Of course her style is vulgar and provocative, and this is not for everyone, but it in no way deserves 1 Star.

It really looks like most reviews came from people that knew beforehand they would never ever like it, but have an axe to grind.
Having these people reviewing the show clearly distorts the intent of the review system.

You can say everyone are entitled to give a review, but if everyone scored genres they don't like, almost everything would end up at 1 star.
Take sci-fi, I like it and on this site it is popular, but in the general population most people do not like it.
If all the people who dislike sci-fi decided to give all sci-fi movies 1 star because "fuck sci-fi and all those stupid nerds", every single sci-fi movie would end up at 1.05 stars or so on average. Clearly the reviews would be useless then.

I don't see how up/down votes would solve this problem though. Even if more people vote, the initial down-bomb would still leave it at 90% down votes.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

Should be very easy for you and netflix to prove then. After all, youtube does this already. You have to watch(aka play) a percentage of the video in a steady stream for your up/downvote to be counted outside of what's actually displayed. The fact that netflix isn't showing this to be the case, and that the media has simply run with the "review bombing" and giving Schumer a platform to cry over while screaming "harassment/sexism/alt-right/etc" says that it's not a case of that. But people believe that it was simply terrible and were more vocal than normal, especially how much she and netflix tried to hype it up.

This isn't any different then the ghostbusters trailer flop, followed by the movie flop. She along with the other actors and director then went flailing their arms screaming "sexism/misogyny/etc" and the media started falling all over itself promoting that narrative. Despite the fact that it was simply a shit movie, the trailer was shit as well, and people in general hated it.

Re:I suspect something different

[rundgong]

How the hell could I prove something like that? I have no access to netflix internal statistics.
But, if there was a coordinated review bombing, I assume they are clever enough to leave the show streaming in the background so it looks like they actually watched it.
The only indicator I see that could detect this is if it gets unusually many reviews quickly after launch. But since netflix don't disclose such numbers I guess we will never know.

But I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find it fishy that people who liked her previous stuff would all of a sudden think that the new show was a stinking pile of garbage.

She also draws big crowds, so some people clearly like her. But if you only read reddit you would never know this. Every single article that mentions her is completely bombarded with posts saying she is the worst comedian they have ever seen.
Not just "she sucks, so I don't pay attention to her", but really "she sucks and I hate her with a passion, so I will mention how bad she is at every possible opportunity" dislike.

Obviously it is impossible to know what is really going on, but it does not seem completely ridiculous that there was some coordinated review bombing.

Re:I suspect something different

[Junta]

I'm not that invested either way in her, but Netflix has thrown her in my face a lot. I have better things to do than do whatever Netflix tells me to, so I haven't bothered, but the fact that I know about her netflix at all says something...

If someone is polarizing, *and* something like netflix promotes it and throws it in everyone's face, they shouldn't be surprised that overwhelming negative reviews come at them. Doesn't need to be a conspiracy. This is the problem with a lot of netflix original content, they are pushing it all so hard that it's hard to avoid. Even when the content runs against my general preferences, if it's a 'netflix original', somehow it dominants space in my 'recommended' viewing.

Re:I suspect something different

[Mashiki]

How the hell could I prove something like that? I have no access to netflix internal statistics. ...

And you made the assumption just like her that it's review bombing. But we're supposed to take her word on it right? Seems that this is more along the lines of the trend in media and with elites that women are a super-protected class and you should believe everything they say, especially when there's multiple articles all saying exactly the same thing. You really have to believe her. After all, if you're critical of a women it's sexism, misogyny, conservatives or the alt-right. Just like ghostbusters last year.

But I guess it doesn't really matter. I just find it fishy that people who liked her previous stuff would all of a sudden think that the new show was a stinking pile of garbage.

Really? Let's compare it to video games, or a book written by a popular author. You can have an track record of great stuff, and then pump out shit. It happens often enough. You can see that with movies as well, especially the old "curse of the sequel." I don't find it fishy at all. Take a look at these two games: Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. The studio in question(Bioware) had a track record of decades of making great games, and managed to piss off their die hard fans with a single release because it was an absolute stinking pile of garbage.

She also draws big crowds, so some people clearly like her. But if you only read reddit you would never know this. Every single article that mentions her is completely bombarded with posts saying she is the worst comedian they have ever seen.
Not just "she sucks, so I don't pay attention to her", but really "she sucks and I hate her with a passion, so I will mention how bad she is at every possible opportunity" dislike.

The local yuk-yuks also draws huge crowds. But that doesn't really translate into anything. It also doesn't help that every time she opens her mouth, she's simply stolen the jokes, gags and so on from someone else and that has a tendency of pissing people off too. Especially when she tries to tout herself as "unique" and boy there's a lot of unique comedians like her out there these days almost down to the same act.

Obviously it is impossible to know what is really going on, but it does not seem completely ridiculous that there was some coordinated review bombing.

There's that assumption again. I'll just remind you about ghostbusters again, and how she along with the actors and director all claimed it was "review bombing" instead of just a steaming pile of shit that failed so badly that Sony took a $100-250m write-off on it. After all, if it was such a great show then all those fans you say she has would have already reversed it right? But that's not what's happening.

Re:I suspect something different

[Inzkeeper]

This is why I miss the "Not Interested" button.
For example, I don't watch horror movies. It may be the best horror movie ever so it may be worth 5 stars but I am still not interested.

Prior Art

[MrLogic17]

Great shades of Tivo! Man, I miss that awesome interface...

Re:Prior Art

[hawk]

Tivo is still around.

Well, sort of.

I switched from Directv to the hated cable company to get back to a tivo (a romio). Turns out that the interface just isn't, well, what we liked tivo for.

Rather than clicking on record in the listings, it's something like three. And for a season pass, rather than clicking record twice, it's several. Because, gosh, they've got to make buying it to watch the default first choice, don't they?

Can't screen for series premiere any more either.

Now, it's just a slightly better DVR :(

hawk

Re:Prior Art

[quenda]

OK then, next stop the Facebook model: Just a thumbs up button, no down.

Who cares? The better way to choose Netflix shows is to use your PC/tablet browser with Nenhancer plugin.
It will add IMDB and Rotton Tomatoes ratings and links for all shows. Add the interesting-looking ones to "my list" and go watch.

a/b tests -- The root of all evil

[wbtittle]

A/B Testing is an amazing tool. How many A/B tests have to be stacked with a 99/1 split to result in a 10% assurance that someone is going to be confused and disgusted with the change.

This one was a 66/33 split. Recalculate. How many ...

The closer we get to 50/50 the faster we make the user experience worse by listening to A/B tests without reason.

How many A/B Tests have been run by our favorite applications to hate.

Addicted to Control

[LarryRiedel]

Netflix will control the narrative, with minimal input from pesky users. How long before there's only a heart symbol? How long before they take away comments like IMDB because you don't want them.

I don't want to see more of what I want to see...

[Anonymous Coward]

What Netflix thinks I want to see and what I actually want to see lines up less than half the time. I want to be challenged and I want the interface to give me an opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone.

I don't see how reducing this to thumbs up/down is going to help that in any way.

All the ratings in the world...

[jediborg]

All the ratings from every single viewer watching every single show and the best algorithm to process that data in the world won't help if you don't have a wide enough variety of content to recommend to your users.

At one point in Netflix's history, the number of 'Action movies with a strong female lead' on netflix was so low, but they knew that's what I liked, they started recommending to me rom-coms such as 'Bridget Jones Diary'

Nothing like fudging the number

[evolutionary]

So basically, they figured that 3/5 starts is a "thumbs up" and there will be more positive ratings (and making their offerings look better) while abstracting (hiding) the "meh" factor. Gotta love marketing.. I remember an old phrase from my math tutors: Statistics can lie. :D

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[ChromeAeonium]

Could be. I'm playing a game I got on Steam right now. It is thoroughly mediocre. I want to rate it, but Steam has only a positive/negative system as well, and this game deserves neither. So which do I give it? If I round up, it makes the game look better than it is. If I round down, I am being giving an inaccurate portray of how I really feel. I either am inaccurate, or I make tht game look better than it actually is in the rating aggregate, which will increase the likelihood of Steam making a sale.

In Netflix's case though, seeing as how you've already bought the subscription, I don't see how this will help them, but maybe that is their angle. Either way, as someone who gives far more 2-4 stars for things than 1 and 5 stars (because most things tend to fll somewhere between total crap and absolutely amazing), I do not welcome this change.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're going to convert my 2000+ ratings to thumbs up / thumbs down, then they better choose 4 as the cutoff for thumbs up.

5 = great ("top 100 of all time; would recommend to everyone")
4 = very good ("thumbs up / would recommend to other people, but only if I know their taste in movies")
3 = okay ("I've seen it / it's not good enough to recommend, but not bad enough to badmouth")
2 = bad ("thumbs down / would badmouth to anyone that asks")
1 = awful ("one of the worst things I've ever watched / never watch another movie from this director again")

I've only rated close to 100 titles each as 1 and 5, and about 300 - 400 titles each as 2 and 4. All the rest (i.e. the majority) are 3's.

tl;dr: For me, a rating of 4+ means "would be willing to watch it again."

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[antdude]

I'd prefer up, down, and medium. Just three choices.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[Darinbob]

I see something that looks slightly interesting, maybe I'll waste a couple hours on it. Then I see the 1/2 star rating and I stop. Maybe it really is bad. Or maybe people are just stupid and rating it without seeing it, or rating it to get it off their queues, or... Popularity isn't a good indicator of quality or enjoyment. Sometimes a really bad movie is just the thing for saturday morning. I need to train myself not to look at the ratings.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[evilviper]

If I round up, it makes the game look better than it is. If I round down, I am being giving an inaccurate portray of how I really feel.

You are but one drop of rain in a monsoon. Ratings *should* appropriately dither over the aggregate, so the few who are in the middle will likely half vote up, while half vote down.

While up/down may not be entirely fair, there's really more options for manipulation in a star rating system. By removing zero-star ratings as an option, they can artificially inflate scores. By changing the textual labels (what if 4-stars was described as "Just Okay"?) they can manipulate people into rating higher. And in general, companies are biased to WANT higher ratings, so you'll be more likely to stay around longer, spending more money, so whatever system they design is going to err or the high side.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[TitusC3v5]

I plan to simply give anything I would have rated 1-3 stars a thumbs down, and only give something I rated 4 or 5 stars a thumbs up. If they would to adjust the narrative, so will I.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You basically just have to decide for yourself, whether you liked it or disliked it overall?

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[KozmoStevnNaut]

You've marked me as a foe, but I definitely agree with you on this.

Unless you account for the total number of ratings, a title with three 5-star ratings (5.0 average) will rank higher than a title with ninetyfive 5-star ratings and five 3-star ratings (4.9 average), and that's obviously an issue.

I think moving to a thumbs up/down system will be good. Personally, I don't really care about rating stuff in detail, I just want to mark whether I liked it or disliked it.

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Why "medium"? What does that afford over a simple up/down binary system?

Re:Nothing like fudging the number

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I don't think the Netflix ratings you enter actually count unless you've watched some significant part of the title in question.

Glad to see the star ratings go

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I'm sure there are many exceptions amongst the Slashdot user base, but hardcore critical thinkers aside, people don't use anything but "5 Stars" and "1 Star" anyway. They love it or they hate it. This change will make the experience more honest...now we KNOW it's just a bunch of crap. I'll be much less tempted to believe the recommendations now. That said...the recommendations Netflix used to give me, using the algorithm they used back in 2005...those were uncannily accurate.

Re:Glad to see the star ratings go

[PRMan]

Now Netflix just gives me a bunch of 1- and 2- star rated shows that they think I will... I don't know... hate?

Re:Glad to see the star ratings go

[Darinbob]

I hated it and loved it at the same time. I guess I rate it high because I had to stop and think about it, and that automatically makes it better than the majority of stuff from Hollywood. Trouble is, if you rate it high on Netflix then suddenly they start suggesting more quirky comedies with unlikeable protagonists from the early 2000's. Even if you just watch it then Netflix figures you want more of the same (you had Chicken Cacciatore today, so clearly you want a Chicken dinner every single night).

Ie, because I "recently watched Attack on Titan" it has a category which appears to be all the kawaii anime from the last decade, ugh. They need to figure out that I don't want to watch the same thing all the time. They haven't figured out how to be random I think, they want to pigeon hole the viewer. One of my favorite channels pre-cord-cutting was IFC, because there were so many thing that I found unexepectedy good, different from the standard fare, off beat, high quality or low quality, etc. From Citizen Kane to the Three Stooges. Netflix will never figure that sort of thing out if they rely on a formula.

Re:Glad to see the star ratings go

[Warskull]

I disagree here. Netflix's system is a recommendation engine and not a rating engine. Yes, you are correct that a lot of morons misuse the 5 star system, only voting 1 or 5. However, a lot of people also use stuff n the middle. I think for recommendations you could get away with three levels.

0-2 can all be summarized as bad/didn't like. For recommendations, I don't see a lot of value in differentiating between complete garbage and bad stuff I don't want to watch. That could all be boiled down into thumbs down.

However, 3-5 has more granularity than just liking something. There are things I like and will watch, but am not too excited about. Then there are things I really liked and I would like actively recommended to me. I think you need at least thumbs up and two thumbs up for this.

This seems like it is going to result in even shittier recommendations.

Slashdot Front Page news?

[mi]

A web-site changes its interface... Stuff that matters? Seriously?

Re: Slashdot Front Page news?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Are you new here?

Fortunately there are scripts on github to download the data. A sad day for the non-Bayesians.

Re: Slashdot Front Page news?

[mi]

Well, that was a mathematically-interesting story. And today the individual subscriber match part of TFA is interesting too, even for those of us, who do not use Netflix:

Netflix is also introducing a new percent-match feature that shows how good of a match any given show or movie is for an individual subscriber

But the change from stars to thumbs?..

Netflix becomes PC

[Silvergoat]

Great. Now the PC world has invaded online movie reviews. Sorry, haven't seen Lena Dunham or Amy Shumer, mostly because I dislike their material. Maybe it's a generational thing. Netflix is now invalidating their recommendations because some whiny Hollywood types got their feelings hurt. Has anyone ever seen Heaven's Gate? Seriously, if Netflix can't stand the heat of their ratings system, why even have a ratings system? Is Reed Hastings (Co-founder and CEO) so needy for West Coast adulation that he's gutting their system? Sad.

Re:Netflix becomes PC

[hawk]

>Lena Dunham or Amy Shumer, mostly because I dislike their material.

wait a minute, "their"?

Are you saying that she is, er they are, not the same person?

hawk

Re:Netflix becomes PC

[KozmoStevnNaut]

What the fuck does this even have to do with Lena Dunham or Amy Schumer? They're not mentioned anywhere in the summary, nor in the article.

So why the rant? What's the point?

Blech. Two stars down

[Ted Stoner]

The current rating system works for me. I generally only consider shows with 4 stars or above. It seems to correlate with my expectations. I have tried to watch stuff with 3 stars only and found it lacking. If the new system blurs 3 stars versus 4 then I will end up watching more crud that I don't want to. However, I guess we will have to see how it plays out.

All hail Siskel and Ebert

[Solandri]

They gave thumbs up/down ratings for movies, instead of ratings out of 4 or 5 stars (or A-F) like everyone else

One of the reasons why I think thumbs up/down works better than 5 stars is that everyone has a different idea of what 2, 3, and 4 stars should mean, and tend to skew towards 4 or even 4.5 stars as a midpoint ("average" product) instead of 3 as you'd expect from the scale's range. e.g. Amazon's 5 star system sounds like a really effective tool at first glance, until you learn that the average rating for all products is 4.47 stars. (4.36 for the 70% which are non-incentivized + 4.74 for the 30% which are incentivized = 4.47)

Most rating systems have run across this same problem. Some attempt to correct for it by normalizing (IMDB does this) to try to stretch the votes which are clumped up at the high end of the scale. But this creates other problems as some people submitting new ratings base it on the normalized scale, while others base it on their personal scale (skewed high).

With no clear consensus on what exactly the middle grades/ratings actually mean, it makes sense to just simplify the scale and make it binary.

Re:All hail Siskel and Ebert

[misexistentialist]

Siskel and Ebert each used a thumb, don't know what they did with the other two, but it wasn't a binary verdict. If ratings skew high this change means more of Netflix's content will have the highest rating, which of course is in their interest, though this seems really about eliminating public ratings, in which case 5 or 10 star private rating scales would have provided more precision at least for some users, but apparently the data shows that their customers find it too mentally challenging or that the catalogue has become to thin for detailed ratings to be relevant.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[by (1706743)]

I don't see how reducing this to thumbs up/down is going to help that in any way.

More engagement -- "thumbs got 200% more ratings than the traditional star-rating feature." Anecdotally, I often finish a show and don't rate it, as I find myself wondering if I "just" liked (disliked) it, or if I REALLY liked (disliked) it -- but a binary choice is often pretty obvious for me.

That said, I think it's often best to use some third-party tools/blog posts/friends/etc. for determining what to watch.

physicists have been doing for ages

[Anonymous Coward]

In physics, many a times S/N ratio is extremely poor for an individual bit of data. In such cases, it is better to 1 bit quantization rather than multi-bit for optimal performance. In star rating, you are giving more weight to people rating it at extremes. With thumbs up and thumbs down, the weight is same for everyone.

Theoretically, the optimum performance is to use "e" levels of quantization which I am not sure how to achieve. For integers, the 3 levels (like, dislike, no-opinion) is the most optimum when each sample has very low S/N.

use tags already

[random_ID]

Unqualified ratings systems are painfully limited whether they are stars or thumbs. Context is needed to know *why* people liked or disliked something. I can read reviews to get a small sample of this (assuming people have taken the time to write good reviews), but letting users tag content allows us find stuff we like so much more effectively. Tags for sub-genre, themes, memes, good acting, bad SFX or anything else people might be looking for. I wish Amazon would do the same for books too.

In Sweden, Netflix changed to the thumb up system.

[MindPrison]

I think it was 2 years ago, it's so long I don't remember it anymore, but I really hated when that happened.

I liked to see what stuff had one star rating, because it usually told me it wasn't worth watching, now I have a HUGE list of "continue watching..." that won't go away, simply because there's so much trash that Netflix "guesses" that I want to watch.

Bet the thumb system was introduced to stop people from complaining about too few movies and series, and watch "whatever" is available instead of being selective about what we watch.

Netflix and the quest for terrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I know there is probably a team responsible for the interface.
The problem is that when you have a well thought out interface and that team still has a job, they have do work this means they have to make it worse (Hi Windows!). "We have created the perfect interface, now the team has some proposed changes.."
So they will go about endlessly fixing what ain't broke and then not going back to what was working because that would admit fault.
So now on PS3 the movies begin playing before you can read all of what they are about. They should have tried this on their CEO and let him read 3 seconds of each of his emails before holding a loud phone playing a movie over the top of what he is reading.
It used to not do this at all.
Then it started doing it when you selected the movie to read about it.
Now it does it on the main menu when you try to read descriptions... Someone really needs to die in a fire.
Next they will require a shock collar on your scrotum to use netflix and it will shock you after 5 seconds of not picking something.
After that the shock collar will just be shocking all the time.

So yes, removing meaningful ratings because your average human just 1 or 5 stars everything hurts everyone who is smarter than a bowl of oatmeal.

At this point I'm just watching Amazon Prime and they started out with the scrotal shock collar!

Beyond Popcorn!

[naturjunge]

This is obviously what Reed Hastings meant as innovation that traditional theaters couldn't deliver.

Use IMDB

[hcs_$reboot]

Use an extension like this one that gives IMDb ratings on the Netflix page.

Fucking Retarded UI

[UnknownSoldier]

What's next -- removing the thumbs down???

What the fuck is the point of having ratings if you are just going to make them homogeneous???

Just because _you,_ Netflix, don't let me rate a movie 0/5 doesn't mean it deserves a 1/5. IF I hate a movie it should get 0/5.

The WHOLE point of a 5 star rating is to provide fine-grained-ratings not some bullshit dual artificial rating. There is a HUGE difference between me liking a movie 50% and 100%. Some movies are 3/5 (60%), 4/5 (80%), and very few are 5/5 (100%). Lumping them these ALL together is fucking retarded. HOW is that helping the system find stuff I _really_ like vs stuff I _kind of_ like???

Re:Fucking Retarded UI

[dohzer]

Isn't the next step having a thumbs down button that does nothing? Like YouTube comments. Yay!
Even FB doesn't have one. What a waste.

Re:Fucking Retarded UI

[UnknownSoldier]

Dear numerically challenged,

Learn to divide:

0/5 = 0%
1/5 = 20%
2/5 = 40%
3/5 = 60%
4/5 = 80%
5/5 = 100%

Signed,
People that actually passed elementary Mathematics.

Re:Fucking Retarded UI

[UnknownSoldier]

You are assuming that just because a delta 25% works for YOU, that it works for EVERYONE else which is FALSE.

Only a complete moron wants to dumb ratings down so there are 3 levels from 50% to 100%.

2/4 = 50%
3/4 = 75%
4/4 = 100%

This is NOT granular enough.

Why do you think IMDB uses a percentage on a 10 point scale???

At the very least you want a 5 point scale:

5/5 = 100% = perfect / loved it
4/5 = 80% = good, but not quite great
3/5 = 60% = OK
2/5 = 40% = Bad
1/5 = 20% = Fail -- why am I even watch this crap ??? i.e. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185183/">Battlefield Earth (2000)</a>

Some people have proposed how to fix IMDB's broken scale

1. Do Not Want
God awful, makes you want to gouge your eyeballs out with a spork, and either head-butt the TV or try to hit the cinema screen with projectile vomit. Everything about this movie is bad to such a degree that it doesn't even become good in its badness. You really wish you had done something more worthwhile during the movie's running time, like trimming your nose hairs. If someone would give you this movie, you would microwave, burn, blend or eat it, to avoid the risk that other human beings could be exposed to it.

2. Awful
Still awful, but has at least one thing that is done well, like one decent scare in an otherwise pathetic horror movie, one good laugh in an otherwise decidedly unfunny comedy, one clever plot element, etc. You would never ever want to watch this again except maybe for that single good part.

3. Bad
Bad, but you agree that watching this film was an OK pastime on a lazy weekend evening because there was nothing else on TV and you were too lazy to dig up anything better. Or, you felt the need to expose yourself to something crappy to recalibrate your appreciation for movies, and without being a totally shameful waste of time it reminded you how bad a film can be. You could have better spent your time, though. You will definitely avoid watching it again, even on the next lazy weekend evening.

4. Nice Try, But No Cigar
Still bad, but is âalmost thereâ(TM). Either it has some good parts that are ruined by bad parts, or it stays at a constant level of âoeit had promise but the good part never cameâ. You still would never want to watch it again.

5. Meh
The threshold for âOKâ(TM). It's not good, not bad, just acceptable. This is the kind of movie that only just makes you feel you didn't waste 90+ minutes and/or the price of a cinema ticket. You would only want to watch it again under the conditions of 3, but you would never ever consider doing more effort than pushing a button on your TV remote to watch it again. This movie is either an equal mix of good and bad parts, or is just so forgettable that each time someone mentions the title, you need to read the plot and look at screenshots to remember what it was about. If you would be given this movie as a present, you would sell it or give it away.

6. Not Bad
It has some aspects that lift it above mediocrity and make it quite enjoyable to watch, but it either never becomes really good, or if it does, it still has some bad parts that drag it down. You would only watch it again spontaneously if it were a long time ago since you saw it and you re-watched all your movies scoring 7+ too recently. You would only recommend this to someone if they're really into the genre, but you would still warn them that it's not that good. You would never buy it, but if someone would give it to you, you wouldn't bother selling it unless you need to make room or are in desperate need to gain a few bucks.

7. Good
This movie is really worth watching and you would watch it again spontaneously, but not too o

Re:Fucking Retarded UI

[UnknownSoldier]

Dear Mathematically-Challenged,

The concept of zero has been around for thousands of years.

Instead of being a zero one day you will realize that 0% is a valid rating. But keep making excuses for why you have 0% comprehension for a basic concept regardless of what other sites do.

This concludes your history lesson for the day.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[CrashNBrn]

Rating is easy...and you could always change your mind.

1 Star - A Sack of Still Steaming Shit.
2 Stars - Stinks on a Good Day
3 Stars - Meh
4 Stars - Not Bad
5 Stars - Pretty Damned Good

Thumb up/Down only is freaking useless unless it also allowed for 2 Thumbs up, 2 Thumbs down, and Meh (1/2 thumb).

Just like Google Music, there is no distinction between "heard before and it was meh". Like or Dislike is just not anywhere near distinct enough to account for taste.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[Anonymous Coward]

I too am sometimes unsure whether to give something a 3, 4, or 5 star, but the real problem for me was the lack of a neutral option. There are many shows that I didn't particularly like, but didn't dislike either. Yes a 3 is the middle of a 5-star system and so should fit that, but they specifically label 3 stars as "like", and 2 stars is specifically labeled as "dislike". Without an actual neutral option, I either don't bother, or I just pick 3 anyway since it seems less incorrect to say I liked it than to say I didn't like it.

Riiiiiight....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Right, because we only ever "like" or "dislike" things. As humans, we never have any ambiguity in how we feel about things.

This is stupid, and a ham-handed attempt to "dumb it down" in order to boost the perceived rating. Ugh.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[CaseCrash]

It should be a two tier system. Click thumbs-up / thumbs-down, then pick a star rating. So you can mark it as "remember this, also remember a general bad/good" then say how much you actually liked it.

What makes me mad about Pandora is I can't mark "remember this" without changing the recommended songs given to me. I don't want to change my channel, I just want to be able to listen to it later.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

That's exactly the issue. My interpretation of 5 stars goes like:

1 Star - Shit
2 Stars - Bad, but with some minor redeeming features
3 Stars - Mediocre, nothing special, OK if in a certain mood
4 Stars - Good, solid, not groundbreaking, but good
5 Stars - Amazing, great, top of the heap

You see that our interpretations vary. We don't assign the same value to the ratings, which is a problem is a shared rating system. One persons "eh, it's OK" is another person's "would never watch again".

With a binary system, it becomes a lot easier to compare and combine ratings. Did you like it or did you dislike it?

And we continue the dumbing down of america.

[cpotoso]

And we continue the dumbing down of america.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[CrashNBrn]

How is it any different?

1 - Sucks a lot
2 - Sucks Less
3 - Good but has suckitude
4 - No Suckitude
5 - Great

4,5 is Thumbs in the general Up direction.
1,2 is Thumbs in the general Down direction.
3 is MEH

So you lose any distinction between just how much its liked/disliked or whether it was merely average.

Re:I don't want to see more of what I want to see.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Why is it important to you to classify a difference between how much you like/dislike it? Isn't it enough to see your rating and then remember for yourself why you gave it that rating?

I tried rating my music library, first with a 5 star scale, then a 4 star and a 3 star scale. In all cases, I spent more time fussing about ratings, than I did about the actual music.

So I actually ended up going with the simplest solution of just marking my favorites and leaving the rest well enough alone. Now I'm on Spotify, where I mark my favorites for inclusion in "my music" and just ignore the rest.

Obligatory xkcd

[n329619]

https://www.xkcd.com/937/