This is one of those practical posts I have to do from time to time.
I’m not going to cover everything, so there might be a guest post on this later.
First, before you start, will the gentleman in the back stop chewing gum quite so loudly? please note the pinned post at the top of the blog. The books on sale have rolled over. And yes, as of right now there’s only one, but two more will join on the 9th.
Thank you. Now, let’s resume our unscheduled insanity explanation of rating and reviews, particularly for books, not that anyone is hinting at anything ever, but also for things like etsy, ebay, etc.
Many years ago, before we moved from the house downtown, older son and I opened a “bookshop” on Amazon. You see, we had a lot of used/second hand/lightly used because someone had given them to me and I didn’t care enough about them, books that I was never ever going to use. A lot of them were reference books, accumulated over 20 years. And I was never likely to use them again.
For explanation, I used to accumulate a lot of tangential historical and such references, because as a pro I was likely to get called to do a story for an anthology on “Cats in Egypt” or something equally off the wall, and the defense was to have a lot of references, so I could check quickly and go “Oh, yeah, I can do that.”
But research for short stories, as opposed to novels, is the sort of thing that can now — and could by 2013 — be done with a quick scramble through the web, if you know how to cull good information from bad. So, I had a lot of reference books I could get rid of, because the chances of my writing a novel set, say, in Mexico before the Spaniards arrived was very very low. (But a short story might be requested.)
There were various reasons the endeavor failed after about 6 months, and we ended up having to donate something like 4000 books. (Yes, you read that right, hence the attempt to sell them, and donating them when that failed. We still moved over 5k for things I intend to work in again. What the kids will do with all that after I’m gone is a puzzle.)
One was that after about three months the market fell out from under the books. We were positioned at just that point when people seemed to be giving up on paper books. (Judging by the amount of FREE bookshelves on craigslist too.) That’s just our luck, okay? And there seems to be a come back in those, from the reader side, but I suspect that’s a dead cat bounce, related to preparedness for a possible fall of civilization. When the turmoil doesn’t work that way, it will go away again.
But before that we’d run into problems that made the whole thing onerous. One was that there were (perhaps there still are?) a lot of scammers, that do things to the book, or claim the book arrived destroyed, and are you going to refund it. I immediately made it a point of asking for pictures. Never came. The person would vanish. But complaints affected your rating.
The other thing that affected your rating was stars. And because we were just a woman and a young man, not a bookstore staff, and we didn’t frankly have much margin (probably priced too low, but we wanted to sell) we shipped media mail. Which could get interesting. So we started getting three stars because the book was too slow to arrive, or the packaging was torn, or — things we had no control over.
Note there was nothing substantive and negative, just piddly stuff. But our rating dropped, and our appearance in searches dropped, until we were selling almost nothing, the books needed to be got out of the house, and we spent a couple of weeks just boxing and donating, after closing the shop.
Now I’m 99% sure the people who gave three star ratings didn’t mean for that to happen. And the ones where the book took a long time had a right to do that, because, well… been there too. And the ones where the packaging was torn probably thought they were giving us valuable information. But the ones — and there were more than a few — who rated with three stars and said something like “It’s a book. It got here on time. it’s as described. What more can I say?” Those are the ones that made me pull my hair out.
They are up there with the people who leave reviews for fiction that say something like “I liked this book. It was perfectly enjoyable.” And give three stars. I know some of these people. heck, some are friends. And if you ask them why they say “Well, three stars is for a normal book I liked,” “Four is for something extraordinary that I’m going to hand sell to all my friends.” “Five is for one of those rare perfect books that I’ll re-read twice a year and will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Look, you’re right. I’m not disputing that you’re right. THAT’s what the rating SHOULD be.
The problem is that this is not what the rating means, from the POV of the corporation that is creating algorithms that allows people to find my book, or, alternately, decides it’s a defective product and buries it so deeply even people looking by name and author can’t find it.
Because you see, the problem is you’re thinking of a grading system for BOOKS. And in a grading system for “How good do I think this book is?” the middle — 3 — is what most books WILL be. And it will mean “perfectly enjoyable. Would read more like it.” And four is better than that and five is just about perfect. Right? I get it.
As book readers, we would appreciate that system, because it would tell us something like “Most people found this book enjoyable. That means it’s okay for an afternoon.” Or “wow, it’s nothing but five stars. Let me read the comments to see if it’s some insanely partisan thing. No? Wow. I have to read this.”
That would be great, if it worked like that, and save me a ton of time wading through insanity in hip boots trying to find something I won’t wall in five minutes.
UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS NOT A RATING SYSTEM FOR BOOKS.
Yes, Amazon applies it to books. But it’s not a rating system for books. Or, for etsy and such, a rating system that applies or should apply to any small business with handmade product.
What it is is a rating system for widgets, which are shipped out from a factory by dedicated personnel.
Your order a banana cutter, say, and if it doesn’t arrive when it said it would, you deduct a star because it was a day late. Or you give it three stars because it arrived a day late, and the box was smooched. Below that it’s serious problems.
Note, this is not a matter of taste, or “there’s a small problem on x, so two stars.”
When you order a widget, it should arrive on time and perform as described. That’s it. If it does that, it’s five stars.
So if it’s less than five stars, Amazon — and ebay, and etsy, and etc — penalizes you. Because you’re not performing as you should.
Of course, as illustrated above, there are always *ssholes, even when rating shipping and products, but this is particularly pronounced in books and readers, because well… it shouldn’t be that way.
How the book looks or is delivered, or if it matches the description, has nothing to do with whether an individual reader enjoys it. My husband and I share, among other things, a library, and our tastes run fairly close, but even there they’re not the same. He liked one particularly “witchy mystery” series which I forbid him from even mentioning scenes from. He thought the scenes were adorable, but they read to me as twee and talking down to the reader, and I could feel IQ points dropping off my ears every time he talked about it. So his review of those books would probably be 5 stars, and mine 1. Okay, mine would probably be 3 for “it’s okay but get this off my face, already.” If either of us had reviewed, which we don’t because we’re both authors, and Amazon has issues with authors reviewing books. (Don’t ask. It’s stupid, is what it is. But I also understand why. Sometimes the only way to stop mega-scams, usually not in-country is a stupid rule.)
So, while the “real” star rating as it should be for books, would indeed be a wondrous thing and save us a lot of trouble, that’s not what we have. And given how Amazon approaches business, your doing it your way isn’t going to convince them either.
What it’s going to do is hurt the writer (or crafter, or small seller.)
Because if my rating is something like 4 stars overall, Amazon will assume the books kind of stink on ice, and just disappoint everyone, and so will shuffle me to the end of the pack.
Also putting in a three star review because “there’s a typo on page seven” is what’s known as a “dick move” because frankly, everything has a typo somewhere, even trad pub that has a lot more readers and copyeditors. Yes, it’s a quality issue, but in the realm of books it’s like saying “It exists.” Or “this carafe is a terrible tool to dig in my flowerbeds with.”
Oh, yeah, also because trad pub buys reviews from services (no, seriously) and doesn’t get penalized, which indies do and can get kicked out for, you also get penalized for having less than a gazillion reviews.
I’m not telling you whether or how to review. That’s between you and your conscience. I’m just going to say this is one of those things that has consequences you probably don’t intend when holding your purist view.
And I’m going to say the star rating isn’t a private “In my mind” thing, but a means of communicating.
Like, in Portugal, grading went from 1 to 20 with 9.5 being passing. But in fact the grading didn’t exist above 14 because anything above was “superhumanly good” by common accord. This was fine in Portugal where university, grad schools and employers looking at an average of 14 realized it was an A, but when I transferred over as an exchange student, the school wanted to know why I’d failed almost all my classes, and did I need remedial?
This is exactly the same thing: in your mind and the minds of purists, and frankly in “how it should be” a book with a 3 star rating is pretty good and you want the next in the series.
But what Amazon sees in that rating is “What an utter pile of cr*p, please don’t show me books by this loser again. In fact, don’t show them to ANYONE.”
So, again, not telling you what to do. But if you like a book or a series, and would like to see more of that or by the author, I’m sorry, but you have to rate it 5. In fact, even if that book wasn’t your fave by the author, but it was okay, and you don’t want to hurt the author, rate it a 5.
I have so far — I can’t review, but I do rate on my kindle — rated a book two stars ONCE. I’ve had many books not to my taste, but that one was not only chock full of typos and grammatical errors, to the point it looked like it was written by a non-english-speaking AI, but it had glaring historical errors in the first four pages, which is as far as I got.
BUT note, that’s one book, in… good lord. Probably tens of thousands. I haven’t counted recently.
The rest? Well, if I don’t hate either the book or the author, I give five stars.
And while I can’t give reviews, because I’m an author, if I could I would. Because there are some amazing books being ignored for not having 100 or 200 or 500 reviews. Again, that is something the Amazon algorithm likes.
I often get told “but I don’t know what to write in a review.”
You really don’t need to write much. “I loved this book” is enough, though it won’t get you “most helpful” status. But it still counts.
If you have a little more time, and it’s not a spoiler you can say the part you liked best. Like “I loved this book. I particularly liked it when the Great Sky Dragon interrupted the wedding” Or whatever. Or “I particularly like that the people all wore purple at the same time without planning.” Anything like that is catnip to the author who likes knowing their little jokes or cute scenes were appreciated.
If you really are bucking for “most valuable” you usually give a little synopsis. So, for Draw One in the Dark and touting my own horn, mostly because I don’t want to offend anyone by doing theirs and doing it wrong (Blanket mice were hunted at six am, okay?):
“This is an urban fantasy but not quite in the ordinary way. To begin with it takes place in the diner, and to continue, it involves a group of young friends who are just discovering they are shape shifters, and what this means.
All this while a mysterious series of deaths has the town on edge, and the dragon triad is looking for a thief.
It’s exciting and interesting, but even the shape shifting doesn’t involve a magical element, which makes it unusual.”
Something like that will be helpful to other readers, and bump the book, because it’s a review. Oh, if you give it five stars, of course.
Unless, of course, you want indie authors to starve.
No pressure.
<Exits stage left, pursued by a reading bear.
According To Hoyt 
“Exits stage left, pursued by a reading bear.” This is a perfect stage direction. I give it 5 stars. 🙂 Because if you have to be pursued by a bear, let’s hope he reading something really interesting. Like, he’s a shapeshifting bear reading “Noah’s Boy.” He’ll love the book so much he’ll forget about eating you!
LOL
6 am? Only if I have slept in and they decide Goosh must be dispensed NOW! otherwise it might happen at 10pm, 11 pm, 2am or “I’ma chewz on deese foots!” strike Coles little mind. (Runt rarely goes after blankie mouses, and most of the time if sleeping in is wanted and Cole started the quest)
Also this morning was a “discussion” between Cole and Allie who hates him for existing, and he often sees if he can get a poke in without multiple pokes being received.
I’d heard something like this was happening on e-bay after I gripped that sellers would insist on a 5 star review, when I felt it was a 4 at best. I got the product I wanted, it arrived on time, nothing outstanding so why on earth do you think you should get a 5?
So, given a choice between giving a rating I don’t 100% believe (the book was good, maybe I’ll read more by this writer, but it’s not a 5 star) and not saying anything, I tend stay silent and only leave reviews if I can honestly give 4-5 stars.
10 Stars (out of 5 Stars)! [Crazy Grin]
I hate to say it, but “Max score being for expected performance” is the entire reason I don’t fill out corporate surveys.
If the corporation is asking for a complete lack of useful information, I can give that to them without spending my precious time filling out a survey.
I get it. But that’s what the idiots use.
They could at least say “are there any specific problems? Suggested categories: ” and save us a ton of time.
Another ‘feedback mechanism is broken’
Feels as if beatings will be administered until ratings improve, and I don’t want that on my conscience. Typically only give feedback if it’s positive about someone, or at least unlikely to harm – i.e., “Can you check why this didn’t arrive yet?”
But the 3 poor souls yesterday trying to staff a lunch hour with 50+ people waiting?
I’d probably reduce their Net Promoter Score if I filled out the corporate satisfaction survey.
“Please rate us 5 stars, or they’ll never let me out of Omelas.”
My rating is likely to be 5 stars, for the server, with a comment of: “I could never do their job. I don’t know how they do this. Not only couldn’t be a server, but the staff was so overwhelmed, they performed heroically.” (100% truth. I refuse to take out frustrations on understaffed staff. Not their fault.) Now the establishment itself. Understaffed is the problem for the establishment (wages?), sometimes the manager, and the staff who doesn’t show up. Never the fault of staff who show up to do the job. Is there servers and staff I might down rate? Sure. Reflected in their tip size.
It’s usually not a feedback mechanism, though.
They try to make it do multiple things.
Like, if I rate a book five stars— I get other stuff folks who rated it five also rated as a five, or that they bought and which made Amazon more money.
So I’ve gotten to where I either give five-star ratings for “I want more like this” or three-star for serious issues, and nothing else.
And this is why rating systems are stupid. But I also don’t have a better answer. BTW I give this post 6 stars.
out of fifteen? 😀
Oh dear. OK, I’ll kick up my ratings from now on. I am one of those pedantic types you mentioned. (Usually four stars.)
What gets me is, this ratings issue applies to EVERYTHING now. Not just books, or Amazon in general. Rideshare services. Dry cleaning. And companies preface their survey requests with, “If you don’t rate us five stars, can you please explain why?” Dude! It was a CAR RENTAL. I can barely remember it and it’s only been 24 hours. Loud sigh.
Right? but it’s complete idiocy we must comply with.
I’d prefer if they did it properly, because then all 3 and reasonable wording in the comments would tell me ‘Popcorn book” and 5 would get my attention like a laser pointer. But no. They’re stupid. And so, we must be too.
” The only winning move is not to play”
Welcome to Lake Wobegone Press, where all the books are above average.
Thank you tor explaining this.
Just when I thought it was impossible to dislike MBAs more…
I’ve been rating on Amazon, and Etsy. Five stars then I qualify anything I think the reader should know good and bad. I do not even mention shipping, damages, and arrival speeds, because other than when it ships, the vendor has no control over arrival speeds or damages. None. Zip. Except electronic books, and those ship immediately. I won’t blame the author on pre-ordered books that do not download on release day, that is stupid, because that is Amazon or Nook app fault, not authors. One exception. If an order takes forever to get here because it was shipped from China, and nowhere on the site does the vendor mention it is coming from China, I do say something. I’ve had the same delays from products shipped from Europe, but I knew it was shipping from Europe. I try to avoid products that are not in stock in the US. I try to avoid products made in China (which is why vendors are often not upfront about it).
One plug for local business out of Eugene that is on Etsy – OffRoadK9 – https://www.etsy.com/shop/offroadk9/?etsrc=sdt
I have:
3 leashes: two multifunctional, one 3/4″, one 1/2″ with traffic handle, and one 15′ drag line with detached handle option.
Harness to collar safety.
1/2 line extender (shortest ones made).
Long line keeper (works for hanging storage, otherwise a self wrap Velcro works better).
Note. 1/2″ is better for smaller dogs. Dogs 20# – 25#’s, that pull, or larger dogs, go with wider 3/4 width. It is amazing the difference 1/4″ makes.
Still takes 5 days to get to us (and we are < 5 miles from where shipped) because mail mailed in Eugene, goes to Portland to be sorted. This is so not the vendors fault.
Dog leash….
Snap the link to the ring at the handle end. Pretty handy low-cost flexible weapon that fits in a pocket, yet can be discarded easily. Practice on a heavy bag and/or tire pell, as bounceback must be managed.
Heh.
This topic seems familiar. 😛
I hate rating inflation. It basically removes any form of nuance. The thing being reviewed is either the greatest thing since sliced bread, or something so horrible that it would bring down the property value of the city dump There is no in-between.
Perhaps the answer is to do what Steam does for video game user reviews – thumbs up, or thumbs down, and you can explain why in your comments. Then the totals for each are converted into percentages, with both “lifetime total” and “recent total” values, so you get an idea of what percentage of players like the game, and whether recent patches have changed that.
Takes a breath
Anyway, the numeric rating systems as they currently exist are useless. It’s time people acknowledge that.
Which is why I read the 5 and 4, then 1, star reviews.
Was looking for a XL *xpen kennel (eventually low feeding station for cats, with larger fence kennel, to keep dog out, around it) currently for feral young cat we brought in. OMG finding one was a pain. Not one kennel didn’t come with multiple 1 star ratings of “smelled” when opened it. All had various ratings of “netting didn’t survived fostered kittens”. Finally went with one that I liked the looks of, and actually would ship immediately. Very satisfied with it. Feral kitty considers it “his”. Larger fence, plastic (only complain there is I thought I’d gotten the one with the small door, didn’t, my fault) goes around it to keep dog out. Holding up great. No stench.
Wish I’d gotten the one Costco had in warehouse a few years ago. But it was “bigger than what I thought I’d ever need”. Oops. Exactly what we needed. Haven’t seen one again. Dang it.
I read the reviews, as well. The problem is the search engine. You can quite literally enter an exact title of a book and author name, or exact description of a particular model and brand name, and still need to go past the first page to find what you’re looking for. Between sponsored items and other algorithm weights, the search engine hides stuff even when you exactly spell out what you’re looking for.
Who you gonna believe, their Sacred Holy Algorithm or your lyin’ preferences?
Oooh yes I hate most site’s search functions now, most especially Amazon and YouTube. It is so annoying when some sponsored or “favored” result gets pushed to the top of the results, even when it has no relation whatsoever to the thing you were searching for. Amazon’s search especially is nearly useless because of this.
I’ve searched for information on Japanese oni and had results filled with paranormal romances based on Celtic folklore. Rrrrgh.
The ordinary merchandise searches seem to work fairly well, but when I go for eBooks, it’s off in the weeds. (Hmm, what happens if I search for Andrew Spurgle? [VBEG] )
(And yes, I did a few reviews tonight.)
There’s a reason I’m working on my own shop. (Currently digital only.) At least then my stuff is THERE. (of course you still have to play Search Engine Games to get it findable…)
One star reviews for non-fiction books can be very entertaining. I learned a lot about Hindu nationalism from one-star reviews of archaeology books. And it’s interesting to see the reviews that point factual errors and compare them to “I’m giving this one star because I already wrote the book on this and you don’t need to read any other,” or the very academic “This isn’t the book I would have written had I written a book on this topic.” Kitty eye roll here
Omg, yes the Hindu everythingers are hilarious. The sad thing is that they occasionally hit a real similarity (Celtic caste/heredity jobs, for instance), say one useful thing, and then keep going 1000 mph past useful, into crazyland.
It’s not that you are wrong for giving an honest review, it’s that corporations view reviews in a different way. This was also caused by the bots the liberals use. To promote some liberal trash they want to push they have thousands of bots give five star reviews. Amazon’s logarithm’s see this as potential profit and move that to the front of the pack, electronic AstroTurf, because you are not fooling a human, but a form of AI in an logarithm. Not that fooling a human is all that difficult, but in this case a small number can sway a big lethargic machine mind. They have done this before, they will do it again. It is what they do, it is how they have fooled a willing media that they are the majority. It will be interesting to see what happens when their AstroTurf crap results in the collapse of Marxist Hollywood.
Don’t call that an AI. It’s an insult to us…err, real AI.
The rating algorithms are just a weighted sort, no intelligence, or learning, or large-language model needed.
I haven’t been doing reviews, though I don’t recall giving anything less than 5 stars. There’s one book I walled, but $SPOUSE liked it and the rest of the series. (I am so not going there).
Book 1 had the not-quite fatal flaw of inadvertently renaming one character midway through the book (I skimmed…). Threw me out of the book hard, and I didn’t bother to read the rest of the series. IMHO, Book 1 probably would have a 3 star rating for that. OTOH, it’s not a genre I normally like (“Cute Cozy”, with cute==>twee). Felt it best to leave no review.
When I get some spare time (shrugs), I’ll see about doing some reviews. Lots of 5 stars need to be sent out, and maybe a synopsis or three.
I used to try and be honest about my ratings on Amazon. Something like 1 == A, 2 == B, 3 == C, etc. However, I finally noticed the rather strange way ratings are interpreted on Amazon, too. Now I very rarely offer a review and then only if the product clearly stands out or is so bad you couldn’t pay me enough to take another. I may be depriving a deserving author of a favorable review but honesty is a place where I have difficulty compromising.
I am not a saint, of course, and did participate in a brief conspiracy in which we gave five star satirical reviews to a Hillary C book (I misremember which one) and then we upvoted each others’ reviews so they would appear at the top.
I am going to repeat my comment from last night on another post because relevant:
And to expand on that, a 3-star “average good product” needs 9 5-star reviews to counter it.
Oh that explains a lot… and if your stuff hasn’t been moving, you lose the rating, and suddenly you disappear from searches, argh!
Oh it isn’t that bad: low sales won’t make the rating go away.
And I’ve been pretty lucky in that most people do give 5-stars.
Yep
This post and comment helped me understand but good heavens, this system just sucks and I can’t change without fighting the entire world.
*can’t change the system
Meta …
I was strongly influenced by the header image to recall a favorite thing from long ago. (Yes, this gets to ‘stars’ but not ‘reviews’.)
The San Francisco Academy of Sciences has a planetarium – strictly speaking, that’s the gadget that projects bits of light onto a screen for the show, but it’s generic for the gadget + screen + auditorium.
The current version of the show venue is rebuilt, 2008, and the new planetarium is pretty cool.
But it’s the old planetarium I recall today.
Their ‘gadget’ was home-built in the early 1940s; seems the major supplier of planetarium projectors was Zeiss at the time, and they were occupied with some business in Europe.
And with a home-brew projector, they could use someone else’s script, but had to program all the movements and lights themselves, so most of their shows were also home-brew.
We went to USF, a short walk to the Park and the Academy; it was always interesting to us, and frankly it was a cheap date.
And one day they had the most wonderful show – the Star Cleaners.
Physically, the projection dome was made of finely pierced plates of aluminum, painted white on the viewer’s side. When the room was dark, the lights from the projector made spots, or showed pictures, or whatever the show called for.
But there were a few projectors set up on the other side of the dome, and those were used for the Star Cleaners. We got silhouettes of two guys, carrying mops and buckets and a ladder. They walked around the dome, chatting about ‘cleaning’ Mars or Arcturus or whatever sky object they could reach.
One of our favorite things ever; we still talk about it over 50 years later.
So, thanks for the memory jog!
It was a show and projection/sound only, no real guys. IIRC there was just a couple of feet of space between the projection dome and the structural walls and ceiling.
And I’m here all like…
https://imgflip.com/i/88m5e6
Thanks for this one! Yeah, the stars are important (I re-blogged this over at my place). AirBnB does something similar. My brother and SIL lost their “super-host” rating because my brother cancelled what he thought was a shady booking on New Year’s Eve last year. The customer complained and left a one-star rating and so AirBnB removed SILs “super-host” rating. I’m not sure how long she has to go before they’ll reinstate it. And believe me, my SIL is a super host for real.
We’ve used VRBO once. Received a super guest rating (did not know this was a thing). We gave a good rating for the accommodations and booking too. Did have a ruff start because (spelling intended) because we put into the comments on booking that we were bringing a small medical alert service dog. (Answering the two questions they are allowed to ask, before they asked.) At first they wanted, or whomever handles booking, tried to cancel. Pointed out that VRBO policies forbid this. Then tried to charge an extra $100 cleaning fee. Quoted both ADA and VRBO polices, and the charge was removed. We did point this out when we left our review. Made sure to note that we appreciated the prompt responses and resolution that occurred. Only noting this for future bookings.
Similar ratings for the Super 8 in Jackson. There is a reason they are not dog friendly. My little service dog was fine. I could find her safe patches to use in the little tree raised islands in the parking lot. Medium to large service dogs, or mini-horses, would have a problem. Otherwise just weedy broken asphalt with debris. I thought other handlers needed to know this. Still got maximum stars (also had to mention the new Jackson City required hotel computer program charging system made no sense, but that is a different story).
I want the book on Egyptian cats in pre-Conquest Mexico. Or di I misread that?
Since cats go where they want, this is entirely reasonable.
In the spirit of the end of your essay, I quote myself from my work biography.
The next billable assignment I had was designing and running an operational test on an online collaboration application for an intelligence group in the State Department. I got to design the plan from the ground up and execute it as I wanted. An operational test is different from a standard software test plan. In the latter, you write detailed button-push by button-push procedures and then have the test team execute it faithfully, noting all results as they go. The operational test, on the other hand, is where you let the end users attempt to do their jobs with the new system and observe how it goes. At least that’s the way I approached the job. I pored over the requirements and system documentation and sorted things to be tested into a dozen different groups of related tasks. I laid out the tasks I wanted the users to perform during the test, like set up a chat with multiple users then turn it into a video conference. That’s about as detailed as it got for two reasons. First, they were to receive training for a week before the test by the developers of the system. Second, they were already doing most of these tasks using different tools. For scoring I designed a questionnaire using a 5-point scale. But the scale did not say, “rate this item on a scale of 1-5…” Instead it read, “Score the ability to use the tool for this task as:
Unusable
Less than acceptable
Acceptable
Better than current practice
Very useful
For easy calculation, I translated each answer into a matching 1-5 value. Instead of letting users subjectively decide what the difference was between a 3 and a 4 though, I gave them concrete, understandable terms. Not only did this system help make scoring consistent, it led to a perfectly understandable results set for the sponsors. I was able to point out where the system worked great, and where it missed the mark, and what parts needed attention to bring the system up on the unacceptable parts. One of the benefits of a long career is they tend to let you run things. You get to do things your way (which is the right way of course).
To convert a multi-dimensional evaluation (rate this product/seller) into a one-dimensional score is statistical malpractice.
Hospital “tell us your pain by numbers” has this problem, magnified. How do you compare the 4 of someone who hardly notices the pain with the 7 of someone who’s trying not to writhe? More specific crieria are needed, fom “I don’t notice it unless I pay attention to it” through “it distracts from what I’m trying to think about” all the way to “the patient can’t respond to you because he doesn’t hear you through the pain.”
Quite so; I used to have a copy of an alternate scale spitballed by a doctor. As I recall, similar to your levels.
“10” was something like “patient unable to respond over patient’s own screaming”
I had patients (I’m a retired RN) claim 10/10 for a bruise. Can’t say it didn’t hurt, and maybe it really was the worst injury they’d ever had, but no possibility of reasonable comparison to anyone else.
“Will it hurt?” Yes, probably; can’t say how much, since I’m not you, but if it didn’t hurt, we’d let you do it yourself. Here, take this lovely narcotic and I’ll come back in about 30 minutes to change your wound packing …
Somebody with more knowledge than I can explain it, but in my short time as a marketing copywriter and when applying for two specific jobs, I was told that if we didn’t get maximum scores from our customers, we had failed somehow. One job said that if I didn’t get a customer review from every transaction, and hold a 4.5 Google Business rating every month, I’d be in serious risk of losing my job.
(It was managing a storage unit complex. You have to do some customer service, but damn…)
We would also provide…incentives, shall we say?…for high scores. Afterwards, of course, but there’s ways to game the system if you’re careful.
It’s all because of how the various search engines and rating systems work, and it’s also VERY easy to game if you have no conscience. (Remember how in a lot of fandom stuff, you’d put in a search term and something from Vile770 would always show up? Mostly because the website was using Chinese bots to artificially “boost” engagement.)
I’d like to know that my scores are good. And that the book that’s showing up as a 3- or 4- star might not be the best in the genre, but it won’t insult my intelligence if I read it.
I have written reviews on IMDB (you can find my 26 reviews by searching my name in quotes), Good Reads, and a few on Amazon. I usually limit my reviews to works that don’t already have more than a hundred reviews. Really, what’s the point? Also, I try to say the specific things that I enjoyed or that made the work unique and worthwhile. On a few occasions, I’ve left a negative review for something that is appallingly bad or grossly misleads/lies about actual facts or history.
Smart people pay little attention to reviews, but then if smart people are your audience/customer base, why would you expect to make any money? Who am I to talk anyway? I leave ridiculously long comments on Sarah’s blog. That just begs for TLDR in the current vernacular.
May the gods of the online sales platforms have mercy on our souls.
I always figured It was a cultural thing.
I know authors expect 5 stars, but if I give 5 stars to good books what I am supposed to give to great books?.
I am not some effusive American,where its all great.
in practical terms I just don’t rank books unless I can give 5 stars.
No, it’s not cultural at all. It’s the stupid algorithm on Amazon.
I think Michelin (yes, tires) started the practice of using stars. Michelin stars only go to three & go something like this:
1-star: good food; stop if you’re hungry.
2-stars: very good food; worth a detour (I think that’s it).
3-stars: magnificent food; worth making a destination.
So, one star was worth something. As oppose to one star out of five in a movie review would be (per a certain Air Force vet of my aquaintance): “not worth the celluloid”.
Yes, I get it. but unfortunately that’s not the way Amazon uses it.
I’ve concludes the only ratings a thing should have are
Good
Bad
And figure out the “score” from the ratio of good vs bad ratings. Anything else is just measuring ships in inches.
The “oh, then you’ll like” algorithms are all idiotic. I especially hate the one that lurks behind YT, which if you look at one video on woodworking or magnetohydrodynamics or electric cars, decides that is ALL YOU WANT TO SEE EVAH and throws out the last fifty things you watched or searched for or actually thumbs-upped.
But for ratings, you really can’t beat thumbs-up/no-choice/thumbs down.
yes. I mean that’s effectively what this rating has become. I think it’s stupid to give five options, then treat it as if only two (or really one) exist. BUT since that’s what they do, we kind of need to adapt.
I am one of those people. I am picky as heck, and like to leave room for great stuff to be even better. Way back when I’d rate movies at IMDb, I basically treated their 1-10 scale as a 1-9 scale. I recognized how tough I was being, though, and started laying off the ratings because I knew I was dragging things down from where people expected them to be.
I didn’t know until now how much I was dragging them down in a relative sense. It makes me glad I’m not in the habit of rating books online: it means I probably have not ruined any careers. Thank you for the explanations.
Insert grumbles about grade inflation and participation trophies here. Invitations to get off my lawn have already been mailed out.
Republica restituendae
When I am thinking of purchasing something on Amazon, I check the ratings first. Typically 85% to 90% of 5 and 4 is enough for me to keep looking. The next thing I do is look at the low ratings. More often than not (to a point of Sarah’s) it has nothing to do with the book but rather the condition of the book when it arrived – which has nothing to do with the actual content of the book itself.
The system also leaves itself open, as noted above, to “Ratings inflation” as there is nothing that would prevent the ratings from being effectively “stuffed”.
Word of mouth – or word of InterWeb Mouth – probably remains as equally valid a means of getting anything sold.
(I wonder – he says to himself – does Etsy have the same issue in that often the seller is the manufacturer? Do the materials and the customer service get inflated)
I’m one of those people that pretty much never leaves reviews and generally will ignore the “please rate how our service was” emails when I take the car in for service.
What I DO do though, is word of mouth things that I feel were worth my money / time. So having enjoyed a book, I’ll recommend it to friends / family or the waitress at a local restaurant that the wife and I have become friends with.
But stuff like tools and such? Either it does what it’s supposed to or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, yes, I might leave a review, but if it does, what’s to review? “5 stars, this is the best (and only) table saw I’ve ever needed! Cuts wood great!” That’s silly.
It sounds like where the Amazon system has gone wrong, is that the “reviews” are not reviews of the PRODUCT (as one would expect,) but the SELLER but people think they’re reviewing the product. One thing I would never base a review on, or ding a seller on, is the shipping. As others have pointed out, once they hand the package to UPS / USPS / DHL / FedEx / Carrier Pigeons Inc, they have zero control over if it gets to me when it’s supposed to, gets run over by a truck, gets caught in flight and eaten by a hawk, so why count that in the rating?
Oh, and the blog post? Yeah, left my first reviews on Amazon for a couple books from a small publisher (Moggies in Space! and Moggies back in Space!)
Regarding rating Seller VS non-book Products. I’ve gotten different survey emails for, seller and product.
Seller survey emails: “Product shipped when seller indicted it would?”, “Product was as described by seller.”, “Did you need to contact the seller?”, “did package arrive intact?”, etc.
I can see why seller would want to know if packages and/or contents are arriving at their destinations, because that would be information they need to choose their shipper, at least initial pickup/dropoff. Because methods can be changed/handed off to a different delivery method. But not as a rating on them or their product.
The most fun I had with rating a product (both seller and product was 5 stars). Was the stacking recycling bins. “Was the product as described?” Yes. What I cared about was the correct measurements. “Does the product work as described?” No, but yes. I’m sure they would if I’d actually bought them to sort items for recycling. I bought them for sorting food items in a chest freezer. Seriously, this works. Note, not the only one. A lot of product comments were exactly that, also 5 stars (a great chest freezer organizing hack!). Told mom. Ours is a 7 cu freezer. Hers is a 5 cu freezer. Only question for her is whether she could get 2 bins across the bottom (yes).
Sigh.
I’ve already been giving four stars to reviews I would have once only given three stars to. But FIVE? Dammit I can count on ONE HAND the books I’ve given five star reviews to!
-exit stage left, cursing volubly-
I rarely rate books. Probably need to for my favorite authors, for the books I have. Rate the first one. Comment: Liked so well I immediately bought the entire series and buy as soon as newest releases. Then copy comment and repeat. Not a lot of information in content, but says something about the series in general.
I don’t have a single author I buy all their product. But do have authors that when they release a stand alone or new series, I check. Either intrigued immediately or put on app list, that gets checked. Might buy later.
I’m generous with my four star reviews, but a five star review from me has always meant: “You gotta read this now. Right now. Put down whatever you’re currently reading and pick this up now.”
I completely understand this, and it’s stupid, but they’ve turned it into an on-off switch.
some time ago there was a promo, maybe the 1st chapter, of deep pink.
I liked it.
so when i needed to add to an amazon order to get free shipping, i added it.
and with this post i wrote a review; nicely silly 5 stars.
but i have some nitpicking:
1. font change for chapters.
2. the minotaur was with theseus without the argonauts.
Okay. So, the font change means I need to re-typeset, which I can, but there’s a long list.
Will take the other one under advisement.