Updating My Rating System
After writing about the awfulness of numeric rating systems, it only made sense to update my own personal rating system. With a star system, I feel compelled to rate on artistic merit rather than on personal enjoyment. After all, a numerical score should have an objective reality behind it. But sometimes I have a hard time judging artistic merit and I spend a lot of time ruminating over the "correct" rating.
What I really want is just a way to give a personal review and recommendation: did I enjoy this or not? Switching to a binary thumbs up / down system gives me the freedom to rate on my personal enjoyment and not worry as much about artistic merit. So, thumbs it is.
I am going to cheat a bit and add a second thumb for overall enthusiasm. One thumb means that the rating applies just to me and whether or not I enjoyed something. The second thumb means that I think the enjoyment (or distaste) should be universal and that I'm proactively recommending for or against something.
- 👍 I liked it
- 👎 I didn't like it.
- 👍👍 You should read it.
- 👎👎 No one should read it.
Since I'll still post book reviews over on Goodreads, I'll need to map my ratings to Goodreads' star ratings. That breaks down like this. (Basically, the wishy-washy three star review is out.)
- 👍👍 = ★★★★★
- 👍 = ★★★★
- 👎 = ★★
- 👎👎 = ★