Adding 1/2 star rating

[VelvetElvis]

Hi;

How do I add 1/2 star ratings to my metadata? I like to rate my books the same as Amazon, e.g. 3.5 stars, but I can't figure out how to do this with Calibre.

TIA!

[transmitthis]

You don't.
I believe its just a whole number star rating.

Not really sure why you would want to copy Amazons star rating, unless it's just for reference Books like many things are mostly subjective, so its YOUR rating thats important.

I suppose you could get an idea on the book via Amazons rating, but you could then also miss out on books because you put too much stock in that rating and end up not reading that book.

I find it best to just rate books as you read them, and not worry about others opinions of them.

You could always create a custom column and have your own rating system using numbers I imagine, and copy Amazons rating that way if its of importance to you

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

Hi;

How do I add 1/2 star ratings to my metadata? I like to rate my books the same as Amazon, e.g. 3.5 stars, but I can't figure out how to do this with Calibre.

TIA!

You could create a new custom column called Amazon Ratings which takes floating point numbers. The steps are:
-Preferences
-Add your own columns
-Add custom column
-type in the heading
-under 'column type ' choose 'floating point numbers'

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by transmitthis

You don't.
I believe its just a whole number star rating.

Not really sure why you would want to copy Amazons star rating, unless it's just for reference Books like many things are mostly subjective, so its YOUR rating thats important.

I suppose you could get an idea on the book via Amazons rating, but you could then also miss out on books because you put too much stock in that rating and end up not reading that book.

I find it best to just rate books as you read them, and not worry about others opinions of them.

On the contrary, I'm very interested in what others think of a book or product. If I see 200 reviews that trash it, and a dozen that like it, that's often enough for me to take a pass on it, UNLESS the subject is compelling enough to me.

You could always create a custom column and have your own rating system using numbers I imagine, and copy Amazons rating that way if its of importance to you

Thanks to you (and Victoria!) for the suggestion.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by VelvetElvis

On the contrary, I'm very interested in what others think of a book or product. If I see 200 reviews that trash it, and a dozen that like it, that's often enough for me to take a pass on it, UNLESS the subject is compelling enough to me....

Me too - I always read the reviews for books and other products. I make up my own mind, but find the reviews very helpful on whether to buy or not.

[transmitthis]

Just out of interest, are you going to have a column with your own ratings too?
So you can look back and see what you thought of a book you read.
Or sort on star rating, so you can then look for similar books.

[VelvetElvis]

Originally Posted by transmitthis

Just out of interest, are you going to have a column with your own ratings too?
So you can look back and see what you thought of a book you read.
Or sort on star rating, so you can then look for similar books.

No, I simply wanted to mimic Amazon's rating in the existing Ratings column, for future reference. Right now, I waffle between rating a 3.5 star Amazon review as a 3 or 4 stars in Calibre.

It's not important enough for me to make my own column, but IMHO, it would be a nice future feature. A 1/2 star icon, and the ability to add ratings in .5 increments shouldn't be too difficult a change.... if there was enough interest.

[kiwidude]

There is quite an interesting thread on the Goodreads.com forums about this topic.
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...at=html&page=1

Goodreads have chosen not to do it, and state some of their reasons why in the thread. Basically it comes down to psychology of choices and that Netflix apparently tried it and found they got less reviews from users who thought that the number of extra options they now had to choose between (from 5 to 10) made them not be bothered to rate at all.

Personally I would be in the "like to have half stars" camp too. But in reality I really just want to have the option of a "3.5" and a "4.5" - I wouldn't ever use 0.5, 1.5 or 2.5.

Since 0 is unreviewed that means the minimum you can give a book is 1 star. I rarely do that because to me it implies the book has not one single redeeming feature - it is the "worst of the worst". It has happened, but rarely for me. So the normal "book was poor" rating I will give is 2 stars.

5 stars is a book I thought was absolutely outstanding. So that just leaves me 3 stars and 4 stars to fit every other book I read into. So 3 stars became "it was ok, a few things bugged me", and 4 stars is "really good, but not an all time favourite". The numbers themselves don't mean anything of course, but a 3.5 would allow me to differentiate the gap between them.

However as Calibre doesn't support it, and neither does Goodreads, I live without it and spend more time reading instead of fretting about it. The most time I spend with ratings is "correcting" a rating after metadata download due to the rounding/averaging - that a book with a 3.98 rating ends up as 3 stars instead of 4 is something I feel compelled to "correct"...

[transmitthis]

@kiwidude - sounds like you diddled yourself out of a star, anyway here'e my though process when a come to rate a book

* - Didn't enjoy it probably not even finished (keep only for others)
** - Readable but not worth a reread, trashy filler
*** - A Good book, most of my ratings
**** - Very good, Interesting and will read again.
***** - Outstanding Book



would love to hear others views
* -
** -
*** -
**** -
***** -
Easy copy past...

[kiwidude]

@transmitthis - yeah pretty much it is a scale issue on my part. In the same way that 5 stars is "best of the best", reserving 1 star for "worst of the worst" as well as using 2 stars for "pretty rubbish" is perhaps a luxury a 5 point scale can't afford. Fundamentally though my ratings really are not that different to yours - it is just that I find that nearly everything I read falls into 3 or 4 stars

EDIT: Actually I should add, that I do agree with Goodreads/Netflix that the whole more choice is harder philosphy. For instance, some would say by "wanting" a 3.5/4.5 that really I am asking for a 1-7 based system. But thinking of it as 1-7 would probably freak me out. Whereas what if it was just a 3 star rating?

* Rubbish
** Good
*** Outstanding

I think that would do me just fine to be brutally honest. For me more granularity comes into play only when you start comparing one book against another - I liked book X a bit more than book Y, but not enough to put book X up there with book Z. And for that there is no real end to the madness methinks.

As I said above - I've "adapted" to just having the 5 stars for rating books myself