Goodreads Ratings Then and Now

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Geralt

Because your 1 star somehow cancels out 1.000.000 other ratings.
Yeah, we are all special snowflakes aren't we.

You do realize opinions are just opinions, but when 1 million people rates something with an average of 4.4, statistics come into play then, and what that tells you is that majority of those 1 million thinks this book is good, so there's a big chance that majority of other 1 million people who haven't read the book yet will like it.
It doesn't mean there won't be people who dislike it. That's not how statistics works.

Your personal rating of 1 star is totally irrelevant to 1 million ratings of 4.44
Of course to you it's very important, but for statistics sake, who cares.

Oh, c'mon, unknot your knickers. I'm sorry I didn't use a tongue in cheek emotie, but I couldn't imagine any snowflake being so very special that she didn't understand statistics or averages at this level. I was just having some fun.

For the curious, the two books loved by multitudes and loathed by me are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Help.

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

if I had average tastes.

Implying that other people do

Originally Posted by GeoffR

No one has average tastes

Well which is it? Make up your mind.

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by issybird

Oh, c'mon, unknot your knickers. I'm sorry I didn't use a tongue in cheek emotie, but I couldn't imagine any snowflake being so very special that she didn't understand statistics or averages at this level. I was just having some fun.

For the curious, the two books loved by multitudes and loathed by me are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Help.

It's not my knickers that are in knots.

It was you who felt the need to let us all know how 1 million people rated something completely opposite from you. I call that special snowflake syndrome.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Geralt

It's not my knickers that are in knots.

It was you who felt the need to let us all know how 1 million people rated something completely opposite from you. I call that special snowflake syndrome.

I tend to think calling someone a special snowflake is unnecessary, rude and combative. Attack the post and not the poster.

You know, if all the posts here were limited to pronouncements of monumental importance and none involved the personal or even trivial, there wouldn't be very much to read. Your work is cut out for you. Carry on!

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by issybird

I tend to think calling someone a special snowflake is unnecessary, rude and combative. Attack the post and not the poster.

You know, if all the posts here were limited to pronouncements of monumental importance and none involved the personal or even trivial, there wouldn't be very much to read. Your work is cut out for you. Carry on!

I tend to call things as I see them. You wont see any pussyfooting around from me. Wouldn't that qualify under your requirement of personal or even trivial post hmm? After all, it's only my opinion of your post. If I call your post of comparing your personal rating to that of 1 million people and acting like that's something special, it is not surprising that I declare it as special snowflake syndrome, because to me that's what it is. You don't need to 'throw a hissy fit' on the internet and act all offended.

Because you see this thread posed the question of Goodreads ratings's validity and usefulness. And I can tell you when 1 million people rate a book with 4.4 rating that's something useful to other 1 million people out there waiting to read that book.
As I said before your 1 star rating on the other hand plays little to no relevance, except for personal testimony of your own taste.

[HarryT]

The trouble is that you're never going to get consistency between the way that people rate books. In a 5-star rating system, I'd give a rating of 3 stars (ie the average rating) to a book which is competently written, with no obvious flaws or errors, but with nothing that made it stand out from the crowd. ie nothing that makes it better than or worse than the average; that allows me to reserve 4- and 5-star ratings to books which are truly exceptional. I know many people, however, will give a 5-star rating to a book they enjoyed, even if they don't consider it to be truly exceptional, and would regard a 3-star rating as a negative rating.

You can really only compare your own ratings; other people may not use the rating system at all the way that you use it.

[elemenoP]

I have always wished that Goodreads would find me my "reading soul mates:" strangers who have read many of the same books as me and rated them similarly. Then I would look at the books that person had rated highly but I hadn't read yet.

[BuyMore]

Originally Posted by issybird

For the curious, the two books loved by multitudes and loathed by me are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Help.

Ooh, I enjoyed the film adaptation of The Help. Shed a few tears.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The trouble is that you're never going to get consistency between the way that people rate books. In a 5-star rating system, I'd give a rating of 3 stars (ie the average rating) to a book which is competently written, with no obvious flaws or errors, but with nothing that made it stand out from the crowd. ie nothing that makes it better than or worse than the average; that allows me to reserve 4- and 5-star ratings to books which are truly exceptional. I know many people, however, will give a 5-star rating to a book they enjoyed, even if they don't consider it to be truly exceptional, and would regard a 3-star rating as a negative rating.

You can really only compare your own ratings; other people may not use the rating system at all the way that you use it.

Goodread actually have some recommendation and just OK would be 2 stars.

Here is the recommended use:

1 star – didn’t like it

2 stars 2 stars – it was OK

3 stars 3 stars – liked it

4 stars 4 stars – really liked it

5 stars 5 stars – it was amazing

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

I have always wished that Goodreads would find me my "reading soul mates:" strangers who have read many of the same books as me and rated them similarly. Then I would look at the books that person had rated highly but I hadn't read yet.

That would be great. As it is now, I do that work on my own. I don't have a huge amount of friends, I select many specifically on what books they read and if we match well. So I use the percentage match system goodreads has. But you have to find the readers first to use that tool. So now after a few years on GR, I know when I see ratings by friends and those I follow, I can be more assured I will like the book.

No sure thing in any case, but more often than not it works for me to find books I really will like.

But it would be nice if the system could suggest possible friends to me based on the books we both rated. Unless I "meet" them somewhere online, I wouldn't know they existed.

[kristalana]

Like Atunah mentioned, I use the "Compare books" feature to find reviewers to follow with similar tastes. My favorite method is to find a popular book that I disliked for specific reasons, then go through the bad reviews to find others who gave the same reasons for rating it poorly. I've also done so with books I loved for a given reason. Anyway then I hit Compare books, see what % we have in common, and what they said about my other favorites/least favorites, then decide to follow their reviews.

The highest I've seen thus far is 85%, but I'm sure there's someone out there with even more in common, my book soulmate so to speak. So GR has a built-in system they could use to lead us to similar reviewers, I just wish they would allow us to just do a search for our closest matches. Like last.fm has with the 'Neighbors' system.

[kristalana]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The trouble is that you're never going to get consistency between the way that people rate books. In a 5-star rating system, I'd give a rating of 3 stars (ie the average rating) to a book which is competently written, with no obvious flaws or errors, but with nothing that made it stand out from the crowd. ie nothing that makes it better than or worse than the average; that allows me to reserve 4- and 5-star ratings to books which are truly exceptional. I know many people, however, will give a 5-star rating to a book they enjoyed, even if they don't consider it to be truly exceptional, and would regard a 3-star rating as a negative rating.

You can really only compare your own ratings; other people may not use the rating system at all the way that you use it.

Yes exactly, I've seen people give 5 stars to books they've acknowledged were deeply flawed but that they loved anyway, and others who base the rating purely on the book's competence. I try to use a combination of the two, but it does lean more towards how the book made me feel.

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by BuyMore

Wonder if it's the same book I've read...

A book that burned me deeply has a pretty good rating on GR :

Spoiler:

Beautiful DISASTER. Seriously, totally disastrous.

You can use the spoiler tag just like I did.

I haven't read that book but that seems to be the norm for so many New Adult book. They truly are God awful! Yet they garner tons of five star reviews. Between the horrible grammar, one dimensional character and thin, non-sensensical plots, they're torture for me to get through.

One that I particularly hated:

Spoiler:

Falling Into You

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by Geralt

Implying that other people do

There was no such implication. "If I had an average number of children" does not imply that anyone else has an average number of children, for example.

[Melon Soda]

Originally Posted by tompe

Goodread actually have some recommendation and just OK would be 2 stars.

Here is the recommended use:

1 star – didn’t like it

2 stars 2 stars – it was OK

3 stars 3 stars – liked it

4 stars 4 stars – really liked it

5 stars 5 stars – it was amazing

That's good to know! Thanks for reposting it here! I'll also just adopt this rating for Kobo as well, just to make it easier for myself and for consistency!