Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Posts
- 16,880
Lol. I will defend the rating system, however. There are a number of factors that you should consider when using it:
- The number of total votes (it's Bayesian)
I know what "Bayesian" means, but I don't understand what you mean by it here. Can you elaborate on that?
- The genre and the relative scores of similar stories (Some people are going vote down some stories regardless)
- Who wrote it and how many followers they have and what their other stories have been rated
- When it is in a series, the ratings of the other stories in the series.
- The length and the tags
Yes. People here on AH know these things affect scores, because we've written our own stories and observed the scoring and discussed at length with other authors.
But do you believe that the average reader on this site, somebody who doesn't have so much investment in story scores, is likely to be familiar with these eccentricities of the scoring system? Or have you just listed a bunch of reasons for why interpreting scores isn't intuitive to those readers?
Given a significant number of votes, 1 & 2-star stories tend to be disasters. 3 & 4-stars stories have a much higher likelihood to being worth your time, all other factors considered.
And at the time when new stories get much of their exposure, they don't have that "significant number of votes".