star ratings

i probably am not looking in the right place but i can't figure out where to find out what the star ratings mean as in is one star hated it or just didn't like it, is there an it was ok rating, is five stars it's great or it's the best book i've read all year?

There is no site-wide standard for the meaning of the stars. It's up to each individual user.

There is no place.

It's down to each user to add as they wish. Generally 1 is pretty rubbish and 5 is great, but if you prefer you can reserve 1* for the best thing ever, and 5* for average. Some users may rate their wishlist books in terms of desirability to obtain rather than how 'good' the book was, or for instance the condition the book is in. Ideally users will specify on their profile what criteria they use for assigning stars, but this isn't always the case and there is no requirement to do so - or even to be consistent.

When there are a large (? greater than 100 or 500) ratings you can be reasonably sure that an average of 1* is dire and 5* is well liked, with 4.0 being about the sitewide number. (ie most people buy/catalogue books that they like). But for smaller numbers of ratings there is more variability.

You are free to use them as you wish.

I'd like the opportunity to negative star some books. I hate to assign ANY stars to something I dislike. But no stars doesn't even register. You can half star it by clicking again on the last star.

> 4

But no stars doesn't even register.

And it shouldn't. Not starring a book doesn't necessarily mean that one doesn't like it. It may as (or more) likely mean that one simply doesn't use star ratings.

thanks for the help

Or haven't gotten around to rating that one yet...which is what my non-starred means. But yeah, of all the places where thumbs-down are, I'd love to have one on book ratings. It makes the most sense to me.

Why can't I see star ratings on individual reviews? Reviews all show up with 5 gray stars, with no way to tell how the reviewer rated the book. I do see the green star ratings for the book overall and my own rating, but not after the individual reviews. I recall that it used to be possible to see the individual ratings, did this change in the last year or so?

>8 Amniot: Perhaps the reviewer didn’t star rate the work. I don’t always do both.
Just randomly, I chose a book from my recently added list and saw the green star ratings on most, but not all of the reviews. Poke around a bit more. You are sure to find some that are rated.

>8 Amniot: Are you by chance using the old (salmon-colored) version of the site? The new stars don't work on the old site.

>10 norabelle414: The new stars also don't work in Internet Explorer. Nor does most of the new design in general. Which is completely understandable, as IE is very much no longer a supported browser, and even when it was it made for screwy design aspects because it didn't play nicely with the other browsers.