If a skin gets 5 ratings, chances are the 5 ratings were given according to 5 different criterias, making the overall rating meaningless. |
No, there's clear meaning there....it means that by whatever criteria of subjective or emotive opinion incited/inspired the disparate 5 to post a rating the resulting mean is a reflection of the skin's acceptance.
Sure, if 2 rated on technique...and 3 rated on appearance then the averaged result would make no sense if you expected it to reflect only one criteria, eg. technique.
However.
It's an averaging process...an amalgam of opinions, and it gives a perfectly justifiable/defensible indication of a skin's acceptance ....by those 5 people.
It's painfully obvious, however that the next 10,000 viewers/raters may not agree....but that is the blatantly clear failing of a limited rater-application [number of rates applied] and any 'criteria' of rating classification......1 for originality, 1 for looks, 1 for technique, etc will fail exactly equally as well through lack of numbers of ratings to establish a real-world mean reflection.
If Joe Public sees a rating of say '6' his interpretation of that will be [should be] that it has been considered by others before him to be about average or better....purely in general terms, not for example for the pedantic-accuracy-wanters that the start button was rated at 6. If you were to split criteria then each individual part would be subject to variations of opinion focus/reasoning which would make them all equally 'meaningless' if that were really the case with an overall single rating as it is at the moment.
The only clear, accurate rating method is for it to be purely un- adulterated....eg the 'opinion' of one person only....where hopefully that person isn't subject to mood-swings or prejudice....an unlikely animal, but a newspaper film critic would be a case in point....one opinionated opinion.
10 opinionated opinions would give a better inkling of what the film was like.
Perhaps ratings should be applied transparently.....no-one sees what they are at all [though their application handles band-width screening still]. Instead the skin could display......'rated 6 times'.....just to prompt others to add theirs.
Maybe something could be hard-coded to prevent a rating be applied unless the dl link is clicked first.....might reduce drive-by idiots.
Again, the 'star system' is a ratings-obsession-softener.....to bypass this obsession with numerology....