5 ms·

Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Perception of books and concepts covered within are entirely subjective. However, when it comes to service or produ

Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Perception of books and concepts covered within are entirely subjective. However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment. No, all assessments of value are subjective (and for most services involve subjective weighting of multiple different subjective quality factors.) And the mapping from an internal value judgement to a star rating is something which is a separate subjective evaluation, and one on which research has shown substantial cultural variation along ethnic and other lines.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  While that may be true for other people, I have no trouble giving a purchased object a rating for its objective value (but I do excessive research on buying options beforehand). Even if the judgment is relative to other products, it can still be objective. The rating may be inaccurate because you can only measure in full stars, but it'll still be objective and the inaccuracy is the fault of the rating system, not me. Objective (adjective): > (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
ghaff 10y ago
>Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Hmm. I'm willing to accept that the average reader is a more sophisticated and thoughtful consumer than for some other product categories. And there may be less overt tribalism and fanboyism in book reviews. But, in my experience, there's still a lot of people who will almost unthinkingly give 5 stars to a favorite author or genre. (And I know some of those people who are pretty uncritical about SF books or whatever.)
- robryan 10y ago
  Goodreads reviews are still pretty inflated. Anything around or under 3.5 or so probably has some big flaws.
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    I have found no correlation between the Goodreads score and my own perception of the book. Again, novels and products are entirely different in that you're hopefully shopping for a product by its specs. You can't 'research' novels beforehand (unless you count as reading other novels by the same author as research) and they don't have any specs to go by.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> However, when it comes to service or product quality, you can be almost entirely objective in its value judgment. No, all assessments of value are subjective (and for most services involve subjective weighting of multiple different subjective quality factors.) And the mapping from an internal value judgement to a star rating is something which is a separate subjective evaluation, and one on which research has shown substantial cultural variation along ethnic and other lines.

antisthenes 10y ago
While that may be true for other people, I have no trouble giving a purchased object a rating for its objective value (but I do excessive research on buying options beforehand). Even if the judgment is relative to other products, it can still be objective. The rating may be inaccurate because you can only measure in full stars, but it'll still be objective and the inaccuracy is the fault of the rating system, not me. Objective (adjective): > (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.

ghaff 10y ago

>Reviews are a problem, but not for novels. Hmm. I'm willing to accept that the average reader is a more sophisticated and thoughtful consumer than for some other product categories. And there may be less overt tribalism and fanboyism in book reviews. But, in my experience, there's still a lot of people who will almost unthinkingly give 5 stars to a favorite author or genre. (And I know some of those people who are pretty uncritical about SF books or whatever.)

robryan 10y ago
Goodreads reviews are still pretty inflated. Anything around or under 3.5 or so probably has some big flaws.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  I have found no correlation between the Goodreads score and my own perception of the book. Again, novels and products are entirely different in that you're hopefully shopping for a product by its specs. You can't 'research' novels beforehand (unless you count as reading other novels by the same author as research) and they don't have any specs to go by.