reading

Table of Contents

• [[how I am scoring books on goodreads]] [[reading]] [[scoring]]
  • [[figure out similar scale for movies? Because of more genres might be even more difficult.]]

how I am scoring books on goodreads [[reading]] [[scoring]]

At some point I found myself scoring books as 5/5 very often and at worst as 3/5, which is not very meaningful.
To fight score inflation, I’ve decided to put some conscious effort and put the criteria I want to use in words.

• 1: Absolutely awful and useless. Couldn’t stand reading and quit.
• 2: Meh. Maybe even finished it, but nothing interesting or special. Very unlikely to recommend to other people.
• 3: It’s ok, maybe not great but at least somewhat interesting. With nonfiction probably means that the book is not bad, but it failed expectations than it’s set and I didn’t learn anything new. Might recommend to someone.
• 4: Really enjoyed and memorable/useful/insightful. Might be niche but would recommend to some people. Maybe one aspect is very special: e.g. plot or insights or language.
• 5: One of the best I ever read. would recommend to almost anyone. In case of nonfiction, everyone else at least somewhat interested in subject.

Frankly, marking on a linear scale seems like a massive oversimplification, e.g. fiction/popular science/textbooks have different purposes and not very comparable on a uniform scale.
Personally I’m not really looking at average book scores, I’m rather interested at what my friends or people who tend to like similar things think, so that’s why I figured it’s useful to share this.

Another problem is information loss: when you look at your score few years later you might not remember why did you had given the book a specific score.
Ideally I think books scoring should be some sort of yes-no questionnaire. Kinda like what Foursquare does when you are prompted about a place you’ve been to: you don’t get to give it a numeric score, instead your are asked questions like "Is this place cozy?", "Is this good for groups?", "Is it loud?", "Does it have parking", etc.

figure out similar scale for movies? Because of more genres might be even more difficult.

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