Having spent my whole life rating and ranking things, I’ve spent time thinking about how to assign ratings to things in a broad medium (e.g. “fiction”) that can be very different from one another, and can be good or bad for very different reasons. Ambitious but boring, technically flawed but constantly exciting, excellent with one major flaw, etc.

The new strategy: a 5-star scale with no half stars. Instead of assigning each star rating a single meaning, I’ve assigned multiple statements to each star rating. You find the statement that is the best summary of your opinion, and that gives you the rating. The rating does not imply that all the statements assigned to it are true for every work with that rating.

The list of statements is a work-in-progress and will expand and change over time.

1 star

“I am unhappy to experience this” “I actively think it’s of low quality” “I warn people away from this”

2 stars

“I won’t voluntarily experience this” “I won’t recommend this”

3 stars

“I will voluntarily experience this” “I recommend this with caveats” “This is successful but unambitious”

4 stars

“I’m always happy to experience this” “I recommend this without reservation” “This is uneven but extremely ambitious or technically outstanding”

5 stars

“This is a flawless creative work” “This is one of my favorite things to experience”