[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

I researched the international meaning of rating stars, to determine optimal setup for a reviews section on my website.

It turned out that people in different countries give very different meaning to star ratings. Its a cultural difference. In general, people from countries who are used to a 10 point rating system, will only give 5 stars for something that is excellent/can't get much better, while people who are from countries used to 5 point ratings will give 5 stars to anything decent. And there are many other variables.

People from Europe give much lower ratings than people from the USA. Simply because they are used to different meanings.

Stars really mean nothing in an international context. Unless you connect the stars to exact meanings.

Undoubtedly

True. I only mind the star ratings, if there have been a substantial number of ratings and its still 2 stars or lower. That gives an indication that something may be off and is often reflected by posts in the modification thread.

And I find that kind of strange, considering we've used the five star rating system in the US for decades. Maybe more. We use five star ratings for the quality rating on hotels and restaurants. Star Search (the 1980's American Idol) used a five star rating to rate performers. Heck, even the rating system here says "Excellent, Good, Average, Bad, Terrible" next to the stars they represent. I don't get why it I run into such lack of clarity wherever I see this system used, internationally or otherwise.