Rating Systems - Seven (7)

Ocasions arise when we all need guidance about what to watch on tv or what to buy or what to read. We have a number of resources freely avalible to give us this advice but sometimes it can be less than helpful.

One example of this is a Rating system or Poll about what people who went to a website thought of somthing. Below is a picture of the gateworld.net website poll system for an episode of a tv show:


This at first looks quite easy to get advice from but is actually verry unhelpful. The score is an average of all the scores from ANYONE thats voted. This gives only 1 number which is usually the same and in this case it is. I am unable to determine between episodes that i want to watch and ones that i might want to skip.

There is however a soloution which gives you more info in a graph style:


This shows you the number of people who voted for each score and is much easier to get information from. It is also fast at telling you the information you want. More sites should display their results in this way. Some already do.

NOTE: I am aware that if you click the view results button under the gateworld poll you can find more detailed data