Am I the only one who thinks MDL ratings are inaccurate?

 TimiZero:

How do you know the person would ever wanted to give a 4 in the first place? Are we assuming here? Isn't the 4 is the number we picked?

To that person, 7 might be justified from the get go. You might have stumbled upon an extreme case, but I don't think anyone would rated lower first just to increase it later. Although the "additional 2 in MDL" I keep mentioning sounded like it....but it is not. I was talking about the overall (resulting average) rating....not an individual person adding 2 on every single drama.

This was an example and is beyond the point, I said "if I feel like a content is worth a 4". I was clearly stating that I wouldn't do something like that and explained why, using an example to emphasize on the problem, don't put words in my mouth as I never said it was worth a 4 in their minds. The same way I didn't say you "lost your critical thinking", I am only responsible for what I say not what people understand. 

What I can tell you for a fact is based on what they said: they felt like it wasn't worth this much or even above the average but felt bad rating it low. Even if they were thinking a 6, this would make the average more accurate if they gave it a 6. 

Our friend burhaa aadmi was kind and condescending enough to say that "Synonyms for 'inaccurate' include 'false', 'wrong', incorrect', etc. ". Can we agree that if they think the show is a 6 but give it a 7 because they feel bad, it's a false/incorrect rating? Because that's not what they believe it is worth, that's not their true feelings but it was altered. They do not believe it is a "7 - Good" all of a  sudden, they feel bad giving it a lower score so they change it to that, leading to an inaccurate personal rating affecting the average and making it slightly inaccurate. One rating doesn't change the average, but having this multiplied will lead to more inaccuracies. This does not represent what they feel about the show, this represent what they feel about giving it a bad score,  which is a completely different thing.

 TimiZero:

To that person, 7 might be justified from the get go. You might have stumbled upon an extreme case, but I don't think anyone would rated lower first just to increase it later.

I did not and actually linked conversations with other people on different drama pages early on. We also had people in this same conversation saying they felt bad rating it as low as they actually felt it was worth. So either there are many extreme cases (since I didn't even had to dig to find them), or this is more common you would believe. Either way, these people are giving inaccurate ratings, affecting the average with their ratings and making it inaccurate as a consequence. To these persons it was justified to give it a 7, not based on what they felt this show was worth, but because they were feeling bad/guilty to give it what they had in mind. They do it so they don't feel bad about themselves, not because they think it's not worth a lower score. Then it's not about rating the content they watched, but it's a fight with themselves because they feel bad/guilty doing something they actually think is representing what they trully feel and believe. There are many reasons as to why people feel that why but this isn't the point I am trying to make.  I am repeating myself a lot here, the problem leads to the same consequences.

 TimiZero:

I guess my focus on discussion was more on the "the non existence of accuracy in subjective matters" but you are talking about "how to make sure people rate rightly so that their rating is accurate".

I believe rating systems are put in place to give an idea of how a community feels about what  tehy watch. This is not supposed to be maths or exact science because we are talking about something super abstract: feelings/emotions. My point isn't on the subjective nature of a rating, it's on the way some people change their rating and true feelings, affecting the average in the way. We are not talking about the same thing, and I do not have a solution to subjective matters. What I suggest is to fix the inaccurate ratings that I noticed by spending time looking at people's opinion.  I am not pretending to know how much it would affect the average or if it's going to be as meaningful as I think it would be. But I know it's an easy fix that can help the site getting rid of those.

 TimiZero:

Another thing to remind everyone is...accuracy isn't equal to overrating/underrating

I agree, and I am not complaining about a show being overrated or underrated. If that's how people feel then so be it, my point is that a part of the community isn't giving the rating they actually think it deserves. A show being overrated because a good chunk gave it a 10 for one kiss scene is a different issue. While you can educate people into using critical thinking and being more objective, it would take a lot more efforts than have descriptive words/emojis next to the rating system haha

 TimiZero:

However, I do agree with the idea of providing guideline/education on how to rate. You can do that by personally making a thread or writing an article (when it's possible in future). The integration in the system is a good idea but seasoned drama watcher already know how to pick dramas without having to 100% believe on the rating.

Then we agree that there is something that can improve the community and the rating system. It's not a big enough of a change to actually make everyone confused, but it can help the community rate more accurately and possibly feel less guilty to rate something higher. Because if they are confronted to a "7 - Good" option and felt like it was terrible, maybe they will give it a 6 instead. While not much, this can change a lot and make ratings make more sense in the end. 

I am not saying that MDL isn't going to have overrated drama anymore, just because of that tweak alone. But it's a minor improvement that can do good and no wrong imho. Now people who like beautiful actors, kiss scenes and give ratings based on that while fast forwarding everything else.. They won't disappear but again this part is subjective.

Many users know they cannot trust the ratings on MDL and either go with the logic "minus x points" or dig deeper and check reviews. Still just because people who knows don't necessarily need it and that it won't change their habits, I believe it is a minor good improvements on the current system.

 TimiZero:

IMO the EMOJI idea is useless as you already said the whole world understand the meaning of number except me :D. Therefore why you want to tell them 5 is average, 6 is good, 7 is amazing? again? LOL

This was a reaction to "words mean" something and this was an answer to burhaa aadmi. Words mean something numbers do too. You both agreed that MDL was an exception in some way. I was arguing that while  ratings are subjective, the way we use the scale shouldn't be because it was already established everywhere in the world. At that point it was said that exams weren't the same, they are exams and not content ratings. I was saying emoji more as a way to make it more visually appealing, but I don't believe it will be more precise or better than descriptive words. I strongly believe having descriptive words will help the current system.

 TimiZero:

The problem with MDL is that this site is fangirls/boys centered. People tend to be biased with their stand. It's already like that since the very beginning. Even if you put 5 as GOOD, people will still rate 10/10 for mediocre dramas....because their idol is in it. We need to accept this fact. This can't be changed...I guarantee you! That's why there are people like me who will counter this phenomenon by increasing our ratings (from the get go of course). We are the people who don't watch drama for the sake of idol....and mostly don't watch dramas with idols.

I agree that a good amount of people that affect ratings actually are doing so because they are fanboys/girls. This part though is subjective, I can't and won't try to make people stop being fanboys/girls. Is it the majority? Probably not. Is it an important enough part of the community to affect the ratings more than anything else? Possibly yes. This part cannot be changed but I still hope what I suggested would change things enough to make it more accurate. I can't predict anything though, but I have to believe that having a better system would change things for the better. After that we can always debate whether or not it was worth changing.

That and the ability to sort ratings would be very welcomed too.

 TimiZero:

I personally set the value high from the get go. I would have never first rated 4 or 6 then added 2 or 3 to give higher final rating.

I don't recall accusing you of doing it, but I did say that I don't think we can agree because you already adapted and chose to have your own system. I also recall saying that it was problematic and explained why (if we all come up with our own system etc). Instead of debating what a 7 should mean (and I don't think we did), we should just clarify it for everyone by adding the descriptive words. There shouldn't be any room to interpret what which rating actually means, because this also leads to inaccurate ratings. Or you will have people going with "oh but 7 in my book is very bad", the same way you wil have people what words actually means to them.

 HarryHoudini:

Any Ratings from Viewers are guaranteed to be inaccurate because of personal taste/preferences/prejudices/bias/culture/ignorance etc. There are many elements of human nature that factor in.

Personal preference isn't the same as inacurrate. It was argued that ratings couldn't be inaccurate because they were subjective, therefore they cannot be inexact because they are based on personal tastes. You are saying the same thing but the other way around, everything is inaccurate because of these same personal preferences. But this is not what I believe should be fixed.

 HarryHoudini:

For example, I rated "Story of Yanxi Palace" with 5/10. However, the general consensus rates that Series as 9/10. So who is right and who is wrong? Nobody! The reason why I rated it lower is because I was invested and interested in the Characters for roughly 30 Episodes but after that there was a steep decline and I found myself no longer interested in watching it. Is that objective empiric truth? I dont know but it was true for me!

Debatable, is your 5/10 considering objective aspects of the drama or is it based on pure subjective taste? Was there anything incoherent or unrealistic? 

I will give you a different example that will explain why I gave a bad rating to a drama while the majority gave it a good rating, resulting in an average of 8.7/10.  This drama is The First Responders (2022), I gave it a 4/10 and my reasons are based on the poor writing and unrealistic behaviors of characters. Good and poor writing is an objective aspect while enjoying a drama despites its poor writing is subjective. This means that if you expect the world to make sense, you might not be able to watch the drama because of these aspects. If you only care about feeling that "wow effect", no matter how ridiculous and unrealistic that situation is, no matter how wrong the police officers/firefighters are depicted, then you might not care about it and give it a good rating.

So who is in the right and who is in the wrong here? I am not saying that they cannot enjoy the show, but they cannot say that it has good writing. It's ok for them to give it a 10 based on pure entertainement, but I will confront them if they say it's because it the story is well crafted and the world is believable. I don't expect things to be realistic based on our world, I expect them to make sense in the world that is built by the storytellers and directors.

 HarryHoudini:

Let me ask you a question, if you needed a vital surgery, lets say open heart Surgery, would you let it be done by some random stranger you pick up on the Street? or would you want it be done by a learned Professional with experience and a degree?

I don't think it is nearly the same thing. I don't expect people to be experts at rating content, I expect them to be coherent and to stop rating based on their own guilt or to compensate an average that don't suit them. If I like a drama/movie and would rate it a 8 or a 9, but then when I see the page I see that it is sitting at 6.5.. Then I think everyone is wrong so I will give it a 10 to compensate. This is inacurrate rating, because it is not based on what I think the drama is worth as a person, it is based on what I think should be is average and I try to influence this general rating by altering it in a way it's not supposed to be.

 HarryHoudini:

Dont expect public ratings to be accurate. You will be much better served if you consider them as some sort of "general guidelines".

You are right, but even then I still think we should use the chances we have to improve the system.

 HarryHoudini:

P.S. I am not even considering the fanboyism, trolling, paid reviews and other "underhanded" methods of manipulation. Those are also a part of the reason why public ratings can never be accurate.

There are things that will affect the rating no matter what and we won't be able to change anything about these things. I only care about what I think can be changed and controlled, for me there is no point in talking about something I have no control over.

Reply to "Floki"

Sadly I cannot use "quotes" for some reason, maybe because my account is new. So I have to use more inefficient methods like "copy/paste". Sorry for the inconvenience! I will mark your quotes in Bold to make it more "comfortable" to read.

Your first Point, "Personal preference isn't the same as inacurrate." is quite a good point and I see no reason to argue with that. Of course ones own rating is accurate for one self and since public ratings represent the Viewers own points, one could say that they are indeed accurate. However, there is still a distinction to be made between subjective and objective accuracy but more on that later.

The second Point, "Debatable, is your 5/10 considering objective aspects of the drama or is it based on pure subjective taste? Was there anything incoherent or unrealistic?" There is a mix of both in fact!

Example: I think the "lightning strike" scene is objectively unrealistic in the setting of the series. How someone as resourceful as the Main Lead, who has so far been borderline "OP" when it came to planning and playing ahead, would put all her Eggs in one Basket Case, where she is basically waiting for a Miracle to happen, is a mystery to me.

On the other Hand, the whole concept of her becoming the Empress after her "revenge Arc" was also very incoherent and unrealistic to me but that might be a subjective issue and others might think that it was quite logical considering her "talents".

Fact is, those (and other) issues that I had, made me drop the series, even though for roughly 30 Episodes I was really hooked and liked it a lot. Looking through the other Reviews, you will notice that I am pretty much an exception and that the other Reviewers obviously did not have the same issues with it as I had. So while my Review was as accurate for me personally (I did drop the series, I genuinely got disturbed by it so much that I could not watch any longer...thats a fact for me), I really cant claim that it is accurate for others.

Yes, there are some objective incoherences and/or unrealistic scenes but the difference is, they dont have the same effect on everyone equally. For some they are a "showstopper", for others "minor issues easily ignored". That is one of the reasons why Reviews are ultimately inaccurate on its whole even if the problems pointed out are objectively true. I am sure you have heard the term "guilty pleasure", where People would watch Movies or Series that are considered "bad".

The Third Point, "Then I think everyone is wrong so I will give it a 10 to compensate" is a interesting one. Interesting because you are basically admitting to post Reviews that are inaccurate (Therefore proving that Reviews are indeed inaccurate :). While I understand where you come from and have done so myself occasionally, this just shows that there are other Elements that influence Ratings other than the Product itself. Especially nowadays, we have public Ratings that are solely driven by political Ideology, where People are so upset with something in the Show, that they dont even care about the objective Qualities of the Show. One Example from recent times, Dave Chapelle, arguably one of the greatest Comedians ever lived, has been "downvoted" simply because he made "Transjokes". This is not objective since they did not complain that his jokes were "bad" but that he even dared to make them. How can a review driven by such motives ever be accurate?

"You are right, but even then I still think we should use the chances we have to improve the system." Agree completely! However, anything you want to improve, you first have to understand and this is what we are currently trying to do :).

"There are things that will affect the rating no matter what and we won't be able to change anything about these things. I only care about what I think can be changed and controlled, for me there is no point in talking about something I have no control over." Full Agreement!

Reply to "edneversleeps"

I really dont think that Ratings are useless. They do act very well as a general guideline. For example, the chances that a Movie/Series that has been rated 1/10 (or 10/10) by a huge Number of Reviewers and turns out to be the complete opposite is very low. Generally, the more "different" Reviews from all kinds of People all over the Country or the World are there, the more likely it is that the Movie or Series will tend in the general direction of the score. 

So if lets say, 1 Million authentic Reviewers rated a Series 9/10, then the chances that the Series will be a 1/10 for you are very slim, like 1 in a 1000. As far as systems go, thats quite alright.

Of course this is not valid for Review sites that have been corrupted by Companies, like Rotten Tomatoes, where you often see "professional" review score of 90% while users rate it 10% but there is literally no system that is "corruption proof".

Oh and I hope you get some sleep soon, Insomnia is no joke ;).

If people can give ratings on unaired episodes -and they do- ratings are not subjective but basically skewed. 

Tastes and preferences of people are different so ratings can be subjective. However, I can appreciate a drama which is not my cup of tea according to some objective criteria, such as acting, script, cinematography etc.  I know lots of books that I will not read again because it is not my cup of tea, but it does not prevent me from appreciating it on its own merit.     So I do not think ratings need to be subjective as many have mentioned. 

There are some artists I appreciate more than the others, however it does not prevent me appreciating some other actors, actresses doing a very good job. I believe people need to get out of their personal likes and dislikes, prejudices to give a reasonable rating. Fangirl/fanboy mentality that aims to destroy the competition of their idol is one of the problems and it is not easy to find a way to deal with this problem. 

No drama scoring system open to the general public is accurate. Fans will tend to score dramas of their favorite actors up while antis will score them down. And it's also not accurate to say those two camps will cancel each other out since we cannot know whether fans will outnumber antis or vise-versa. In Chinese entertainment especially, there are netizens who are paid to blacken dramas or artists so their influence muddles the waters of drama scoring even more.

There are more discussions about this in the link below if you're interested:

https://mydramalist.com/discussions/cuo-liao/121285-who-still-believes-in-douban/

Based on my observations, for MDL ratings of a show to be accurate, you should compare them only relative to other shows (1) from the same country and (2) within the same genre.

• People tend to be extremely harsh with Jdramas. For a Jdrama to be rated over 8, it must truly be a masterpiece. Many good Jdramas are rated around 7. I know they often have lower budgets, but this shouldn't matter much if the plot, cinematography, and actors are brilliant...

• Kdrama ratings are generally accurate (imo). There's not much to critique here, although romance dramas tend to be slightly overrated. However, the bias isn't too significant.

• Cdramas are almost always overrated, especially romantic comedies, which probably have the most biased ratings on the whole site. The presence of famous actors seems to be the sole reason many of these are rated so highly despite being simply mediocre (e.g., Falling Into Your Smile, Go Go Squid!, You Are My Glory and many others).

Romance watchers tend to rate based on their feelings and not the actual drama quality.