Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Forums

Right now it's not possible and frankly not practical to see all the books sorted by rating.  That would be a list of 6,000 books and a massive server hit

We have talked about doing a "top rated" list for some time but there are a few hurdles to clear first:

We need to come up with a formula that takes into account the number of ratings for each book, which is always different, and establish a minimum number of ratings else we would get a bunch of books that have a single 5 star rating listed above books with dozens of ratings that average less than a perfect 5.

Should we throw out the top and bottom few ratings for the books?  Say 10% from either end?  Might be a good idea to limit the hater and fanboy influence. 

How many books should we put on the list?  How do you determine the cut off?  Listing only 4's and above might be a good start but that could still be hundreds of books.  Much over 100 and people will stop paying attention.

Perhaps by moving the minimum number of ratings threshold up and down until we get a manageable number?

But what does that mean for newer books that have not been as widely read as the old classics and therefore don't have a lot of ratings?  I'm OK with the older books getting the benefit of having stood the test of time but it might turn out to be much like some of our existing lists only mixed a bit differently.

It's all about balance in determining the formula and we keep scratching our heads on how to make it a meaningful list that will pass muster 'cause make no mistake, we'll get probed like a Nevada farmer going to investigate those strange lights on something as subjective as ratings.

I always get excited about doing this list but trying to work it all out is such a pain that we eventually put it aside for other needed site enhancements.  I'll talk to the team about it again and see if we have better luck but no promises.

There's another issue with the ratings for sure.  Much like our sub-genre tags the results will improve with more participation. 

We have plans to add the ratings stars all over the site, basically under every cover image in the awards and lists and on the author pages etc. so you can rate wherever you happen to be.  We're going to display the overall rating for books you have not personally rated and your own rating for those you have rated.  Using different color stars like on the novel page:  red for yours and blue for overall.  There is going to be a modal on the cover image hover like what you see on Netflix and other sites where you can do all the tagging without having to go to each indivdual novel page.  That will simplify the process and should encourage people to tag more consistantly.  We just have to find the time to build the enhancements.

I don't think we necessarily have to wait for the quantity to increase because it will be a live list that will shift a bit up and down and become more accurate over time as more ratings come in.