Ranking Practices
It is heavy grading grind season for me as the semester ends when I receive stacks of student essays that I must soldier through and tattoo with a mark. Martial metaphors of grading aside, I freely admit that I have always been uncomfortable with numerical evaluative instruments which I find fairly rigid and filled with unspoken assumptions on what the numbers mean. What is the difference between a 68 or a 73? Transmuting qualitative or subjective impressions into quantitative and quasi-objective numerical grades is a strange kind of alchemy, or an exercise in hopeless translation between two non-corresponding series.
If I had my way, I would just give textual feedback on papers and turf the numbers. So, what does any of this have to do with books, seeing as this is a Goodreads blog and not "professor kvetching about grading practices"?
Do you see stars? Here on Goodreads, elsewhere on Shelfari, LibraryThing, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, etc., etc., there has been the obsessive convention of assigning some rigid numerically based standard in terms of prompting readers to make a decision to ballot on books as being 1-star up to 5-stars. Goodreads does its part to try to define what those stars mean, but it is still an arbitrary designation without operational definition.
What are those stars? A flashed up Likert scale, really. What purpose do they serve? Gauging popularity for some, value for others. Could we do without these scales? Absolutely.
The use of such Likert scales is a form of influence-leading toward creating a persuasive experience. So, for example, a majority of potential readers may see a book that has 1,000 people having given the book 5-stars and be more likely to be persuaded that the book has intrinsically high value (we leave to one side sock puppetry, etc.). In this scheme, the rich might get richer, which is to say that a book may rise in popularity on account of having more positive rankings, thus garnering more attention, and thus gaining more rankings. The cycle perpetuates itself until some saturation point is reached.
Perhaps there is a hidden laziness in relying too heavily on rankings. There may in fact be a case to be made that it is an example of selective exposure: we as readers might be inclined to read only the 1-star or 5-star reviews as though by reading at the absolute extremes of praise and censure that this will suffice to assist us in making a decision as to whether or not we wish to pick up the book. These rankings may be of lesser value to readers, and of more value to the sites upon which they appear, for there has yet to be an algorithm that can process pure subjectivity, and so must make use of numerical markers to sift and sort data.
The illusion of an objective scale is dispelled when we apply just a bit of pressure to the way in which we decide to assign a certain number of stars. Is my 3-star ranking of a book the same as yours? Doubtful. The constraint here is fairly obvious: I am to filter all my subjective impressions of a book's value, according to a whole bunch of criteria that may include all sorts of separate things, into a single, numerical "grade." Whenever we "grade" books, we are effectively doing so by means of comparing to what we consider the highest standard, whatever that is. It is entirely possible that I can give a 3-star rank on a book that I thought was very good, but did not compare to another book written in the same genre which was much better in my view. I could compare books according to how they stand in relation to the great canonical works of fiction, or I can grade the book by taking into account its very unique standing, measuring it on its own merits. Does the cover or layout push the rank up or down? How about the general concept of the book, even if the concept was not fully developed or delivered? What about length? There are several means by which a book can be evaluated just as there are several interpretations one can have of it that it really is a tug-of-war from both ends of the 1-star and the 5-star.
To absolutely distort and corrupt John Lennon, Imagine there's no rankings. Imagine all the Goodreaders just supplying a text review and ignoring the ranking system. Imagine sites such as these where emphasis is shifted to talking about rather than grading books. Indeed, you may say that I'm a dreamer, but I hope I'm not the only one!
Just as assigning single numerical grades on student papers is so dissatisfying and fails to capture all the little nuances that deserve mention, I am starting to question even my own book-ranking habits. I'm tempted to go through my Goodreads library and just remove all those stars that, ultimately, seem to be arbitrary mechanisms of hierarchizing numerically what cannot be numerically expressed. Is that not what "rank" means, a kind of hierarchical organization like "ranks" in the army?
As we click and tap our way through a largely controlling digital environment, we are constantly faced with prompts to "like", "rank", and "rate" whatever images are thrown at us. We have become a digital society afflicted with "ranking fever," and perhaps some of us place too much trust or emphasis on trying to evaluate everything using arbitrary measures. It has the look and feel of mechanizing opinion. There are some books that one might feel it is not appropriate to "rank." You might not have enjoyed your experience in reading Joyce's Ulysses, but does your low rank actually reflect how you might appreciate its contribution to literary experiment even if you did not personally enjoy the book? And what of those who simply rank a book without qualifying their opinion by means of supplying a review? Such ranks appear somewhat empty of meaning, especially if ranking is already somewhat arbitrary to begin with.
The only person I can prescribe practice for would be me. And although I am not permitted in the university context to refuse assigning numerical grades to student effort, I can from this point on refuse to give stars, pips, stripes, thumbs, moons, clovers, diamonds, etc., on any content whether I like the content or not. Stars are generally immaterial, but textual expression does (for me) have more substance.
If I had my way, I would just give textual feedback on papers and turf the numbers. So, what does any of this have to do with books, seeing as this is a Goodreads blog and not "professor kvetching about grading practices"?
Do you see stars? Here on Goodreads, elsewhere on Shelfari, LibraryThing, Amazon, Barnes&Noble, etc., etc., there has been the obsessive convention of assigning some rigid numerically based standard in terms of prompting readers to make a decision to ballot on books as being 1-star up to 5-stars. Goodreads does its part to try to define what those stars mean, but it is still an arbitrary designation without operational definition.
What are those stars? A flashed up Likert scale, really. What purpose do they serve? Gauging popularity for some, value for others. Could we do without these scales? Absolutely.
The use of such Likert scales is a form of influence-leading toward creating a persuasive experience. So, for example, a majority of potential readers may see a book that has 1,000 people having given the book 5-stars and be more likely to be persuaded that the book has intrinsically high value (we leave to one side sock puppetry, etc.). In this scheme, the rich might get richer, which is to say that a book may rise in popularity on account of having more positive rankings, thus garnering more attention, and thus gaining more rankings. The cycle perpetuates itself until some saturation point is reached.
Perhaps there is a hidden laziness in relying too heavily on rankings. There may in fact be a case to be made that it is an example of selective exposure: we as readers might be inclined to read only the 1-star or 5-star reviews as though by reading at the absolute extremes of praise and censure that this will suffice to assist us in making a decision as to whether or not we wish to pick up the book. These rankings may be of lesser value to readers, and of more value to the sites upon which they appear, for there has yet to be an algorithm that can process pure subjectivity, and so must make use of numerical markers to sift and sort data.
The illusion of an objective scale is dispelled when we apply just a bit of pressure to the way in which we decide to assign a certain number of stars. Is my 3-star ranking of a book the same as yours? Doubtful. The constraint here is fairly obvious: I am to filter all my subjective impressions of a book's value, according to a whole bunch of criteria that may include all sorts of separate things, into a single, numerical "grade." Whenever we "grade" books, we are effectively doing so by means of comparing to what we consider the highest standard, whatever that is. It is entirely possible that I can give a 3-star rank on a book that I thought was very good, but did not compare to another book written in the same genre which was much better in my view. I could compare books according to how they stand in relation to the great canonical works of fiction, or I can grade the book by taking into account its very unique standing, measuring it on its own merits. Does the cover or layout push the rank up or down? How about the general concept of the book, even if the concept was not fully developed or delivered? What about length? There are several means by which a book can be evaluated just as there are several interpretations one can have of it that it really is a tug-of-war from both ends of the 1-star and the 5-star.
To absolutely distort and corrupt John Lennon, Imagine there's no rankings. Imagine all the Goodreaders just supplying a text review and ignoring the ranking system. Imagine sites such as these where emphasis is shifted to talking about rather than grading books. Indeed, you may say that I'm a dreamer, but I hope I'm not the only one!
Just as assigning single numerical grades on student papers is so dissatisfying and fails to capture all the little nuances that deserve mention, I am starting to question even my own book-ranking habits. I'm tempted to go through my Goodreads library and just remove all those stars that, ultimately, seem to be arbitrary mechanisms of hierarchizing numerically what cannot be numerically expressed. Is that not what "rank" means, a kind of hierarchical organization like "ranks" in the army?
As we click and tap our way through a largely controlling digital environment, we are constantly faced with prompts to "like", "rank", and "rate" whatever images are thrown at us. We have become a digital society afflicted with "ranking fever," and perhaps some of us place too much trust or emphasis on trying to evaluate everything using arbitrary measures. It has the look and feel of mechanizing opinion. There are some books that one might feel it is not appropriate to "rank." You might not have enjoyed your experience in reading Joyce's Ulysses, but does your low rank actually reflect how you might appreciate its contribution to literary experiment even if you did not personally enjoy the book? And what of those who simply rank a book without qualifying their opinion by means of supplying a review? Such ranks appear somewhat empty of meaning, especially if ranking is already somewhat arbitrary to begin with.
The only person I can prescribe practice for would be me. And although I am not permitted in the university context to refuse assigning numerical grades to student effort, I can from this point on refuse to give stars, pips, stripes, thumbs, moons, clovers, diamonds, etc., on any content whether I like the content or not. Stars are generally immaterial, but textual expression does (for me) have more substance.
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Absolutely on all points! Also, the fact that authors would choose to boast about ratings (or sales) which we know can be manipulated is to buy into the system of commodification of culture Adorno warns us about where art is pegged on its commodity value. The ratings system is a lot like filtering literary work through a kind of social video game where so many grind their way to get the "hi-score." To what end? Validation, most likely, but that portrays a deep insecurity that the work is not valid without some kind of public metric. On one hand, I think carrying a bit of insecurity as an author can be healthy (i.e., to be humble and modest), but it becomes pathological at the point when an author strives almost exclusively to boost her or his ratings. It's a bit of a purist stance that I am taking here, but if I can exclude from my considerations the desperate cloying need to define what I do according to an arbitrary ranking mechanism, then I have much more mental energy to devote to doing the work of writing and not promotionalism - which I freely admit I have no skill or patience for. Yet, in this bronze age of the self-published author, the expectation is to be both the creator and the marketer of the work, and I believe this collapse of two functions into one can impede both functions. I am a big fan of separation of tasks: one person devoted to writing, and another on marketing, and never shall the twain meet!
Definitely. It makes me more and more uncomfortable to rate books. There is a mixture of implications in the ratings imo, partly that I judge its literary merits, that I compare one book against another while trying to express my personal feelings towards it as well. Which might be true but also raises the question how successful am I in bringing this different aspects into a rating, or not only into one rating but in all of them. Which rating is more truthful? I honestly cannot say.
Hence I am doubtful about it as a whole, especially since ratings as such most likely dont mean the same thing for two different persons. A book with a low rating or very few reviews might easily be one I enjoy very much, and the reason for being overlooked might be that GoodReads is not the right place for the book since the main interest of their users is be a different one, for eg leaning towards YA/Paranormal while the book in question is "experimental". (a term I am not really fond of and I am using against my better judgement).
Plus the boosting about a "perfect" rating by authors touches also several other questions about marketing or that there are basically no boundaries anymore between authors and non-authors. There is at times the implication that disliking a book, expressed with a low rating, is a personal attack, while on the other site a high rating is used as a marketing tool. This is probably inevitable since the fences are down in every respect but my rating should not be used (or should I call it mis-used?) in any way when I "only" want to express myself. Hardly (or never?) I have had an interesting discussion about a book which was caused by a rating, but by a review or a comment.
I am all for the purist stance of yours but again, I do understand that for most authors it wont work that way and they are trying everything to market their product in any way possible. I may not like this part of the story but I guess I have to accept it.
Hence I am doubtful about it as a whole, especially since ratings as such most likely dont mean the same thing for two different persons. A book with a low rating or very few reviews might easily be one I enjoy very much, and the reason for being overlooked might be that GoodReads is not the right place for the book since the main interest of their users is be a different one, for eg leaning towards YA/Paranormal while the book in question is "experimental". (a term I am not really fond of and I am using against my better judgement).
Plus the boosting about a "perfect" rating by authors touches also several other questions about marketing or that there are basically no boundaries anymore between authors and non-authors. There is at times the implication that disliking a book, expressed with a low rating, is a personal attack, while on the other site a high rating is used as a marketing tool. This is probably inevitable since the fences are down in every respect but my rating should not be used (or should I call it mis-used?) in any way when I "only" want to express myself. Hardly (or never?) I have had an interesting discussion about a book which was caused by a rating, but by a review or a comment.
I am all for the purist stance of yours but again, I do understand that for most authors it wont work that way and they are trying everything to market their product in any way possible. I may not like this part of the story but I guess I have to accept it.
Even your example of Ulysses I had in mind. Did I enjoy it? Not really, it was one of the worst reading experiences I had in my life and gave up after approximately 500 pages, but it doesnt mean I dont acknowledge it merits, or how it changed literature on a larger scale. Would a 1* star rating here be justified? Definitely, since this was my personal experience, but for the reasons mentioned before I hesitate to do so - and actually never rated it.
And since we are dealing with words, words should be the only thing that matters.