Please help me understand star ratings

[Rita]

My book Missing in Egypt is showing 3 stars and next to it "avg 2.5". Under Friends Reviews it shows 3 reviews and an average of 4 stars. I believe I had one 1 star review and two 4 star reviews. Does this make 2.5? I have a 5 star review on Amazon.uk and a 4 star review on Amazon.com so I'm a little disappointed with my Goodreads rating.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

It currently has two ratings: a 4 and a 1.

1+4/2= 2.5

Not sure why you think there are two 4-star reviews; I only see one.

[Vicky]

If you look closely at the stars, the third star is not entirely filled in and approximates 2.5.

Pride and Prejudice (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70...) has a 4.23 average rating and you can see the 5th star has a small sliver filled in. Even though users can't rate fractions of stars, the average rating will most likely be a decimal number and Goodreads does it's best to approximate that in the stars shown for a book's average.

Friend Reviews only shows and calculates reviews from your friends. I suspect out of the 3 reviews shown for you there only one of them (the 4 star review) actually has a rating. The other two are most likely people who have just shelved the book.

The Community Reviews section shows one 4 star rating and one 1 star rating.

4 + 1 = 5 / 2 = 2.5 average rating. This is the rating that shows at the top of the books page.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

★★☆☆☆ = "Okay" on Goodreads star ratings scale*
★★★☆☆ = "Okay" on Amazon star rsting scale.

So, the 2.5 stars on goodreads (average of 1+4) is equivalent to 3.5 stars on amazon (average of 2+5) if that helps.

*not all members use the star ratings scale the same way that goodreads reminds when rating a book anymore than they all shelve or review exactly the same way.

[Rita]

Thanks everyone. I thought I had another 4 star review inbetween the other two ratings. It may have been added in error and withdrawn. Debbie its comforting to know that 2.5 Goodreads equals 3.5 Amazon!