What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

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paulofilmo
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by paulofilmo »

anything below 70 i wouldn't recommend to my former self

VinegarBob
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by VinegarBob »

100 - Top 10
95 - Top 50
90 - Top 250
85 - Excellent
80 - Very Good
75 - Good
70 - Pretty Good
55, 60, 65 - Average
40, 45, 50 - Bad
20, 25, 30, 35 - Awful
0, 12, 10, 15 - Dire

I found it quite handy to use the standard 1-100 scale as it's the most commonly used among those who rate films, and so is the easiest to compare with other lists. It's really a 20 point scale though as I use 5 point increments to keep things a bit simpler. I mean how do you decide whether to rate a film a 77 or 78?

Most films fall into the average or worse category for me, so there are more ratings to cover them than there are from pretty good upwards. I'd guess most peoples' average ratings skew higher than half marks because most tend to try to avoid films that if they saw them they'd rate low, so more of the films that they do rate will tend to be average or better.

I like the top 3 rankings. Every film buff has a top 10, and IMDb has their top 250, so having that means I can directly compare my top 250 with that list. It also means that my list is evolving as I see more films. If a see an amazing film it will kick one of my top films down to the next level, and so it's always a reflection of my changing tastes. That's the theory anyway. It should apply to all films, but in reality if I see a meh film it'll just find its place among all the other unremarkable ones and stay there forever, because when you get right down to it the only the top third or so of the films you see matter much anyway. :)

paulofilmo
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by paulofilmo »

VinegarBob wrote:I mean how do you decide whether to rate a film a 77 or 78?


a film i rate 78 is i think slightly better than a film i rate 77

livelove
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by livelove »

VinegarBob wrote: I mean how do you decide whether to rate a film a 77 or 78?

completely agreed

paulofilmo wrote: a film i rate 78 is i think slightly better than a film i rate 77

sorry, I find this implausible.
You are basically claiming that you can distinguish a single-point-nuance,
meaning you could rank 100 films each with a 1-point-difference.
I find this impossible.

paulofilmo
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Re: Rat scanking whale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by paulofilmo »

indeed, we are not all created equal

livelove
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by livelove »

Then how do you distinguish between 12 and 13 ?
Or between 35 and 36 ?

I can't imagine how this could be possible for anyone (I'm not second-guessing you specifically of course).

Even for measurable things (like weigth, heigth, etc.) a 100 point scale is already quite fine. But for things which can't be objectively measured (like emotions, love, paintings, etc.) and where sometimes it is hard to put *any* number to it (most of us have had the experience of seeing a film that is almost impossible to grade, I've read this numerous times here), I don't see how a 100 point scale can be applied in a really meaningful way.

Maybe you can explain how you go about this ?

paulofilmo
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by paulofilmo »

i rubs men for weigth. i say, that looks like about four rubs.

i'm usually bang on the money

mattorama12
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by mattorama12 »

livelove wrote:Then how do you distinguish between 12 and 13 ?
Or between 35 and 36 ?

I can't imagine how this could be possible for anyone (I'm not second-guessing you specifically of course).

Even for measurable things (like weigth, heigth, etc.) a 100 point scale is already quite fine. But for things which can't be objectively measured (like emotions, love, paintings, etc.) and where sometimes it is hard to put *any* number to it (most of us have had the experience of seeing a film that is almost impossible to grade, I've read this numerous times here), I don't see how a 100 point scale can be applied in a really meaningful way.

Maybe you can explain how you go about this ?


For me, it's not like I can definitively say that The Cabin in the Woods is a 77/100. However, I can say that I like it more than Shame (76) and less than Rope (78). My ratings are not permanent and not perfect; it's always a moving scale. But by comparing two to each other and adjusting regularly, you can start to get finer measurements than just 1-5 or 1-10 scale.

There are actually computer algorithms that take advantage of this concept. The Social Network has a good example of it from the late 90s, early Oughts internet days when websites rating attractiveness were all the rage. The first of these sites just allowed you to give a number--this girl is a 7. The next iteration of these sites showed you two girls and let you choose which you thought was more attractive. With enough data, this second method actually turned out to be more consistent. It's the same basic idea I apply to adjust my ratings here.

jacobclark12
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by jacobclark12 »

This question is something I've struggled with a lot recently, but seeing this discussion has actually made me more sure of my own system and how well it works for me. I use a 1-100 scale that I also convert to a 1-10 scale for use on other sites like RT or IMDB. It breaks down like this:

100-91 = 10
90-81 = 9
80-71 = 8
70-61 = 7
60-51 = 6, etc., etc.

I take these broader categories and kind of set the requirement for getting to a certain score like this:

10 or 9 = definitely would be worth buying
8 or 7 = definitely worth seeing
6 or 5 = not a complete waste of my time
4 or 3 = skippable
2 or 1 = debatable whether or not it should even exist

As for determining what film gets what particular rating, it's usually done by comparison. This is really easy for 9s, 10s, and 1s because I have much stronger feelings about them; however, it gets really tricky for 7s and 3s where I don't have a strong reaction besides a general like or dislike. I don't have any kind of rubric, so I usually just go with my gut for a general range and then see where a film would rank specifically after seeing what else is in that range. It's not an exact science by any means, but it's been working really well for me lately.

djross
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Re: What ranking scale are you guys using/recommending?

Post by djross »

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Last edited by djross on Thu Jul 20, 2023 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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