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[NOTICE] Rating Display Correction

Greetings Members,

Upon the recent review of the Stories.Com rating system, we found that the system was not accurately being representative of the ratings received in whole by items. The system was indiscriminantly rounding all ratings up.

This means if 10 people gave an item a 3.5, and 1 person gave the item a 4.0, the rounding system would round the item up to a 4.0. This is because the 11 ratings would average to 3.54. The 3.54 would be automatically rounded up to the 4.0 rating. Going further, an item with 20 ratings of 3.5 and just 1 rating of 4.0 would lead to an average of 3.52, still rounding the rating up to a 4.0.

To find the correct half star rating, the system now takes all ratings into account and rounds an item's rating average if it does not end in .0 (ie; 1.0, 3.0 or 5.0) or .5 (ie; 1.5, 2.5 or 4.5).
To find the rounded average, Stories.Com uses the following system:

        .75 and higher round up to the next full number,

        .25 through .74 round to .5 and

        .24 and lower round down to the full number.

Some examples of the systm:

        - An item with a 4.80 average rating rounds to 5.0.

        - An item with a 4.75 average rating rounds to 5.0.

        - An item with a 4.74 average rounds to a 4.5.

        - An item with a 4.25 average rounds to a 4.5.

        - An item with a 4.24 average rounds to 4.0.

        - An item with 3.75 averages rounds to a 4.0.

        - An item with 3.74 averages rounds to a 3.5.


With this corrected system, in the initially discussed rating example where an item received 10 ratings of 3.5 and 1 rating of 4.0, averaging 3.54, the stars displayed would be 3.5. This much more accurately represents the opinion of all raters.

If an item receives 5 ratings of 3.5 and 5 ratings of 4.0, the average is 3.75 and this will be rounded up to 4.0; there is a 50/50 split and in the case of this "tie", the rating leans to the higher side.

In addition, this description of the working of the rating system has been corrected in our FAQ;          http://www.stories.com/main/faq.php#star_rating

Thanks for your time,
~~SM

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