4 Star Scale: Cycle of Excellence

One person's opinion is only worth so much to another person. For me, when it comes to general quality, a simple "good" or "bad" is not enough detail. However a 1 to 10 scale gives a lot of subjective options and precision without giving us much more information than simply "good" or "bad." For this reason, I have a strong preference for a 4 star scale when asserting general quality something. Here's what the four stars mean:

1. One star* means something is bad. If we are talking about food, it is unpleasant to eat. If something is bad or unacceptable, we don't need to know just how awful it actually is, knowing it is not good enough, is good enough.
2. Two stars means that something is passable. If it's food it is edible, but not particularly good. The four star scale doesn't need an odd-middle scale for neutrality, because two stars IS the neutral rating - passable, but not especially tasty. If you say that something is "good, but not very good" that caveat means you are really talking about two star quality.
3. Three stars means something is very good or excellent. Notice that with food you either really like it or it is just edible, basically no space inbetween. Most of the stuff you "really enjoy" is three stars.
4. Four stars is for that which stands above other excellent things as favorites, classics, incredibly focused, uniquely enjoyable or particularly amazing in some way. This is the food that is so good you have to tell your friends about it (or maybe so good you are tempted to hide it from them.) It is not important how amazing you think something is, if it is amazing we know you think it is above and beyond most other excellent things. Four stars however does not mean perfect - nothing is perfect, because your perfection will have flaws for someone else, so don't be exclusive about the four star rating, if something is truly great, give it the four stars it deserves.

*Note there are no "half stars" in this system. When averaging multiple people's opinion, round. So if two people give a movie 4 stars, and their two dates give the movie 3 stars, (for an average rating of 3.5 stars,) that rounds to a 4 star movie (because it really entertained 4 people and amazed half of them. When converting Likert scale to 4 star scale, subtract one level and count both 0 and 1 as 1 star, and see the last sentance of #4 above.)

The farther something rises, the farther it has to fall. When something achieves 4 stars, often serious risks have been made, new things have been tried, or great effort has been focused on achieving a specific vision. This means truly amazing things are on the verge of being horrible, bad, one star. The "cycle of excellence" means that one star is just as close to 4 stars as 3 stars is, this goes in a loop, or cycle. For example with food, a truly amazing dish was probably at higher risk of becoming an inedible mess than simply very good food. The implication here is that if something is universally loved without critics, it is very likely 3 stars rather than 4, because one person's 4 stars could easily be another's 1 star.

Note that when it comes to efficiency, the sweet spot to aim for is 3 stars. For example with food, if you prepare a 3 star meal everyone is happy: some find it simply edible, others find it amazing, and most are pleased with their simply excellent meal. Beyond this attempting a 4 star meal would have required more effort and resources. The cycle of excellence suggests that very good is the ideal, responsible thing to achieve, and that amazing masterpieces are more risky (that some may not even find edible.)

On this blog I have already used this rating system to evaluate martial arts and individual levels of racism. I have used it with children to evaluate the severity of various usage of profanity, and I often demand feedback on meals I have prepared for guests based on the 4 star scale. Do the world a favor and make the 4 star scale as ubiquitous as possible.