how do people rate?

[ThisMe]

I honestly don't understand how people rate mangas. They say it's pretty average and then give it a 7 or 8 even thought the star rating for average is 5 according to the system given by mangadex.

This makes it hard to guess how good a manga is based on its rating. Like instead of using the full spectrum from 1 to 10 all thats used is actually from 5 to 10.
After reading into about 700+ mangas what I got out of it is that
[ul]9.1+ is often the best or most popular
8.5+ is generally pretty good and enjoyable
7.5+ is pretty much average
6.5+ is not very good but niche enjoyment can be found
5.5+ is really bad, be it story telling, logic, character etc.
and anything below that is just utter trash[/ul]

Normally I would expect people to follow the given rating system but that clearly doesn't seem to be the case. The majority either just give something they like a full 10 or slightly below and meh stuff possibly 7 or 8 which should be much lower. And stuff they simply don't like get a 0 instead of maybe a 3 or 4.

And let's not forget the people that just give random ratings of 1 to very popular mangas for some reason.

 

[MavB_Ver]

Stuffs I don't like, I don't read, I don't rate. Miss pretty much many chances of low ratings there.

 

[bigtiddyoneesan]

Yeah, it's definitely common to find inconsistencies when looking at ratings given by individuals. Myself included, of course, although I try to rate things relative to my other ratings, as well as keep them in line with my personal scoring (which is mostly similar to MD's descriptions).

10 - Mastapeece
9 - Amazing
8 - Great
7 - Good
6 - Fine
5 - Mediocre
4 - Bad
3 - Very Bad
2 - Horrible
1 - Appalling

For me at least, it's important to keep in mind the genre and medium of a work when scoring it (medium as in fully serialized manga, anthology, web comic, twitter/pixiv drawings, etc. It's unlikely that something with storytelling limitations (such as a Twitter 'series') will be able to get a relatively high rating of course, solely due to its medium).

I also keep my MDList public so anyone can flame me on my ratings at anytime if they care enough to. There are definitely still some mangos on there that I need to revisit, as I didn't always rate things the way I do now.

 

[rkkn]

I have yet to rate anything below 4, and the reason is simple:
If it's obvious that I won't like it, I don't read it at all and thus don't rate it.
If it's immediately appalling so that I don't need to read more than a chapter or two (or less!) to feel that it's bad, I haven't read enough to give it a fair rating, so I don't rate it.
Only works that show some promise even get a rating from me at all. Therefore my scores do not average around average. They average around good.

More generally, if there's something that would get a 2 or 3 if everyone had to rate it, the vast majority of people who see it aren't even going to give it a second thought and thus won't rate it.
Additionally, even if someone does read it, they aren't guaranteed to rate it. If they read it and don't have any strong feelings about it, they might forget to rate it or just not want to think about what kind of rating it should get. However, if they read it and think that it was the best thing ever and deserves a 10, chances are pretty good they are gonna click on that 10.

So in short, votes are higher because would-be low votes don't get counted, and very high votes are more likely to be counted.

 

[FohnAhn]

10, 9, 8, 7, and 1 are basically the only thing I see most people use.

Just like the old saying goes "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I have always looked at ratings like this. Different manga are supposed to be read by its corresponding audiences.

If an isekai manga has an 8.0 rating, then for an isekai trash eating scum(such as myself) it must be pretty good. But if you compare this 8.0 isekai to an 8.0 manga that is meant for almost anyone, seven out of ten times the manga that is aimed to "everyone"(I wish I could find a better word for this) will be more favored.

I am pretty small-brained when it comes to ratings, and I honestly think I am a little too generous with my ratings sometimes. But at the end of the day. Other people are unpredictable.

 

[Kontonkitsune]

10: I literally liked it so much that i wanna read it again, literally this second.
9: i really liked it enough that i would read it again twice
8: i like it enough that i'd read it again
7: (the average rating i give mangas) i liked it.
6: it was good enough to hold my attention.
5: i read it.
4: i did not like it but probably still read some of it
3: i don't like it enough to stop reading it
2: i hate it.
1: if something gets this rating, run

@FohnAhn
8.00 for an isekai manga means it's fairly good, since people who do not like isekai do not read isekai, the ratings are skewed upwards.
8.00 for a normal manga means it's pretty good, since it likely had a larger effective crowd (the diversity of the crowd matters more than the size) and thus, would have more people disliking it.
I believe the word you're looking for is "normies"

 

[dudewithmagic]

I will only rate manga I understand and am interested in

IE: they have to pass the 3 chapter test, and also be something I understand (I won't rate bdsm manga even if I read it since I don't understand it's attraction, even if I enjoyed the manga). I also don't rate stories with genres I hate (NTR, extreme power fantasy, yandere).
I've only rate below 6 if I think they are failing at core concepts or did something extremely unacceptable.

9-10 Made me daydream about the story / world building, truly captivating me. I transition to wiki, merchandise, LN, twitter and supporting author.
7-8 Well executed story, will likely transition to the LN or WN after catching up in the manga
5-6 Passable story with clear issues with a core writing device, also generic passionless manga
3-4 Unlikable due to unfixable issues
1-2 Degenerate stuff, advocating for heinous concepts or graphics

I typically rate either a 6-8 or 3-4; I rate about 1 in every 4 manga I pick up. I need to read enough to understand the story and flaws (usually about 10-20 chapters for myself). I keep reading to add to the 3 10's I've ever read on this site.

Also gag manga is different from all else. If the concept is funny and well done it will get a high rating irregardless of anything else

 

[4V29LN0n]

I personally just give 1s and 10s. Either it's an absolute shit or a masterpiece.
For the most part, the ratings on mangadex really reflect the actual quality of the mangas. I almost always agree with the ratings.

 

[PantsMan]

On my own lists, I usually just make a note for series I love (and a few of the ones I hate). Everything else (the majority) goes unmarked. Makes it easier to do yearly/overall favorites charts, since it's fun to see how my tastes change over time.

I used to be really obsessed with ranking my read series back on those List websites, though. After a while however I wondered why I was even bothering: it was far from a judgement of objective quality (since I kept changing the scores every year), and it wasn't like wasting hours deciding which of twelve series I felt lukewarm about were slightly better really mattered if I clearly didn't really care that much anyway. After that I used a 5-point [Love - Like - No opinion - Dislike - Hate] system for a while, before degenerating into my current method.

 

[gomichandesu]

And let's not forget the people that just give random ratings of 1 to very popular mangas for some reason.

then you got the people doing the opposite too though, they like some particular mango for some reason and feel it's average is too low so they vote 10 to inflate it.

Me personally, I follow MD's suggestions on rating. If it's meh it's a 5, if its better than meh it goes above 5 or worse than meh it goes below 5.

 

[Richman]

Usually, I rate from 6 to 9, the first time I rated a 4 was a mango that had an exciting plot but it got stale and complicated fast and on top of that, the ending was very unsatisfying.

Other than that, I have a couple of self-made rules to decide how to rate mangos:
If it's a one shot, never rate more than a 9 (except if it is extraordinarily good and/or long), same with manwha/webtoon promos
If it's ecchi/smut, chances are it won't be over an 8
I don't rate until I've read it completely or have read all uploaded chapters that are available so that I can have the full picture

I don't usually rate low because I tend to avoid mangos that people say aren't worth it or I myself feel something is wrong with them, so I never read them.

 

[absentee69nice]

I'm very simple minded when it comes to this.
8-10, it's and something I'd like and recommend, accepting for various flaws.
5-7, it's still entertaining and keeps my attention, but maybe not for the reasons the creator intended it to be, it could be so bad it's good, or it could be something I basically know is trash but like anyways.
1-4, garbage on the scale of technical ability, and also things I felt started strong, but then the creator throws all the promise I see in the story right in the dumpster.
Will usually drop and not bother rating anything that can't at least meet a 7 for me, though. There's so much stuff to go through, and I can't do the hate-reading thing, it's just not enjoyable for me.

 

[Kefkabot]

I only rate the one that I have completed. The ones I'm reading are bound to change and I don't feel like rating the ones I've dropped since I didn't read all of it to judge.
As for the score I give:
- 10 is rare and almost flawless imo
- 9 is almost as flawless but some details were not to my taste
- 7 or 8 is either good or well written
- 5 or 6 is average
- The rest has been painful to read

 

[vinsegas]

I only rate completed mangas or the one in which Im up to date. Man, it was a pain when you couldnt remove your ratings of mangas you dropped. Thankfully you can do it now.
Personally, I dont give 10, I think there is always room for improvement. So my highest rated mangas are in 9, reserved for a selected few that really connected with me.
8 if I enjoyed reading it a lot. 7 if is pretty good. 6 if I like it and but its nothing special. And thats pretty much all of it, because if I get bored of a manga I usually end up droping it, instead of keep reading a manga that I dont enjoy anymore. So I remove the score.