I feel like recently, with more users on mdl, the ratings are not as accurate as they used to be and have a more bias outlook. I used to be able to clearly judge a show by it's rating but now a show ranking above 8.5 is no longer rare. Everything seems skewed. 

Is it not possible to hide ratings until after a show has aired. It makes no sense for a show to be 9/10 when episode 1 came out a few hours ago. 

MDL is full of young viewers in their teens or early twenties who give high ratings to shows as long as their idols are starring in them. Every single drama nowadays are rating 8 and above and there are viewers giving reviews 10/10 to shows that in all honesty are probably a 6/10. If you post a harsh review, fans will flame you and moderaters do nothing about it if it is mild. MDL is only a good place to come for news and updates, but IMDB probably is more accurate in terms of ratings.

 bilan:
ratings are not as accurate

The one which the audience likes will have high rating and the one which doesn't will have low rating. There are different reasons for audience liking.  Favorite actor, actress, director, producer/production, country , singer, music, story, theme, tag, genre Or there was some scandal at that time/in what mood you are watching/Are you watching when the drama is hot or when the drama cools down?, etc So no one can control the choice of audience that you have to like/rate any content on this particular  basis only .  Because every audience has different preferences

 bilan:
It makes no sense for a show to be 9/10 when episode 1 came out a few hours ago. 

Even I find it surprising that the drama hasn't even started and the rating has been given. 

But after the drama has started, I don't think that one should wait for the entire drama to end for ratings. They rate based on what they have seen till that time. You can analyze or rate even on a single scene or after an episode or even after the entire drama is over.  And it is not that you cannot change your rating, many people also change their rating later as the drama progresses.

the audience  they like whatever feels good to their heart.

I myself sometimes do not agree with other users regarding rating reviews but I ignore them understanding that everyone has a different thought process.

Maybe MDL should introduce something like.... "senior rating" lol... rating by people having more than 100 dramas under their belt.

Then again, I do find MDL rating useful, but it's very skewed for new dramas sometimes, and for older dramas it is unappreciative. Actually as long as a drama doesn't get like sub 7.5 I don't exclude it. 

Older dramas like Empress Ki, it should have a 9.0 in rating. Then there are new dramas that is not very good but have popular male leads, it gets 9.0 in rating. I find this too to be skewed.

But I am aware of this bias and try to adjust.

 ArniA:

Maybe MDL should introduce something like.... "senior rating" lol... rating by people having more than 100 dramas under their belt.

Then again, I do find MDL rating useful, but it's very skewed for new dramas sometimes, and for older dramas it is unappreciative. Actually as long as a drama doesn't get like sub 7.5 I don't exclude it. 

Older dramas like Empress Ki, it should have a 9.0 in rating. Then there are new dramas that is not very good but have popular male leads, it gets 9.0 in rating. I find this too to be skewed.

But I am aware of this bias and try to adjust.

 That's an idea, though having seen so many drama can also affect the rating in a bad way. While I don't grow tired of watching drama with similar stories, I have seen people rating poorly something considered good because "it has been done before". 

In the end there is no perfect solution but I had this conversation on many drama pages (here is an example if you care to read). In my experience many people rate inacurrately because they do not understand what the number actually means (as silly as it may sound). I can't remember how many times I have seen people saying things like "such a bad drama 7/10" or "Boring 7.5/10". I tried to explain how it will make the average higher if people who dislike it only rate on a scale starting from 6/10 and sometimes giving it a 7 even. Having an adjective next to the rating or an emoji even, would emphasize what each number means and help people rate according to what they trully think.

And we are not talking about "younger" people here, but adults who sometimes have seen many many drama and movies. On this site a 6 or 7/10 usually means it's terrible and worth a 3 to 5/10.  Then you have all the 7 and 8 that are jammed together. That's where most of the content is seating, which does not make any sense and will not represent what people think of the drama/movie in the end. Good luck figuring out if it's actually worth giving a try if people that hated it gave it a 7 and you have an agerage of 8+/10 haha.

The ratings here are inflated, that's true, but I personally have adjusted my own ratings to fit the MDL criteria. I don't even try to be objective (maybe a little) and rate things based on the level of my own enjoyment. 8 and everything above is good, 7 is average and 6 is something I forced myself to finish. My ratings on MDL are higher than my ratings on IMDb (usually by 1 point), but even on IMDb I struggle with 1-10 system (according to that 5 should be average, but I just feel horrible rating something that is watchable 5 or less). I think having just 5 stars rating system (without 1-10 scale) would be much better.

 Klio:

The ratings here are inflated, that's true, but I personally have adjusted my own ratings to fit the MDL criteria. I don't even try to be objective (maybe a little) and rate things based on the level of my own enjoyment. 8 and everything above is good, 7 is average and 6 is something I forced myself to finish. My ratings on MDL are higher than my ratings on IMDb (usually by 1 point), but even on IMDb I struggle with 1-10 system (according to that 5 should be average, but I just feel horrible rating something that is watchable 5 or less). I think having just 5 stars rating system (without 1-10 scale) would be much better.

7 is good and should be considered as such by anyone. This is exactly what I was talking about in my previous comment, and  the fact that you are admitting that it is inflated while also being actively part of the reason why is confusing haha. The problem is that you are affecting the general rating of the show (and so are many other users, so don't take this personally). 5 is the average but if we go with your system then there is no drama or movie that is worth a 5 or below even if you dropped it or forced yourself to finish it. 

This means that you are increasing the general rating of something you hated or disliked and this will make the rating something between 6 and 10 instead of something between 1 and 10.  Since so many people do the same and every show has it's fanbase, you will have people rating it 10 as well. We are then losing any form of nuance, making the rating system inaccurate to the point it is useless. 

It feels like the community is rating with a 5 stars system in mind, so what is the point of having 10 different options to choose from if we don't use those. More than that, why bother rating something if you feel horrible doing it the way it deserves? It's like doing something you are not comfortable doing and the result is affecting everyone else.

Please reconsider your system  as it is part of the problem on this site. I cannot tell you what to rate something because it is subjective and should stay that way. But it is important that you give the proper rating you believe it deserves.


Edit: Looking at your profile I am even more confused as you display different ratings that seem to be more in phase with what should be the norm.

@Floki [I can't quote your post because it's too long but I'll reply this way]

"This means that you are increasing the general rating of something you hated or disliked and this will make the rating something between 6 and 10 instead of something between 1 and 10"

I don't really increase it because dramas/movies that have 7-7.5 average rating are already considered trash by MDL standards (mostly), and if I give it 8 or more it's because I liked it and think more people should watch it. And if I don't like something I'll give it 6 because there are not many shows with average score lower than 7 so that way I'm not increasing it. There are some movies and dramas that objectively are trash and those I rate with 1-5, but there are not many of them. 

I did think about changing my own system of rating, but then that means the newly rated shows would be judged harsher than the shows I watched in the past, and something that is better would be rated lower so I just continue with this system. 

"Looking at your profile I am even more confused as you display different ratings that seem to be more in phase with what should be the norm. "

Yes, but most of them are between 8-9, hahah.  I try not to give too many 10s, and I don't believe in 1s because nothing can be that horrible to deserve 1 out of 10. I think too many people like rating either 10s or 1s, and with fandom culture that is prevalent on this site one extreme always comes with the other. If antis start giving 1s, fans will try to balance it with 10s (or the other way around), and it all becomes one big mess. 

@Klio 

Then I wouldn't consider your behavior as problematic, though I would still encourage you to rate based on your own preferences instead of what the current rating is. It can be difficult to ignore for sure, and it does make sense to avoid extremes too. It's not like we can just blindly pretend the fandom and haters aren't going to influence things in any way. But in the end I personally care more about what other users trully feel and think. I want to know what your true rating is, not your rating adapted on trends. Not sure if I make any sense haha  

 Klio:
I did think about changing my own system of rating, but then that means the newly rated shows would be judged harsher than the shows I watched in the past, and something that is better would be rated lower so I just continue with this system.

That's right, it would probably be less coherent based on shows that you rated in the past. But I would argue that watching the same show at a different period of your life could also affect your own rating.  Movies and Drama I rated a certain way years ago I wouldn't rate the same way today. It can be unsettling because we tend to embellish our memories. 

I don't believe in 1s either but I always try to remind myself it  starts from there. I also agree there are way too many people going for 1s (2s even) and 10s and it's a bit ridiculous.

Ratings are inherently biased. I don't trust ratings on ANY site. Even professional critics will rate something super low just because it's obviously not their preferred genre. It's the nature of having diverse people on here. Some things matter more or less to different people. Even people with the same thoughts on the drama might have different ratings, because of how much importance they put on the components. Or vice versa. And then there's people who feel bad about rating low. Or don't see the point in rating something low if they completed it.

And then there are of course people who create multiple accounts so they can sway the rating higher or lower. (Staff is working on this and tends to act quickly when it gets brought to their attention).

You can actually see ratings by age group here on MDL. If you're on browser, beside "ratings" there's a little blue graph button. It breaks down the ratings some, including a graph that shows rating by age. 

But no matter the age, you'll see biases. Because humans are inherently biased. Our perceptions are different based on our own life experiences - and age is not a reliable determining factor for if you have similar tastes, especially when we get to an international scale like MDL is.

@AthenaTheStorierX  exactly 

I have also been saying this that people are different and their thinking process will also be different.

and no site is perfect

Accurate rating doesn't exist, it's very subjective. IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. all exist but not perfect.

Rating is subjective because a person may like certain genres which  the mass of the people generally doesn't like.
Take zombie movies as an example, a lot of people don't like them, but a certain spectrum of people REALLY like them. So generally people tend to give them low rating, but those who like the genre give a high rating.

But I don't think MDL rating is useless, it does help in most cases. 

Ratings are personal. What I really enjoyed and would watch 7 times, you may have hated and dropped. 

Personally, I only look at ratings when they are really low, and I always read why. If there is no explanation, I risk to watch 1-2 episodes, or a few minutes of a movie.

I find summaries and reviews much more helpful, although summaries most times are inaccurate. I usually try to read as many summaries from different places as I can. If reviews are only about "the kiss" I don't take them seriously, but some reviews are enlightening.

As for ratings on the 1st episode, I trust them.  I decide 90% on the first or second episode.  If the 1st episode is a flop, I drop the entire thing.  I think I can judge if they need more time to adjust the writing and the cooperation and to get a grip of their equipment. It shows during the episode. If it is a matter of  "new job, new rules", I watch the 2nd episode. If the whole thing is slow, boring, tiring and badly-filmed, I drop it. You can't learn your job in 1 episode.

Ratings are inherently biased, but it is too extremely to say it is always subjective. Things are not always binarary. There are sites that have more accurate ratings. I personally think IMDL ratings are more accurate. At the very least, the site does not rate every single Kdrama that is released 7 and above. There are viewers here who give 10/10 reviews for dramas that they like.

I am very always very clear to state why I give a drama a certain ratings, AND distingush between whether it is a GOOD drama overall or it is both GOOD and is something I LIKE, before recommending it to others.

That's why we have oscars. We may dislike certain Oscar award winning movies, but we cannot discount the acting, story arc, casting and cinematography, character development

Those things are not so subjective. I can only say the age and demographics of the audience matters a lot.

IMDB audience probably are more exposed to Western flims and a wider genre of shows, whereas MDL viewers seem to be predominantly Kdrama viewers.

The viewers usually rate by saying how they like certain characters and all, but seldom comment on other aspects of the show.

 bilan:

I feel like recently, with more users on mdl, the ratings are not as accurate as they used to be and have a more bias outlook. I used to be able to clearly judge a show by it's rating but now a show ranking above 8.5 is no longer rare. Everything seems skewed. 

Is it not possible to hide ratings until after a show has aired. It makes no sense for a show to be 9/10 when episode 1 came out a few hours ago. 

The ratings are not "inaccurate", they're subjective.

 "Inaccurate" means "wrong", and that implies that it is possible for ratings to be objectively accurate, or right.  It is not

"2+2 = 5" is inaccurate, a Drama that you personally did not score highly being given a high rating here is not inaccurate. It is simply a difference of opinion.

I disagree with most ratings here, and think they're hugely overvalued, but that's just my opinion. My opinion is worth no more (or less) than anyone else's.  Rather than attempt to use MDL's average ratings as a guide, it's more useful to find people who either consistently agree with your tastes OR consistently disagree. Both can be very helpful.