Earlier this week, Goodreads announced that readers will now be able to give half-star and quarter-star ratings. I applaud them for listening to their users and offering a feature that many people have asked for.
Personally, I don't think the new rating system will affect how I rate books. I like having only five options (and in reality, I only use 3-, 4-, and 5-star ratings). It's easy enough for me to decide whether a book is a 5-star read vs. a 4-star read, or whether it's a 4-star read or a 3-star read. It'll be more difficult to decide between 4 and 4.5 stars or between 4.5 and 5 stars. I can't imagine trying to decide between quarter stars. What makes a book 4.5 stars vs. 4.75 stars? I'd rather keep things simple and round to the nearest whole number. :-)
It will be interesting to see how many people take advantage of the new rating capabilities. What will this do to the average ratings for books? Will people who would previously have given a 5-star rating to a book now give it 4.5 or 4.75 stars instead?
Do you plan to use half and quarter stars on Goodreads?
