> Most people treat them as binary: either something is nice, and gets 5, or is crap, and gets 1

I really think GoodReads is the exception to this though. When I look through other people’s ratings I frequently see them using the full spectrum.

Furthermore, it’s very common for written reviews to say that a book really deserves some fractional number of stars, but Goodreads forced them to round.

Of course, the average ratings suck anyway...