Completely Arbitrary Review Scale


So what is the Completely Arbitrary Review Scale?

We believe that review scales are ultimately meaningless because people only really pay attention to either the absolute highest number or the absolute lowest number. No one truly listens to a review and says, "Oh, they gave that restaurant a 3.5 out of 5. I can't wait to try it!"

Reviews simply boil down to, I liked this thing because of X. It's why Siskel and Ebert's thumb system worked great. They were basically saying, "I liked this movie because it was great!" or "I didn't like this movie because it was awful!"

Enter the Completely Arbitrary Review Scale.

Here at Travel by Proxy, if Aaron and Andrea have both visited a place, they will rate it on the Completely Arbitrary Review Scale by picking the one thing that makes them want to go back. So if Andrea really enjoyed the Reuben at a deli, while Aaron was a big fan of their decorations, that would be their rating on the review scale.