Hi.

Using 1-10 to rate things is a bad idea

Bye.

What? Not enough characters? Well I suppose I could explain this a bit more

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Hello, and welcome to a blog on the pros and cons of rating things from 1-10. Where I will give an extremely irrational, ill-conceived and one-sided argument as to why I’m right in how 1-10 is the worst thing invented since murder and the new EULA.

Ahem, excuse me… Let me start over…

Good day fellows, I would very much like to present my humble opinion on the shortcomings of the 1-10 method in certain regards and why it should – in some cases – be avoided. Let’s begin.

There are many uses of the rating system of numbers. As is the case with many statistics, it’s an easy way to get the point across and it allows for easy comparison between different results. Basically, it’s all fine and dandy to say ‘it’s good’, but how good is that in comparison to other ‘good’ things.

1-10 is great for this sort of thing: I like this, so I’ll give it a 7! I really like this, so I’ll give this one a 9! Much easier than words and other such wordy things.

But it’s very difficult to apply the 1-10 system to everything. When speaking about oneself for instance, 1-10 more often than not loses all meaning…

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Has anyone ever run a server? Hired staff for a server? Applied for staff on a server, or any other variation of such? Ever done so on a large, public forum? You may need staff urgently, but even so you want the best you can get on short notice – that means you want maturity.

How do we deal with this? I’ve noticed a trend when I browse the staff applications on PMC. A simple question, but one that has no clear answer…

“How mature are you?”

Or perhaps even more worryingly: “How mature are you? (1-10)”

Can you really answer this question with a number? Okay, sure you could. But how accurate would it actually be?

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We’re finally moving towards the crux of this issue – what are the problems with using the 1-10 system as a measure of maturity? There is one extremely obvious flaw, but to be fair, you’d get this to an extent in any response: it is very difficult to get the truth.

If you’re applying for staff and ‘how mature are you? (1-10)’ comes up, are you really going to respond ‘2’?

Or 5?

Or even as high as 7?

I very much doubt it.

As with all professions, being staff on a decent server is open to a lot of competition and only the best of the applicants are accepted. You want yourself to look as good as possible so there’s no way anyone would respond with lower than about an 8, often with an addendum even then. But even accepting the fact that not everyone is going to just say ‘what they have to’ to gain the position, you’ll still probably not find anyone with a low response.

When observing oneself, it is very hard to see one’s own flaws and shortcomings. We tend to see only the best of ourselves, focus on what we’re good at and use that to justify where we may be less competent. This is particularly the case when applying for a position; that public argument I had that time was completely justified – I was defending someone else. Or perhaps I was simply jumping into a flame war, but they don’t need to know that.

Maturity is far more complex than a simple number can convey – no single factor is its determinant. Be wary when recruiting staff folks, it’s difficult enough to scrutinise yourself as it is and it’s even harder when you know that if you aren’t the best then you might as well not bother. An outsider’s perspective on an individual is often best, and nine times out of ten it’s far more accurate than rating from 1-10…

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A blog last edited – let’s see… 28/08/2014/

This is a piece I’ve left unfinished for months and months, and have only just got ‘round to completing. What to do when you want to write but don’t have any particular inspirations… it’s the cross every creator has to bear.

Thanks for reading.

-Torm