I know what they mean, but very, very many people use them to say "this is better than that" and it's dumb. It's dumb to assign a numerical value to any movie.
One good thing that Rotten Tomatoes does have is the ability to see what an individual critic has said about a host of movies as compared to the overall score. For example, my favorite critic is here, although they only run some of his work because they do not use Reverse Shot in their tabulations. Michael Koresky Movie Reviews & Previews - Rotten Tomatoes Koresky does not review everything that comes out like a lot of critics try to do, so it is a smaller sample, but it gives me a better idea if I will like the film. He mostly agrees with the overall scores, the biggest difference being The Birth of a Nation, which I did not see but based on evolving opinions he seems to be right on.
Completely agree. I'd argue most critics would rather not have a definite number rating and have people judge their review based on what they wrote. I think even Ebert wasn't a fan of the thumbs up/down ratings system, but the newspaper or network demanded it.
Yep. Reviewers by and large hate scores. Consumers by and large love them. Thumbs up/down is way better.
If you're using a up or down rating, uh, there is no number range. Related: Nobody Knows What Five Star Ratings Mean. That’s Bad For Gig Workers. One for the thumbs Daring Fireball: Why YouTube Switched From 5-Star Ratings to Thumbs Up/Down in 2009
Nah I don't like the idea of thumbs either but it's more effective than discerning what someone's 7/10 really represents.
Universally understood, easy to represent. If you gotta use some kind of easy system ... that's the way to do it.
And I'm saying people want a way to quickly know if they should or shouldn't see/listen to/eat at/whatever anyway. They want recommendations distilled down. Others want to read long critiques, but they're in the minority.
I don't even know what you're trying to say. Of course it's subjective, no one is making any argument saying differently.
So your argument is literally: all humans are dumb and should change. Welp. Ok. Good luck. Mine is: We know what people want, and what works best, so let's use it.
We know what system is better, more used, more understood for distilling ratings (which are obviously subjective) to the masses. Where does that say otherwise? What are you talking about?
No reason to belittle the dude because you disagree with him. Those systems are better to some people. Okay, we get it. What's wrong with saying we disagree with those people about those kind of systems? Neither is right or wrong.