Why take 60% of the rating space up by negative ratings? It seems like what you really care about is degrees of goodness.
An alternative approach:
1 - I disliked it. 2 - It's OK 3 - This is good 4 - This is great 5 - This is a must-read
An alternative approach:
1 - I disliked it. 2 - It's OK 3 - This is good 4 - This is great 5 - This is a must-read
That said, I think the world has also suffered from ratings inflation. I tend to assume anything under a 4 means "bad" or "meh" myself.
If you go to rate a book on good reads and hover over each of the the 5 stars, here are the "title" attributes of the links:
* title="did not like it"
* title="it was ok"
* title="liked it"
* title="really liked it"
* title="it was amazing"
I think it's interesting to have the middle/neautral rating described (3 star, middle of the range available) as "liked it" (a positive response).