Rating systems without any semantic meaning for the different scores is the underlying problem here. The users are left to fend for themselves and invent meaning for "3 stars" and inevitably different users assign radically different meaning.
I was present (and argued for!) the change from numerals only to semantic labels on kuro5hin and the change was drastic and immediate.
This is really interesting - I didn't even consider semantic labels. Thank you!
Yea, we all swim in the water of non-semantic "stars" and most don't even realize we are wet. Same thing with how bad notifications are as a system (as opposed to the good way: up to date status).