Contents:
Rating criteria explanation
1. Stars
Here is a rough guide to my rating criteria – introduced in order to reduce the effect of subjectivity as much as it is objectively possible (pun intended 🙂 ). The criteria and grades are up for debate. That is, any constructive criticism of the criteria noted here is welcome – feel free to use the Q&A page for posting comments (minding the etiquette).
For rating each attribute of a bicycle, tool, or a product, I use 1 to 5+ star grades:
1 star being among the worst I’ve seen (barely acceptable), and 5+ being exceptionally good (exceeding all expectations). Displayed stars are rounded to the nearest one half of a star – for better readability. For calculating the final, average rating (verdict), I take all the fractions into consideration (like 3.5 stars for bicycle weight, for example). The downside of this method is a bit less transparency of how the final verdict was achieved. Still, I think that good readability is more important for narrowing down one’s choice, while the final choice should be made after reading the explanations given in each review. Not all can be put into numbers.
2. Final verdict/rating
Final ratings are the arithmetic mean of each category ratings – rounded to the nearest half.