Star ratings are a type of rating scale using a star glyph or similar typographical symbol . It is used by reviewers for ranking things such as films, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels. For example, a system of one to five stars is commonly used in hotel ratings , with five stars being the highest rating.
56-506: Three star or three stars is a grading received in a star classification scheme. Three star or three stars may also refer to: Star (classification) Similar systems have been proposed for electing politicians in the form of score voting and STAR voting . Repeated symbols used for a ranking date to Mariana Starke 's 1820 guidebook, which used exclamation points to indicate works of art of special value: ...I have endeavored... to furnish Travellers with correct lists of
112-478: A "worthless" movie. Roger Ebert occasionally gave zero stars to films he deemed "artistically inept and morally repugnant." Scheuer's guide calls "one and a half star" films "poor", and "one star" films "bad". Not all film critics have approved of star ratings. Film scholar Robin Wood wondered if Sight and Sound readers accepted "such blackening of their characters." Jay Scott of Canada's The Globe and Mail
168-457: A film critic used a star-rating system to grade movies. "The one-star review of The Port of Missing Girls launched the star system, which the newspaper promised would be 'a permanent thing.' According to film scholar Gerald Peary , few newspapers adopted this practice until the French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma "started polling critics in the 1950s and boiling their judgment down to
224-529: A game or stage's difficulty (such as in the SNES version of Street Fighter II and its updates), or to rate the attributes of a selectable character or, in sports games , a team. Restaurant guides and reviewers often use stars in restaurant ratings . The Michelin system reserves star for exceptional restaurants, and gives up to three; the vast majority of recommended restaurants have no star at all. Other guides now use up to four or five stars, with one-star being
280-566: A national child advocacy and media group, Jim Steyer founded Common Sense Media in 2003. In an interview with The New York Times , Steyer said he intended to "create a huge constituency for parents and children in the same way that Mothers Against Drunk Driving or the AARP has done." The group received $ 500,000 in seed money from a group of donors including Charles Schwab, George Roberts, and James Coulter. To assess parents' concern about their children's media habits, Common Sense Media commissioned
336-401: A poll, which found that "64 percent [of parents with children aged 2–17] believed that media products in general were inappropriate for their families. It said that 81 percent expressed concern that the media in general were encouraging violent or antisocial behavior in children." The polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, said that "only one out of five interviewed 'fully trusted'
392-412: A purely mathematical basis, 2 1/2 stars would be the dividing line between good and bad on a 0–5 scale. Common Sense Media uses a scale of one to five, where 3 stars are "Just fine; solid" and anything lower is "Disappointing" at best. There is no agreement on what the lowest rating should be. Some critics make "one star" or a "half-star" their lowest rating. Dave Kehr believes that "one star" indicates
448-572: A rating. Star ratings are also given out at stand-up comedy performances and theatre productions. Star ratings are given at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe , the largest arts festival in the world. Since 2010, the British Comedy Guide has collected over 4,300 reviews of around 1,110 different acts, across 83 different publications in the form of a star rating. The use of star ratings is controversial because
504-458: A scale of zero to three stars, representing O'Brien's notion of their "literary permanence." He further listed stories with a ranking of three stars "in a special 'Roll of Honor.'" In this list, O'Brien attached an additional asterisk to those stories that he personally enjoyed. Oliver Herford 's essay Say it with Asterisks , quips "Never, I think, were a mob of overworked employees so pitifully huddled together in an ill-ventilated factory as are
560-471: A set of ratings to evaluate apps, games, and websites used in a learning environment. Donations from foundations and individuals and fees from media partners finance Common Sense Media. Today, the organization distributes its content to more than 100 million US homes via partnerships with a variety of media and tech companies. Common Sense Media describes itself as "the nation's largest membership organization dedicated to improving kids' media lives". By 2016,
616-413: A star as a restaurant rating in 1926, which was expanded to a system of one to three stars in 1931. In 1915, Edward O'Brien began editing The Best American Short Stories . This annual compiled O'Brien's personal selection of the previous year's best short stories. O'Brien claimed to read as many as 8,000 stories a year, and his editions contained lengthy tabulations of stories and magazines, ranked on
SECTION 10
#1732771948615672-488: A star rating to rank the safety of transportation. EuroRAP have developed a Road Protection Score which is a scale for Star Rating roads for how well they protect the user from death or disabling injury when a crash occurs. The assessment evaluates the safety that is 'built into' the road through its design, in combination with the way traffic is managed on it. The RPS protocol has also been adapted and used by AusRAP, usRAP and iRAP. Euro NCAP awards 'star ratings' based on
728-466: A star rating, with a bullet reserved for movies that the magazine didn't like." The highest rating any film earned was five stars. The British film magazine Sight and Sound also rated films on a scale of one to four stars. Some critics use a "half-star" option in between basic star ratings. Leonard Maltin goes one further and gives Naked Gun 33 + 1 ⁄ 3 : The Final Insult a 2 + 1 ⁄ 3 star rating. Critics do not agree on what
784-539: Is a K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum consisting of more than 60 lesson plans, student handouts, videos and interactive components that span three topic areas: Safety and Security, Digital Citizenship, and Research and Information Literacy. The curriculum was informed by research done by Howard Gardner's GoodPlay Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The resources were developed with support from many foundations, including
840-421: Is a Parent Media and Technology Education Program that was launched in late 2008. The program includes a comprehensive library of resources, like tip sheets, workshop slides and script, videos, and discussion guides that educators can use to engage and educate parents about technology issues ranging from media violence and commercialism to cyberbullying and cellphone etiquette. The second product, launched in 2009,
896-536: Is an endorser of the SUCCESS Act and has partnered with ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners to encourage low income families to claim money due to them through the newly improved Child Tax Credit —as much as $ 3,600 per child in an eligible family for one year. In June 2024 Common Sense Media endorsed the SAFE For Kids Act which is a New York law that bans "addictive" feeds for minors under
952-477: Is thinner than their current size and that children with parents who are dissatisfied with their bodies are more likely to feel that way about their own. In September 2017, CSM released a study which it developed in collaboration with the University of Southern California 's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism focused on families in both Japan and America and technology use. Surveys of families in
1008-693: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rules to ensure that they keep pace with changes in technology since the law was passed in 1998 – as documented by the organization in a report to the Federal Trade Commission as part of a review of the law. The organization also helped Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey and Texas Representative Joe Barton draft legislation that required websites aimed at children under 13 to obtain parental permission before collecting personal information. According to The Wall Street Journal ,
1064-640: The National Institutes of Health released a white paper , which outlines the ways that media exposure can impact children's health. The paper evaluated 173 media-related studies from the past 28 years and concluded that "In 80% of the studies, greater media exposure is associated with negative health outcomes for children and adolescents." In October 2006, the organization released a white paper compiled from existing research on body image perceptions in children and teens. The paper states more than half of boys as young as 6 to 8 think their ideal weight
1120-651: The "death doughnut". Roger Ebert used a thumbs-down symbol. Other critics use a black dot . Critics also do not agree on what the lower ratings signify, let alone the lowest rating. While Maltin's and Scheuer's guides respectively explain that lowest rated films are "BOMB(s)" and "abysmal", British film critic Leslie Halliwell instead writes that no star "indicates a totally routine production or worse; such films may be watchable but are at least equally missable." Like Halliwell and Dave Kehr, film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum believes one-star films have some merit, however unlike Halliwell, Rosenbaum believes that no stars indicate
1176-463: The Asterisks in this Sweatshop of Twaddle." Literary editor Katrina Kenison dismisses O'Brien's grading systems as "excessive at best, fussy and arbitrary at worst." Book reviewers generally do not use a star-rating system though there are exceptions. The West Coast Review of Books rates books on a scale of one ("poor") to five ("superior") stars. According to editor D. David Dreis, readers love
SECTION 20
#17327719486151232-500: The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), a ballot measure to protect the privacy rights of California consumers and increase penalties on corporations that fail to protect children's privacy. CSM supported Stop Hate for Profit, a boycott where advertisers were asked to pull their ads from Facebook in response to the platform's spread of misinformation and hate speech. In July 2020, over 500 companies joined
1288-529: The Common Sense Education program had grown to include over 300,000 member teachers in approximately 100,000 schools. In 2009, CSM partnered with Harvard University and the organization Global Kids to organize a three-way communication with parents, teenagers, and educators about issues faced in the online world. The organization has education programs for schools and other organizations to use with students and parents. The first product
1344-552: The ESRB rating process, citing the wide availability of the leaked version and the damage to children that the censored version still had. Questioning whether Common Sense Media had begun functioning as a lobbying group rather than advocacy group the Los Angeles Times called the organization "one of the most zealous voices when it comes to encouraging state legislation limiting the sale of ultra-violent games to minors" and
1400-725: The Sherwood, MacArthur , and Hewlett Foundations, which enables CSM to offer these products to educators for free. In 2012, CSM released its "Digital Passport", an online curriculum designed to teach children how to safely and responsibly navigate the Internet. The courses can be accessed for free by classroom teachers, who are then able to monitor their students' progress. Digital passport lessons are presented as games that reward progress with badges. In 2021, resources were updated for UK learners, fully translated to British English and Welsh, and available in every school. Lessons are built on
1456-500: The United States were compared to surveys of Japanese families and found that both countries struggle with the impact of technology on family life and relationships. Common Sense Media released a PSA with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in 2017 called Device Free Dinner which featured Will Ferrell as a distracted dad at the dinner table, in order to raise awareness for responsible technology and media usage. Common Sense
1512-421: The age for which a title is either appropriate or most relevant. An overall five-star quality rating is also included, as are discussion questions to help families talk about their entertainment. In addition to CSM's traditional rating system, they also offer a set of learning based ratings, which are designed to determine complex educational values. CSM partners with a number of media companies that distribute
1568-514: The boycott, including Adidas , Coca-Cola , and Unilever . Founder Jim Steyer launched the Future of Tech Commission with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings . The commission will develop a tech policy agenda for the Biden administration. Common Sense Media played a major role in the passage of the 2005 California law criminalizing
1624-444: The cutoff is for a recommendation, even when they use the same scale. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert "both consider[ed] a three-star rating to be the cutoff for a "thumbs up" on their scales of zero to four stars. Film critic Dave Kehr —who also uses a 0–4 star scale—believes "two stars is a borderline recommendation". On a five-star scale, regardless of the bottom rating, 3 stars is often the lowest positive rating, though judging on
1680-483: The endorsement was Disney's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day . To cover the organization's ever-growing expenses, Common Sense Media started charging for access to its media reviews in 2021. Users may access a limited number of media reviews per month for free. Unlimited access to reviews (for the website and the mobile app) requires a paid Common Sense Media subscription. As of 2016,
1736-450: The facilities provided. Some consider this disadvantageous to smaller hotels whose quality of accommodation could fall into one class but the lack of an item such as an elevator would prevent it from reaching a higher categorization. In recent years hotel rating systems have also been criticized by some who argue that the rating criteria for such systems are overly complex and difficult for laymen to understand. It has been suggested that
Three star - Misplaced Pages Continue
1792-421: The film has redeeming facets, and instead uses zero stars as his lowest rating. Examples of rating scales: Critics have different ways of denoting the lowest rating when this is a "zero". Some such as Peter Travers display empty stars. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr use a round black dot. Leslie Halliwell uses a blank space. The Globe and Mail uses a "0", or as their former film critic dubbed it,
1848-574: The game, which was censored to prevent the game from remaining banned in both countries, was still banned in the UK via the ratings given by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). They also noted that players could still play a "leaked uncensored version" of Manhunt 2 on modded PlayStation 2 , as Take-Two Interactive mentioned. The organization asked the FTC to launch a federal investigation into
1904-443: The group also wanted websites to feature an "eraser button" that would allow children and teens to delete information that they've posted online about themselves. The group also favored a ban on "behavioral marketing" to children—ads targeted at children based on their online activities. In 2013, CSM pushed for the passing of California's "Eraser Bill". In 2014, they advocated the passing of California Senate Bill 1177, which prohibits
1960-1027: The half star is positioned to the left of one or more whole stars. Common Sense Media Common Sense Media ( CSM ) is an American nonprofit organization that reviews and provides ratings for media and technology with the goal of providing information on their suitability for children. It also funds research on the role of media in the lives of children and advocates publicly for child-friendly policies and laws regarding media. Founded by Jim Steyer in 2003, Common Sense Media reviews and allows users to review also, divided into adult and child sections. It has reviews of books, films, television shows, video games, apps, websites, podcasts, and YouTube channels and rates them in terms of age-appropriate educational content, such as " positive role models ", "positive messages", diverse representation, " violence and scariness", " sexual content ", " language ", " consumerism " and more, for families and caregivers making media choices for their children. They have also developed
2016-451: The lack of a unified global system for rating hotels may also undermine the usability of such schemes. In the UK, providers and comparison websites often use stars to indicate how feature-rich financial products are. The most senior military ranks in all services are classified by a star system in many countries, ranging from one-star rank which typically corresponds to brigadier , brigadier general , Commodore or air commodore , to
2072-443: The lowest rating. The stars are sometimes replaced by symbols such as a fork or spoon. Some guides use separate scales for food, service, ambiance, and even noise level. The Michelin system remains the best known star system. A single star denotes "a very good restaurant in its category", two stars "excellent cooking, worth a detour", and three stars, "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey". Michelin stars are awarded only for
2128-582: The most senior five-star ranks , which include Admiral of the Fleet , Grand Admiral , Field Marshal , General of the Army and Marshal of the Air Force —some five-star ranks only exist during large-scale conflicts. Recruits entering American college football are commonly ranked on a five-star scale, with five representing what scouts think will be the best college players. International organisations use
2184-409: The national advocacy effort, Common Sense Kids Action, to push for certain state and federal efforts to bolster education for children. CSM supported the U.S. Department of Commerce's creation of an "online privacy policy", which would include a "Privacy Bill of Rights" and would make clear which types of personal information companies are allowed to keep on clients. It has also called for updates to
2240-639: The number of predicted stars. The Unicode Standard encodes several characters used for star ratings in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block: The STAR WITH LEFT HALF BLACK and LEFT HALF BLACK STAR are intended for use in left-to-right contexts where the half star is positioned to the right of one or more whole stars, whereas the STAR WITH RIGHT HALF BLACK and RIGHT HALF BLACK STAR are intended for use in right-to-left contexts (such as Arabic or Hebrew ) where
2296-492: The objects best worth notice...; at the same time marking, with one or more exclamation points (according to their merit), those works which are deemed peculiarly excellent. Murray's Handbooks for Travellers and then the Baedeker Guides (starting in 1844) borrowed this system, using stars instead of exclamation points, first for points of interest and later for hotels. The Michelin restaurant guide introduced
Three star - Misplaced Pages Continue
2352-651: The organization had over 65 million unique users and worked with more than 275,000 educators across the United States. Common Sense serves over 100 million users a year. In 2016, Charlie Rose reported that Common Sense Media was the United States' largest non-profit dedicated to children's issues. In August 2020, CSM announced the formation of a for-profit subsidiary, Common Sense Networks, to create and distribute original media targeted at children. Common Sense Networks then announced an OTT platform named Sensical, which launched June 29, 2021. After founding JP Kids, an educational media company for children, and Children Now,
2408-519: The organization's free content to more than 100 million homes in the United States. According to their website, the organization has content distribution contracts with Road Runner, TiVo , Yahoo! , Comcast , Charter Communications , DIRECTV , Disney , NBC Universal , Netflix , Best Buy , Google , Huffington Post , Fandango , Trend Micro , Verizon Communications , Nickelodeon , Bing , Cox Communications , Kaleidescape , AT&T , and NCM . The organization's current rating system differs from
2464-729: The performance of vehicles in crash tests, including front, side and pole impacts, and impacts with pedestrians. The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also uses a star ranking to rank the safety of vehicles in crash tests, including front, side, pole impacts, and rollovers, with 5 stars being the most secure. Some web content voting systems use five-star grades. This allows users to distinguish content more precisely than with binary " like buttons ". Many recommender systems , such as MovieLens or Amazon.com , ask people to express preferences using star ratings, then predict what other items those people are likely to enjoy. Predictions are often expressed in terms of
2520-508: The player to repeat and fully master previously beaten levels in order to receive a perfect 3-star rating, which may confer other benefits or bonus content. Another use of star ratings is to denote the rarity of characters in video games where players are tasked in collecting numerous characters, such as Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Marvel: Contest of Champions , in which stronger and rarer characters are marked with more stars to make them appear more valuable. Stars are also used to rank
2576-433: The public may ignore the reviews and concentrate more the star ratings alone. Star ratings are not often used to rate the quality of a video game but are rather used within certain games for varying purposes. One notable use of the star system is to grade a player's performance in completing a level with up to three stars, used in many modern multi-level games like Angry Birds . This three-star rating system challenges
2632-510: The quality of food and wine; the luxury level of the restaurant is rated separately, using a scale of one ("quite comfortable") to five ("luxury in the traditional style") crossed fork and spoon symbols. Hotel luxury is often denoted by stars. Other classifiers, such as the AAA Five Diamond Award , use diamonds instead of stars to express hotel rating levels. Hotels are assessed in traditional systems and rest heavily on
2688-468: The ratings but publishers don't. In the 31 July 1928 issue of the New York Daily News , the newspaper's film critic Irene Thirer began grading movies on a scale of zero to three stars. Three stars meant 'excellent,' two 'good,' and one star meant 'mediocre.' And no stars at all 'means the picture's right bad,'" wrote Thirer. Carl Bialik speculates that this may have been the first time
2744-484: The respondents expressed support for the bill, and another 75% held negative views of the video game industry when it comes to how they protect children from violent video games. On August 12, 2006, CSM protested to the Federal Trade Commission about the ESRB's rating downgrade of a revised version of Manhunt 2 from "Adults Only" to "Mature". It protested on the basis that the revised version of
2800-491: The sale and disclosure of schools' online student data. The bill also forbids targeted ads based on school information and the creation of student profiles when not used for education purposes. As of January 2015, social media websites must allow California children under age 18 to remove their own postings. In 2018, CSM advocated for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). CSM also endorsed
2856-493: The sale of violent video games to minors. The organization submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court regarding the case Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (formerly Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association ). They published a survey, conducted by Zogby International, which asked 2100 parents whether or not they supported the "video game ban bill" – CA Law AB 1793; results showed that 72% of
SECTION 50
#17327719486152912-540: The same curriculum with the addition of new teaching tools and activities. In 2013 CSM launched Graphite, an online resource for teachers that allows them to review and rate educational technology. The project is supported by Chicago philanthropist Susan Crown and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ' bgC3 . Common Sense Media has played a role in influencing billions of dollars in government spending on education-related technologies including classroom broadband access and various learning apps. In April 2015, they launched
2968-504: The separate industry-controlled ratings systems for music, movies, video games and television." Common Sense Media reviews thousands of movies, TV shows, music, video games, apps , web sites and books. Based on developmental criteria, the reviews provide guidance regarding each title's age appropriateness, as well as a "content grid" that rates particular aspects of the title including educational value , violence , sex, gender messages and role models, and more. For each title, they indicate
3024-589: The system used by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Entertainment Software Rating Board. It has received positive support from some parents, and was singled out by US President Barack Obama as a model for using technology to empower parents. Common Sense Media began allowing studios to use their ratings and endorsements in order to promote family-friendly movies in 2014. The first film to use
3080-505: Was "splitting hairs" regarding the difference between lobbying and advocacy in its efforts. Common Sense Media participated in the FCC's Child Obesity Taskforce in April 2006 and hosted Beyond Primetime , a panel discussion and conference on issues related to children and media, featuring lead executives from the nation's top media. In June 2006, CSM and The Department of Clinical Bioethics at
3136-456: Was an opponent of using symbols to summarize a review and wrote in 1992 that "When Globe editors first proposed the four-star system of rating movies about a year ago, the response from Globe critics was, to put it mildly, underwhelming." More recently, Mark Kermode has expressed a dislike of star ratings (assigned to his online reviews but not his print or radio reviews) on the grounds that his verdicts are sometimes too complex to be expressed as
#614385