Rating Systems get a 2 out of 5

Frank Branham, a columnist from Boardgamenews, recently wrote to comment about the usefulness of rating systems, particularly aiming at BGG's. I somewhat agreed to him that public ratings especially those with more than 5 rating categories were not very much indicative. On one hand, game popularity usually affected the tendency of ratings from general public. On the other hand, I had been giving ratings for hundred games. It's getting more difficult to differentiate the ratings among individual games in a 10-point scale. Games could not be compared one-to-one, which created difficulties in making consistent ratings. The utmost issue found from BGG rating system was the vague and useless description for the rating values. Anyway, I would keep giving ratings to games I played. Though the ratings from other sources were not indicative to the true value of the games, I would treat these ratings as a reference from the general perceptions.