Online video is huge and it's going to get even bigger. And, despite the success of Hulu and the likes, which feature no user-generated content, YouTube still pretty much dominates in the market. And, again, despite the move towards professional content on the Google-owned site, it is still pretty much about user content. But, at the rate new content is added, how is one expected to find the videos worth watching? The star rating system is one of the solutions YouTube and countless other sites employ but it turns out it's not exactly the most relevant metric.

“Judging from this chart, it looks like some of you are moved to rate videos when you don't like them, but the overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube have a stellar five-star rating,” Shiva Rajaraman, product manager, wrote. “Seems like when it comes to ratings it's pretty much all or nothing. Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference. Thus, the ratings system is primarily being used as a seal of approval, not as an editorial indicator of what the community thinks about a video.”

The graph pretty much speaks for itself. Some users rate the video with one star when it is truly dreadful but the overwhelming majority just rate the videos they like with five stars and they're done with it. Two, three or four stars are much less common. The best explanation is that, while it's easy to know if you like a video or hate it, it's harder to rate it in relation to others on a scale.

YouTube is intrigued by this distribution and there are even talks about replacing it though there doesn't seem to be anything even remotely decided yet. One option would be to introduce a Digg-like thumbs up / thumbs down feature, which would allow users to choose if they like a video or not. Or YouTube could drop the feature altogether and rely on “favorites” for user feedback. A number of other options are probably considered and YouTube is waiting to get the users' opinion before moving towards anything.