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Reverting to the mean

October 22nd, 2025

When I’m the ruler of the world, I’m going to decree that all online rating systems are required, at least once a year, to recalibrate all of their existing scores based on a normal distribution bell curve.

Then the most common rating will be 3 out of 5, which will represent the average and will not be a source of any shame, and scores of 5 (or 1) will be reserved only for the truly exceptional.

It’ll save us from the daft situation of trying to pick a restaurant that has a score of 4.7 over one that only gets 4.6…

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