The science fair was very cool indeed. I hope I didn't judge too harshly - I didn't check off anything higher than "average" on my judging form unless the project actually seemed better than most in the category in question. That's what I was told to do, so it should be OK as long as most of the other judges also followed the directions properly.

I got email recently from a company I had bought a book from through amazon.com. The company specializes in selling education-related books to teachers. They complained that I had given them a four star rating, which is "a killer on Amazon. It keeps customers away." They wanted to know what they'd done wrong to get such a low rating.

I replied telling them that a 4 is not a low rating, it is the second highest rating I could give. I bought one book from them once, and had no problem. If I gave my highest rating for that, I'd have no way to recognize sellers who really distinguished themselves. If buyers are giving 5 star ratings willy-nilly to everyone they do business with who doesn't give them a problem, I'd say it's they who are doing something wrong. What's the point of having five different possible ratings if you treat them as "bad," "bad," "bad," "bad," and "acceptable?" If that was the aim, the rating system should only have two possible ratings. I told the booksellers that what they were doing "wrong" was catering to educators, who care about and give thought to the sensible use of grading systems.

I've had many eBay sellers call me a "Terrific eBayer A+++++++++" simply because I paid my bill, so thinking that high praise should be difficult to earn apparently puts me outside the mainstream. At least eBay has the sense not to have five different official ratings, or they'd probably have the same problem Amazon has. It wouldn't be acceptable to rate someone merely "good." Only a rating of "outstanding in their excellence" would be considered positive.