How come BL titles are rated so high?

Like every damn BL novel i see on this website is atleast 4.3/5 or more mostly 4.5/5, like im starting to think something special is going on here? cuz i literally just opened a novel that just released and it was somehow rated 4.5/5? aren't novels that are newly released usually like 3/5 or something? like i have never seen a BL novel with less than 4/5 rating? like im honestly thinking something is going on here behind the scenes, i refuse to blieve every BL novel somehow is a masterpiece on the same level as Lord Of The Mysteries.

like im genuinely curious

 

I'm afraid your pool of data is just biased if you simply look at things you see coincidentally. If you use the series finder and search for shounen ai or yaoi stories (so stories with either or both of the genres assigned), then sort them by rating in ascending order, you'll find that what you're saying simply isn't true: The first result is a story with 2 ratings both of which are 1 star. The next one is at 2 stars, the one after that at 2.1, then four at 2.3 etc. Even ten pages into the search results, we're still not at an average rating of even 4.0 stars.

Like, here, in case you wanna look yourself: https://www.novelupdates.com/series-finder/?sf=1&gi=1692,560&mgi=or&sort=srate&order=asc

 

It might just be the demographic of people who read BL novels. They might be a demographic who are more likely to not only review, but review positively. That or, it could be the size of the demographic reading (either really small or really big, idk)

But my point is that the overall rating of the novel is based on the mean rating of all the reviews, and those two factors that I mentioned would definitely influence it. That is my guess as someone who has taken a few research methods and statistics courses in college.

Also, the number of BL novels available might contribute to the demographic's reaction to the content presented as well (higher rated novels might not be the best novels, but they might be the better ones the demographic has access to, therefore, higher ratings.)

 

There are BL novels rated below 4 but I guess BL novels have more reader than BG. So, new novels have more people to rate them. When I used to avoid BL novels, I always found them on top if I sorted them by rating. I had to use series finder if I wanted to a good BG novel without having to look through too much options.

 

There will always be shit novels, im talking about the higher spectrum, like the best chinese novel i have read is Lord Of The Mysteries, theres no second novel close to it it's basically flawless besides a bit in the beginning and the best it got is 4.7, and i have never seen another chinese novel with a rating close to it. but BL novels and Japanese novels for some reason tend to get higher ratings and i dare say that japanese novels are literal dogshit, makes me cringe so hard even more then the chinese xianxia ones. this confuses me because when i sometimes read a 3.8/3.9 novel they tend ot be better then most of the 4.5 ones that get high rating, what im saying is bunch of stuckup people are rating BL and Japanese high for reason and fucking up the whole system and making it hard for me to find good novels. Like i know this one novel Called Perfect World where besides the chinese theme bieng a bit too much, but even then it would be atleast 4.0 lets not even talk about Persuit of the Truth , i would of rated that one 4.5, but they get buried in a pile of rubbish and when im trying to look for good novels with high ratings all i get is bunch of high school japanese beta shit or bunch of BL stuff and its getting really annoying, specially BL ones for some reason every trending BL is atleast like 4.3/5 and u can't deny that, don't go looking for the worst ones just to prove me wrong.

 

Maybe just use the series finder if you really don't like it? If you know what genres you like, you can put those in and then still select "highest rank" and "ascending" while blocking out BL genres? The ultimate reason is that the demographic is different, so their parameters for their ratings is different as well. It really isn't that big of an issue since it is all a matter of opinion tbh.

 

Because the majority of people here are degenerates with sexual desires so repressed that it devolved into deviancy.

 

And oftentimes, the ones you see that are new, and yet somehow already have multiple votes from people AND are 4.5/5 and higher already.....it could be people spam liking it, or just liking it in general simply because it's a bl.

It's actually annoying sometimes. And sad, even, I'm sure.
I think a story should be rated for its quality and great/poor readability, not simply because it's something you like.

After someone reads it and enjoys/doesn't enjoy it, they rate it. Simple. High ratings usually are signs that it's a worth reading story, since good stories have high ratings from the majority of people voting (usually), and helps other people find the good read they've been searching for. :}
So for people who spam rate/make an alt or 'toss accounts' just to rate stories again, or simply liking what the genre of the story is without even reading it, for any certain reason and any genre in general, should stop.

In this topic and sense, you shouldn't just rate it 5/5 without reading it since it oh so happens to be gay. Bleh.



imagine being that shallow though lmfao -_-

 

Same shit on sites like mtlnovel that also use rating systems.

Clicking a title with 4 stars or higher leads at least 40% of the time to a yaoi novel. You get used to clicking and leaving when finding that shit and actually better remember the stuff to avoid than what you are reading currently.

Eventually you get better at recognizing that because of memory buildup, but you can never get perfect because there's too many BL titles around and even keeping mtl based ones in mind to avoid is hard.

 

I mean, I don't even need to go to the worst novels for that. A rating of 4.3 only occurs on page 42 of 65 in the BL genre, so at about the 65% mark. That is hardly every BL novel as you were making it sound.
Now, I am not denying that there might be some inflation going on but I don't think your personal taste is really a good way to measure that. Let's look at something else instead: the statistics of BG romance because that's the only genre that's really comparable to BL considering BL - at its heart - is usually still romance. If you search for books in the romance genre while filtering out BL and GL (so shounen ai, yaoi, shoujo ai, and yuri) you have 182 pages total. Looking at the page at the same percentage (65%), you get a rating of 4.0 on that page. So the BL genre would in comparison be inflated by only 0.3 stars which ... doesn't seem that much?

If you really need a reason to be happy with this: Some readers tend to vote higher because BL is often one starred by some people who feel the need to show their dislike for both the genre or even LGBT+ people. And yes, I've seen them mention that directly. The readers are just trying to balance that out.

In any case, you do realize there's a release filtering option on this website, yes? So if you really dislike BL this much, you can always filter it out so you won't have to see a single of those novels. I'm not sure if you can do the same with Japanese novels but you definitely can filter them out when using the series finder. So maybe try that if you have trouble finding books you like.

 

It's an evil gay agenda to make you stop using NU. No way people would enjoy something you aren't interested in!

A while ago those who didn't like BL used to spam 1* and 2* to every BL novel regardless of their quality. Now more good BL gets translated and reviewed, so those 1*, 2* can't ruin the rating anymore.
While some bl works indeed may not deserve their high rating, most of the good ones rated just as they should be.
It's time to improve everyone's NU experience and exclude BL titles from your search results if you are so bothered about people liking something you dislike.

 

Basically, it's a niche genre. If one knows the community well enough, one can also understand that there are a lot of active peeps who already read raws or mtl beforehand and are willing to rate "new novels" highly in order to encourage translators to keep it up.

 

I feel like BL ratings are high because they are relatively new to the translation world. There's still a lot of good BL books for translators to choose from whereas Chinese, Japanese, and even now Korean novels have most of their good novels translated.

When NU first started hosting Korean novels, the quality of said novels were insane.

Kinda a weird point comparing BL to different cultures but it is what it is.

 

How come this thread is in "I am looking for..." anyway?

Shouldn't it be in general chat, discussions or something else?

 

Ehh, most I find are between 3.8 and 4.4, not even close to LOTM.

Oh, there are a lot of high-rated ones though. Like, on the first page of the search if you go by any novel that's either Yaoi or Shounen Ai and put it as rating and descending (minimum 40 ratings), there are 30-40 BL novels with 4.7 stars and 8 BL novels with 4.8 stars.

Similarly, though, there are 30-40 BG romance novels with 4.7 stars, 14 with 4.8 stars and 2 with 4.9 stars (both short stories).

If we compare the total number though, there are 93 pages worth of BG romance with >=40 ratings, while there are only 38 BL novels that fit the same bill.

GL is kind of tragic, it seems like there only 7 pages worth of GL with >=40 ratings. Out of those, there is 1 GL novel with 4.9 stars, 1 with 4.8 stars, 4 with 4.7 stars (1 is a oneshot), and 5 with 4.6 stars (2 are oneshots).

And then, if you look for novels that are not BL, GL, or romance, you find that... there are 2 with 4.9 stars (again, both short stories), only 2 with 4.8 stars, and 15 with 4.7 stars, with 55 pages worth of novels.

I would make a table or a chart, but I have no idea how to do that on a forum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, yeah, BL novels probably have inflated ratings, if we're basing everything off of this data.
Probably has something to do with the audience being more likely to rate them higher?


That being said y'all are kinda salty. There's this thing called filter genre on the series finder, you know?

 

OMG a book can't be good from the get-go??? Every book is inherently bad at the beginning? Let's get real, translators of BL stories wouldn't choose books they didn't like. They are readers too, so it's very likely to meet readers with the same taste, so isn't it normal to rate a story you like high?

Also, there are people rating high right from the beginning but might change their rating later on, when it's completed. Or could it be that the audience isn't as picky as readers from other genres? Who knows...maybe I should also go around and question the tastes of others.

 

This thread shows quite a bit of the answer I'd say.

Every comment praising or defending integrity of bl is liked multiple times, even the jokey and mocking ones aimed at OP, but a neutral attitude like sky2829 who said they used to avoid bl is not and comments who are "opposite" by not being thrilled and super supportive of bl lit are liked maybe once or twice by another person with the same view who is either apathetic or dislikes the development.

Plainly speaking, it's okay to dislike bl stuff, just don't speak about it right now while you are "outnumbered" becauee it seems to get hostile quick whenever your opinion is not the mainstream one.

There's your answer, @Slief , the numbers changed.

It's kinda funny that you can compare it to Field of Dreams famous line. To change it a bit " Translate it and they will come."

I hope I don't get admin smote for saying all this, because this wasn't about offending anyone or starting a fight or whatever. I observed the thread and got OP his answer with what seems like the most likely answer.

Tried my best to make it close to objective as possible.

 

I wish we could all talk and not have some get a bit hostile :b

"...a book can't be good from the get-go??"
Oh, I never said that.
:} Sure, some stories get high ratings 'from the get go' but on the topic of bl, the genre mainly gets a lot of over ratings with its stories. I've seen way more stories with very high ratings that really aren't that well, much more than actually good bl stories.
Thank you for pointing that out.

And it happens to other genres too, but I mainly see it happen there.

edit: And I rather have a pretty neutral stance on the majority of these opinions anyway. They all have their point and opinion explain, at least I can see.

 

Ratings are over-rated anyway. The review behind a story is much more helpful imo to find a book you like.

I find that rather provoking. I don't see a comment praising BL like it's the ultimate genre, but I see posts disproving OP with statistic data.

This is NUF, no thread without one or two sarcastic remarks. Life is hard as it is, now people can't even joke in an online forum? Time be a tight-knotted elitist online in the hope to be one irl too. #lifegoals #getoutofpoverty

What's with the other neutral opinions? How do you explain that MisterBubbles advice to use the series filter got likes? Versatile quote for any genre. It's a fallacy to stamp any opinion that happens to refute OP as 'not neutral'.
Opinions that have reason and are helpful are more likely to gather likes than opinions solely based on personal feelings and perceptions. Also, BL has more readers than BG? *doubt* but I don't have numbers so anyone is free to prove the opposite to me.

 

Honestly, I stopped taking your response seriously the moment you started putting words into my mouth.

"like it is the ultimate genre" was not in my post, you came up with that out of nothing.

You have next taken 1 of like 3 types of comments I mentioned made in this thread, made it seem like it was core of my argument ( it wasn't at all, and you never properly addressed anything else). Tied some nonsense to it "Time be a tight-knotted elitist online in the hope to be one irl too. #lifegoals #getoutofpoverty ".

And what else?

Used Yansusustories argument of BL not being aprevlanet genre or reader population on NU, which I never raised
as such, I said "This thread".

Thanks for proving my opinion every fandom has trolls. Not referring bl to here, whatevet fandom you are a part of works, this remark was solely for you in case anyone mistakes that.