Numerical ratings for any form of media are garbage, and say more about the voters than the series. While some systems are worse than others, even at their best they're still only as good and reliable as the site's userbase. Tags, written recommendations, synopsis, cover art and even a few pages are all going to give you a far more accurate idea as to whether it's going to be worth your time or not.
@Ore
I think Steam's rating system still requires a review. You're describing a Youtube/upvote/Digg/whatever shitty one or two-way rating system. Even then all of those still fall under similar problems to the ones you take issue with: a system with only "Likes" or +1s is pointless and will only show you whatever's popular. A "Positive-Negative" system won't say anything meaningful other than inoffensive things that get circlejerked getting a high score and anything controversial, weird, obscure, popular enough to get review-bombed or outright bad being lumped together with middling and mixed votes.
To solve the issue I therefore put forward the suggestion to implement a button-based rating-system. Users will get the option to choose whether to vote a series with any of the following in-built images: vomiting anime girl, a brick, smug loli, and a gif of the dancing letter "D"
Each image will have a counter of how many users have voted which option, and no formal explanation will be given as to what each of them means. Literally fool-proof.
