The information you want from a total score, on the other hand, is quantitative. It's:
"How does this compare to other similar things?"
Discussion
The Good News:
- You can combine both by translating the thumbs into numbers. (Steam already does this succesfully for games)
- Humans suck at translating preferences into numbers and you avoid all that, replacing it with a coherent dose of math.
Why not combine the two? We could show the score (which would be a condensed meaningful info) and the user can click on « show more » that will display all the details
That's what did at first. Showing the score on each individual review.
But that has implications:
1. You can not surprise the user by letting them use thumbs up/down and then once published suddenly show a score on their review
2. So you'd need a way to display the score in the input form
3. That would show how it changes based on the thumbs the user is clicking
4. They will try to game that
5. Then I might as well let them score it with a number in the first place (which, again, humans are very bad at)