Estimated rating for books that haven't been rated, based on the author's other books?

I’m reading まほり 上 Level 30?? , which hasn’t been graded by anyone else yet, and which is definitely harder than Level 30.

The same author also wrote 図書館の魔女 第一巻 Level 37, and, subjectively, I think that level 37 is probably a lot closer than level 30 for まほり as well.

This is an incredibly minor thing, but: does it make sense that the estimate for an ungraded book’s level should default to an average based on that same author’s graded books? It won’t always be correct - there are authors who write both for children and adults, and 森見 登美彦’s books go all the way from level 27 to level 42 - but most authors tend to be consistently right around the same level of difficulty.

That sounds like a reasonable idea.

At the same time, I feel like the system should really encourage people to have a good look at, say, the first few pages of something so that they can make a reasonable guess instead…

But your approach would help in cases where the user has really no clue (e.g., haven’t read it and no ebook available)

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This is a reasonable idea, especially given the current state of affairs with so many ungraded books.

However, there’s also the notion that we shouldn’t be taking the ‘??’ ratings too seriously anyway and that perhaps we shouldn’t even have a level attached to them at all. Leaving at ‘30??’ at least indicates to experienced users these things are probably completely ungraded.

Idk. I will simply leave this as speculative for now.