How scores work

Everyone answers one question — how was it? — with a report-card grade: A, B, C, D or F. A score is the average of those grades on the familiar 4.0 scale (an A is 4, an F is 0), rounded to the nearest grade with its plus or minus: three As and a B make an A−, and an A and three Bs make a B+. Until five people have answered, a score is the plain letter, because a plus or minus from two answers claims a precision they cannot give. There is no A+: nobody can give one.

The average grade from Vumble Critics — verified pediatricians and other clinicians, educators and children’s media critics. At B− or better it is golden honey ; below, it is black honey . A critic counts only while their credential is current; revoke it and their verdicts leave the score that moment. Who can be a critic

The average grade from parents, one tap each, printed on a honeycomb cell — because the score is built by many parents, a cell at a time. At B− or better the cell is golden ; below, it turns dark , because a score that low is usually a disagreement rather than a verdict: a C means “it was fine”, and fine is not a recommendation. Parents can say what age they watched it at, so the score is also shown by age.

The title’s page shows how many people each score is from — an A from one parent is not a consensus. Badges and age-by-age scores wait for at least 5 answers.

Rotten Tomatoes can check a ticket stub. We cannot see a streaming receipt, and we will not keep a viewing history to stand in for one. What we can see is whether an account is at least 14 days old and has answered for at least 3 titles — which makes a crowd much harder to fake.

Their score is shown under the Parent Score. When it differs from everyone’s by 0.75 of a grade point or more, the page says so. When 20 or more verdicts on one title arrive within 24 hours from new accounts, a moderator is asked to look. Nothing is removed automatically: a wave of real new parents looks the same on its first day.

80% or more of at least 8 written critic reviews grade it A or B, from at least 3 different disciplines, including 2 Senior Critics. The badge names the ages that 75% of those critics agree it suits.

85% or more of at least 100 long-standing parents grade it A or B — and at least 80% of the parents of the age that answered most. A show loved by parents of seven-year-olds and shrugged at by parents of the two-year-olds it was made for is not their favorite.

Once critics have reviewed a title, their grade sits beside the parents’ on every card and on the title page, never merged, so when they are far apart you can see it. That gap is often the most useful thing to know — the show children ask for by name that critics have doubts about, or the reverse.

Things worth knowing — overstimulating, commercial, ads, fast-paced — are listed beside the scores, each as its own claim, never subtracted from them. A rated caution appears once parents’ ratings for it reach 3.5 out of 5 from at least 5 parents.

• Merge the two scores, or weight one audience into the other.
• Average the things parents rate into one number.
• Show a count of people who do not exist.
• Let AI write a review, a rating or a recommendation.
• Let a business relationship decide where the watch button points.
• Remove a review or verdict automatically. Moderators decide, and record why.