The Star?

Ratings are found everywhere. We rate everything we put in our mouths (oops) everything we see, everything we hear, touch, want, desire, aspire to obtain (the last three were synonyms) so naturally, curiosity arose when I thought about rating systems, namely the star system. Movie ratings and restaurant ratings are just some of the things we run into every day that are assessed using the number of stars as a symbol (for goodness(?). Maybe they were created to provide a positive spin on every rating, hey you got 1 star, it's alright, at least it's a star. Not sure, hopefully one of you are, give me some responses!