>occasionally i click on the number of ratings for a title and
>look at the demographics of the raters, which are
>self-declared age and gender. every once in a while that will
>sway me on whether to watch something.

1. they've changed it. i just checked one and was only offered countries, which was too bad because i was especially interested in age for that title. then i got this interesting explanation that ties to the complaints here about the votes:

2. they've switched to a weighted vote system.
https://help.imdb.com/article/imdb/track-movies-tv/weighted-average-ratings/GWT2DSBYVT2F25SK?ref_=ttrt_wtavg#
as much as i'd prefer every vote counting equally, i know the votes can be unstable, and i assume it's people like me whose votes are weighted more. maybe this will inspire more confidence.