This is one of the best answers I've seen, thanks for your feed back.

Quote by oceanrunner1974
After reading a lot on various threads about the scoring system, I'm not sure if the following has anything new to offer.

I do think the scoring is inflated, but I've been won over to the idea that the generally supportive nature of the lush community more than makes up for some idea that the scores are too high.

Anonymous scoring? Sure, the scoring would more honest, but would it be worth it? Enough people have written about their experiences on other sites where anonymous scoring makes for a very mean-spirited experience.

More graduations in scoring? 1-10 or 1-5, but with half points? I think it could work, at least in terms of allowing more honest scorers to give scores of 4.5 for a very good story that's perhaps not truly "excellent" in their minds. Would people still give all their friends 10s and 5s for all kinds of reasons? sure. And yes, I know it would artificially inflate old stories, but over time some of those old stories would start accruing some of the newer scores as well.

My biggest beef, and there is nothing to do about it, I think, is the fact that the scoring system isn't consistent, not to mention that there are plenty of people who game it.

I've read a few anecdotes about a very prominent author here who blocks anyone who gives any story of theirs anything less than a 5. As a result, this person's voting pool must be fairly self-selected down to people who will only give him or her 5s.

At this point the "honest" voters, and I am not sure I include even myself in this, are sort of like that one hold-out of a teacher or professor who is trying to fight grade inflation at a school all by him or herself. If everyone else is giving out As, then that one teacher giving out mostly Bs and even Cs doesn't really fix anything for anyone, other than to lower their students' GPAs somewhat arbitrarily in a way that isn't "fair" given the situations that the other students are in.

I'm certainly someone who enjoys getting high scores, but I think my thinking has evolved on this over time.

When I would get a 4 on a story, it would originally bug me, in part because I'd see other stories out there get nothing but 5s, and in my mind, some of those were fairly badly written. "How come my score on my last story is now 4.92 when Johnny Hack has all 5s on his?"

However, it's getting to the point where I am suspicious of my stories when they get all 5s. It's as if the scores don't mean anything if *everyone* is giving me 5s all the time. Am I really that good? I like to think I'm decent, but I'm not that good. So when I get a 4, especially when accompanied by a reasonable comment or suggestion ("the middle was a little loose, and you used the passive voice too much"), it actually makes the 5s mean more to me, especially when that same member has given me a 5 elsewhere. My most recent story has gotten a decent number of votes, in the 40s by now, and not every score has been a 5.

As a result, the overall score for that story stands at 4.98. When I look at that, I now think, "OK, that's a *real* score." At least a few people had the balls not to give me a 5, and I got some useful feedback from a few people. Will this mean that the story won't make it into the story picks section? Sure? does it matter all that much to me? No. At this point, I am most pleased by knowing that I am reaching a solid number of people who enjoy my stories and do me the favor of taking the time to comment on them, or sometimes write me PMs telling me how much their story meant to them.

Similarly, I recently had the good fortune of having a mod discover some of my older work, and she/he was enthusiastic enough to award a decent number of these stories recommended reads retroactively. After a couple, I started to wonder, hmm, "does this person just give out RRs like candy?" Finally, s/he read a couple of my stories and didn't give them RRs. This actually made the ones that I had received from this mod mean a lot more. I got a sense that they were discriminating, so that the RRs I had gotten meant more to me.

So, nothing new to add, perhaps, other than with all its flaws, I like this system. I wish it were a bit more consistent, and I wish people weren't afraid to give 4s, especially if accompanied by some reasonable feedback.

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