But it goes to eleven...

[intim8]

we can't understand why someone would hate them enough to drop the dreaded 1. So any score of 1 or 2 stars *has* to be trolling, surely?

And rationally we understand that this is wrong,

Not necessarily wrong. If a story has all 4s and 5s, then a bunch of 1s come in, they are likely either tactical or spiteful, sending a message rather than being an honest evaluation.

In a lot of sports where the performance is graded by a panel of judges, it is common practice to throw out the highest and the lowest and average the rest. It's often used in stats generally to normalize out the outliers that could be due to any number of factors outside a true measurement.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

In a lot of sports where the performance is graded by a panel of judges, it is common practice to throw out the highest and the lowest and average the rest. It's often used in stats generally to normalize out the outliers that could be due to any number of factors outside a true measurement.

And some of us get a lot more 'Russian judges' than others. : P

 

[intim8]

And some of us get a lot more 'Russian judges' than others. : P

Yeah, LW here reminds me of the Olympics during the Cold War.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Not necessarily wrong. If a story has all 4s and 5s, then a bunch of 1s come in, they are likely either tactical or spiteful, sending a message rather than being an honest evaluation.

In a lot of sports where the performance is graded by a panel of judges, it is common practice to throw out the highest and the lowest and average the rest. It's often used in stats generally to normalize out the outliers that could be due to any number of factors outside a true measurement.

Often abused in stats, too. Outliering has its place but very often people are too keen to leap to it without considering the possibility that the outliers might be real and meaningful. (The South Pole ozone anomaly is a classic example: depletion of the ozone layer was missed for years, because the satellite measurements were so low they were being filtered out by automated outlier-detection software on the assumption that they must be erroneous. They weren't.)

 

[desecration]

I found out you can make any number of reading lists, and mark them public. I just can't find a way to see them other than in my dashboard.

I am confused on this issue as well.

 

[intim8]

I am confused on this issue as well.

I found out it is a planned future feature.

 

[THBGato]

Yes, it seems to be there on the beta version of the new look author dashboard.

 

[lovecraft68]

Or just get rid of the cursed H that makes people feel guilty for voting 4.

If people felt guilty about voting a 4, every story on the site would be a 5.00.

Shakes magic eight ball, comes up try again later.

 

[RejectReality]

If people felt guilty about voting a 4, every story on the site would be a 5.00.

Shakes magic eight ball, comes up try again later.

It's not that everybody does, it's that enough people do to make a difference. I know you look at it as participation trophy culture, but what I see is reduction in author angst, making the trolls' job harder, and opening up a plethora of stories that readers might have otherwise ignored. When I see that much potential good from every angle coming from removing something that's nothing more than a vanity bauble — which we all more or less agree is meaningless with regards to story quality — it feels like a no-brainer.

Lit obviously disagrees, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop advocating for it.