The scoring still has me confused...

[sr71plt]

but I have no other means of avoiding some of the truly awful stories out there.

The site recently started putting the rating number next to the story title on lists. That's another means of avoiding the lower-rated stories. Just look at the rating numbers rather than for the red Hs.

 

[TxRad]

I must admit that as a reader with limited time I look to the H of new stories for the categories I'm interested in that day. That definitely makes me miss some very interesting and good stories but I have no other means of avoiding some of the truly awful stories out there.

As an author all I care about is that my story isn't too adversely affected by troll votes and is fairly represented by those that have voted.

Is it naive of me to think that removing the H, posting the current score and number of views/votes next to the story is enough?

Believe it or not but some of the best stories are in the 4.0 to 4.3 range. Trolls and jealous authors drive them down before they have a chance to get enough votes to get to 4.5.

Views are no indication because they only indicate that someone opened the story. Someone like scouries with tons of time on his hands can spend days clicking on the view button. One of the reasons for his sore thumbs.

Total votes can be misleading. Again using scouries as an example. He has hundreds if not thousands of throwaway id's that he can use to drive his scores and vote numbers up. The same for the favorites list.

It's a crap shoot any way you look at it.

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Technicians like he should be content to simply provide the data and not try to interrupt them.

Believe me—I would never try to interrupt data.