I really don't see any other way.
I work on the principle that the majority of people are decent. Rotten apples will stick out like a sore thumb.
Forcing people to comment discourages scoring low. It discourages people voting at all.
Everyone voting a 1, 2 or 3 will have to be a member. Their votes will be tracked.
Someone voting lots of stories low, will be flagged. It will be done programmatically. It's easy to see when a story is well written, gets mostly 5's and 4's, then there's a 1 vote.
You have nothing to worry about.
If people are really that concerned about scores, they shouldn't write.
If the Top Author list is what's causing stress amongst writers, I will remove it. Simple.
I´m glad this discussion already exists.
I haven´t written anything yet so I don´t know what it is to be voted on - so I can´t speak (write) from that perspective.
From a reader´s point of view - I wish I had more flexibility in my voting. In my humble opinion today´s system is too brute. I read a story recently that I thought was better then good but was not excellent. What do I do? I voted a 4 out of coherence because I had previously voted a 5 on a better story. My dilemma was that the story was better then good (a 4 out of 5 is 80% or a B) I´d give it an A just not an A+ -- feel me?
I´m not suggesting anything remotely close to a scholastic grading scale, but I need something in between a 4 and 5.
As I am writing this I thought - maybe the question is not the actual grade itself but the motives behind the grading. How many are guilty for voting higher on a certain story because it was written by a friend?
I believe that we have a responsibility as each others critics to be honest - vote correctly, have a sense of structure in your voting, don´t vote for the sake of voting. -- or don't vote at all.
You might be over thinking it curiouscat. These are fuck stories.
Many of the stories here are well written with a good story line and great details. I honestly enjoy reading a good story, but some have no story line and same old stuff.
For many writers I think the scoring they get is no more then an ego trip and them same people will use any means other then a good story to get a score. Personally I would rather see the score system go away but leave the comment section. I agree with one curious cat not all high rated stories are worth the read time.
I dont understand how the whole scoring thing works anyway!