Are we allowed to rate our own work? I notice that one person is getting five stars before anyone else reviews the work. Or can a reader award stars without reviewing the work? Should we not be blocked from rating our own work, or rating work we have not reviewed? What are the rules?
There are no rules really, because it's a fairly arbitary system. There isn't any control we have over it anyway, and if someone wants to go and rate their own work five stars, there isn't much we can do about it. For that reason, I tend to pay much attention to the stars ratings.
I agree with Banzai, the whole rating thing is just plain frivolous. You can't put a meaningful rating in a single 1-5 scale anyway, in my opinion.
I disagree with this somewhat. Hotels and restaurants are rated with stars, and I think that works well enough. Of course, a rating as such won't be nearly beneficial as a written review, but it may inspire more visits and convey the general feelings readily. The crux of the problem arrives as more people, with differing scales of excellence, evaluate the work. Should I compare a short story on this forum to the work of another, or to a published author? That sort of thing. Biases and whatnot may also play into the rating. That said, the bulk of 5-star works I've seen don't appear to be worth the hype. I believe a better way to go about the process is to use the polling option. However, I do find it somewhat funny that there was a bit of hysteria when the chatbox was rated with only 2 stars.
Please don't suggest that people use a poll in the Review Room. I know hotels and restaurants use th estar ratings, and I've personally found those worthless without a few words justifying or explaining the rating - which then makes the stars redundant. The Review Room isn't about giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It's about finding ways to best improve the writing on whatever scale you wish to use. A poll in that context is invariably inane.
One problem that the ratings bring here is that there are at least two differnet interpretations. One star could equal very bad in the very good, good, average, bad, and very bad sliding scale. One star could also mean to my mind that the piece is above average and good. All pieces that are starred could be good and then a sliding scale introduced for levels of positive merit i.e. flawless, excellent, very good, good, better than average. As the two exist and there is no guidance I would also not promote their use for fear of being misunderstood. Clarification in written feedback would always be the most beneficial, positive or negatively constructive.
I'd personally be happy to see them disappear from the forum altogether, but I'm not sure how much fiddling with the page templates would be required to do that. They really are more of a distraction than anything.
