A new Rating System that improves User Experience

[jrell]

Hello everyone!

I just had an experience where someone gave my novel a 1-star rating without even reading past chapter 1, and it got me thinking: why? It felt a bit harsh, and I realized that ratings can be quite subjective and emotional. Perhaps, the person had a bad day due to some other reason, like a cat pooping in their shoe or whatever people are dealing with these days. Or is my writing just bad? I don't know. And this is not a normal situation where writers have no idea how their novels are doing.

Here's the thing: the current system feels limiting for both readers and writers. As a reader, users may interpret each star differently. What might be a 3-star rating for one person could be a 5-star rating for another, which results in novels being hidden by this invisible star-made wall, where they skip the content they might like because of the rating. And as a writer, one bad rating can be disheartening, and I'm sure many writers here can agree with this. So, I've got a feature request that could make things better for everyone involved.

What if we had a "Recommend/Don't recommend" system similar to the one used on Steam? This way, instead of assigning a numerical rating, readers could express whether they recommend the novel or not. Or we can call it "Like/Dislike" if you'd like. You like it, you hit like. No room for mixed signals. It would be more straightforward and less prone to impulsive, overly negative ratings.

A binary system will make the rating more representative, as readers are more likely to provide feedback when they only have two options. More to it, with clear user preferences, it will be easy to develop a personal recommendation system that suggests novels tailored to each user's individual tastes.



The technical aspect. Transitioning from one to another is easy: move 4-5 ratings to likes, 1-2 to dislikes, and ignore 3. In theory, it can be done even without changing the database structure, just by calculating it on the frontend side. New ratings are saved as 1 or 5 stars and displayed as likes/dislikes. It will give us an option to quickly switch back if necessary.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

I dun no

*pats your head*

 

[RepresentingPride]

I think you are also missing the point. A novel is not static. Not any more at least. If it was in a time where you could never edit your novel things might have made sense. And another thing: how do you go making sure people are reading 10k words? Just because they have left their screens open on the page does not mean they have read your chapter, they might have just opened it and went do something else.

And then, as you have said, to make only novels of 10k words able to be rated, you would cut how many % of the stories on scribblehub? This does not seem to be the right approach to the problem as well. In fact, there is no issue here, from what I understand.

People who expose themselves, like any artist, a writer is one, of words, should be expected to deal with criticism. If they can not deal with it, why are they exposing themselves in the first place? If you want to write only for your 3+ readers, then go and find a select group of people who think like you and do not post it in a public place, where you will be subject to the opinion of people of all sorts. Most of them, people who do not care for what you are writing.

Personnaly I don't have any problem with the current system. Also I don't think 10k words is a lot to be honest and when there troll out there who going to wait with their screen open to reach these 10k words before rating your story, it will decrease the amount due to Lazyness.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

I can only repeat, it has never been better. There are way less trolls and haters around these days than in the past.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

That won't help for that, but it that could help against the fast rating when ppl just read one chapter.

What stops them from simply skipping 10k words? You can click next chapter a couple times, and that's it, you can rate it now.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

Personnaly I don't have any problem with the current system. Also I don't think 10k words is a lot to be honest and when there troll out there who going to wait with their screen open to reach these 10k words before rating your story, it will decrease the amount due to Lazyness.

Some stories will never get to 10k. They are already considered completed before they even reach 10k words. I don't think you have noticed that, have you?

 

[RepresentingPride]

What stops them from simply skipping 10k words? You can click next chapter a couple times, and that's it, you can rate it now.

by addind a system that count your screen time, but like @TsumiHokiro said, they can just let their screen open and wait, it's just that the number of people willing to do that just to troll will be far less.

Some stories will never get to 10k. They are already considered completed before they even reach 10k words. I don't think you have noticed that, have you?

Maybe, I don't remember reading any stories that have just 10k words. Then maybe add an option when creating it for short stories?

Again, I don't really mind about the current system. It's just a suggestion that some other sites have done and may or not change thing for the one targeted by that type of troll, which are not my case for now at least.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

I just did a small calculation, there should be around 10,090 stories in scribblehub that do not have 10k words, and from what I've seen, some of them are already considered completed. Are you going to change it so they can not be rated? (This represents almost 47% of everything in SH)

This is a very serious change, one that has happened after they had already submitted to the site. I'm not sure if that is fair to these people. They were never aware of these rules, and it is a game-changing rule.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

by addind a system that count your screen time, but like @TsumiHokiro said, they can just let their screen open and wait, it's just that the number of people willing to do that just to troll will be far less.

Bruh. Screen time? Seriously? Bruh. This sounds stupid as hell, no offence.

 

[RepresentingPride]

I just did a small calculation, there should be around 10,090 stories in scribblehub that do not have 10k words, and from what I've seen, some of them are already considered completed. Are you going to change it so they can not be rated?

This is a very serious change, one that has happened after they had already submitted to the site. I'm not sure if that is fair to these people. They were never aware of these rules, and it is a game-changing rule.

Then lets change it differently, instead of 10k words, made it 10% of the story. And in case you said some stories have too much words count, we can set a limited amount for that.

Bruh. Screen time? Seriously? Bruh. This sounds stupid as hell, no offence.

I'm not offended, I didn't said it's smart too. There no rating system existing that would be fair, there will always be one bad side for each of them. The rating system rely on people judgment, starting with that, it's not going well. To have a good rating system, it will need people to judge correctly and not being biased by their personal opinion or taste.

 

[TsumiHokiro]

Bruh. Screen time? Seriously? Bruh. This sounds stupid as hell, no offence.

Right now, a "view" is actually a few minutes of time someone spends with the page of your chapter open...

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I'm not offended, I didn't said it's smart too. There no rating system existing that would be fair, there will always be one bad side for each of them. The rating system rely on people judgment, starting with that, it's not going well. To have a good rating system, it will need people to judge correctly and not being biased by their personal opinion or taste.

Yes. That's why I said, grow a thick skin.

Right now, a "view" is actually a few minutes of time someone spends with the page of your chapter open...

Meh.