Curving simple star ratings

[Ninetailed_Furball]

So something that's been bugging me for a long time.
One star rating marring my near perfect score!
Kay, my story's score hadn't been perfect for quite a while, but suddenly seeing a single one or two star when all previous stars had been five was scary, and what made it worse was it dropped my average down hard for what was likely someone who just didn't like my style and did it in annoyance.
It's one thing to receive low star ratings because your work wasn't that good, but I'd like something to curve off the extremes. Hide the top and bottom one percent! If your work is bad, then the one star ratings would come up for way more than just a handful of times. Alternatively, hiding the top as well would prevent authors who abuse the system by having multiple accounts or friends that give 5 stars for no other reason.
This way, truly good work would stick out much more, while avoiding abuse on both directions!
As an aside, I'd also like to be able to dive deeper into the ratings I recieved. Things like how many chapters each rater reached. If I discover that low rated readers are fully up to date, it means something quite different from a low rating from someone who only read one chapter. Being able to see each and every user who gave a rating might be a bit dictatorship, but at least being able to get more knowledge about how much they read, when they gave the rating, and if they changed their rating would be nice.

 

[tiaf]

Oh, that reminds me of the first 1-star rating I received, after I barely uploaded 5 chapters.
It was a devasting at first, since there were only 3 ratings and the overall rating dropped significantly. (two 5-star + one 1-star = 3.7) The fun thing was, that this 1-star rating vanished later. I guess that person deleted their account or it was seen as abuse? I don't now.

It would have been nice to have some feedback to improve myself, but not everyone would write a review, with few chapters it's to early anyway. After the shock, the thing I wanted to know the most was:

• How far had this person read?
• Was it a special chapter that ticked them off?
• What did this person not like? The writing, the content, the characters etc.

Some (anonymous) details to the raters would be helpful indeed!
But the system as it is now, is really easily explorable. Extremely good or bad ratings should leave at least a sentence, why they gave 5 or 1 star. A rating with less than 5 voters should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Azrie]

I would personally like to know how much a person had read before they rated my story. Definitely gives me something to look at, especially an author like me that tends to constantly doubt if their story is good. While it is quite sad, when I get a 1star rating I feel like my current progress in the story is bad. But what if said person has only read say, 10 out of 30 chapters? Wouldn't that bring a different perspective? Every time I see a new rating I automatically assume that said person has read the entirety of what I have posted. But what if that is not the case? I personally find it quite discouraging at times.

Also just opening another perspective is nice in general. It gives some type of feedback without needing the author to constantly ask for thoughts about the story.

 

[Sloth-of-Bangkok]

Yep, the one Star Rating is damn demoralizing. Especially when your received almost zero feedback. Now maybe someone should force the rater to go for Jordan Peterson's route.... leave at least 5O word requirement for each rating. If they want to troll then show the world they are a troll or be an intellectual Troll.