We got 5 categories.
Hotness
Mind Control
Wanking fodder
Writing quality
Idea / originality
As an Author I have seen high scored fall, and become very disheartened.
I have seen a big glowing dick, or a big shiney lightbulb beside my story, and though “wow, I’m so proud” then someone comes and reads it gives you, 2/5, 1/5, 3/5, 1/5, 1/5. and it cripples your averages and takes all your shiny symbols, and makes you feel like what’s the point of even having a grading system?
As a reader on the other hand, I sometimes feel an author making critical errors and I think “how can a writer make an error like this!? does he have no instinct? should I punish him with bad scores!?”
or “what’s the point in giving everything 5/5? then the grading means nothing”.
Then, as an admin I have seen both sides and sometimes have authors ask me how to handle the scores they receive when higher/lower then they were prepared for.
Sometimes people ask me how to score other’s work.
If I grade a mate’s story… I feel kinda shitty bringing their averages down, but then, am I being a good mate and a decent admin if I’m not honest?
I can’t speak for other people, but this is now how I do it:
I average 3~5/5 on all categories and simply avoid scoring the areas I feel an author wasn’t aiming to deal with.
So if a story does no contain mind control, I simply don’t give a mind control rating at all, likewise the other categories. (except for ‘writing’, since, all submission are literally “writings”)
As soon as I realized you can simply “not bother” grade the categories you believe don’t apply to a story, I instantly looked at grading stories differently.
I can now finish ready and simply tap a 4 or 5 on one category and leave it at that.
If I need to give a punishing score I can (1~2), but there is no need to.
and that’s how I do it now. Thoughts?