I’m guessing Thames might be confusing his mathematical terms. It sounds like he’s wishing you would use the median score rather than the mean (since the occasional .5 rating drags the mean down a lot).
Ah. I’ve actually displayed the median score in the past (some might remember), but the nature of the ratings (discreet .5 steps) and how stories are usually rated (usually a huge number of 4+ votes) doesn’t make the median a very useful number. Most stories would get 4.0, 4.5 or 5.0 with no distinction.
I’m considering to add the option to disable ratings for the author, if there’s demand for that.
Also, I want to add some features to remove troll ratings. As it is currently, “accidental” low ratings are already filtered out from the calculation (i.e. if a story gets only rated in one or two categories with an average of less than 2.5). These ratings are still displayed in the graph, but in grey, and they’re not used for the “weighted average”.
But I see that there seem to be people voting all 5 categories with very low ratings. That can be intentional, if someone really doesn’t like a story, and that’s fine. But some people seem to be out there to destroy the averages (for whatever reason), and I’ll use some statistics to find them and then I’m going to remove those ratings altogether. That’s the plan at least.
yes and no… Mode is all numbers including the extreme. In calculating the average (median) that includes outlaying values. Those are outside the area of rejection as in a Z-test (σ). If there are mostly 4’s and 5’s and one 0.5, then the 0.5 is dropped. The median is the centre of all values
I’d stilll rather disable my ratings though).
I used to use an algorithm which stripped the best and worst x% of all ratings, i.e. the extremes as you’ve explained. But that didn’t change the outcome much.
I’ll consider to add the disable ratings function. Just as the “disable comments” and “lock tags” feature, which was added by request of other authors, and hardly ever get used at all 
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Of all the things and and Donald Trumps in the world, I can live with a few 0.5 scores. And I only resubmitted new stories because I’m bored at home. Neither will last. No worries. You run a marvelous site as it is now, You can’t please everyone
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