Some fairly thorough discussion in #modhelp has encouraged me to request this in a much more concise and clear manner as a standalone point. It is clear that many mappers desire a much more simple rating system, which would surely prove to be more useful for on-the-spot responses. With nothing more than "I like it," "I don't care" and "I dislike it," the rating button would be much more approachable and thus possibly encourage more people to vote.
If displayed as three large, shiny buttons upon the completion of a beatmap, it would be much easier for users to give an on-the-spot reaction, in a way which wouldn't result in a horribly inconsistent manner of voting. Moreover, it would reduce the effects of ragevotes and squeeing fangirl votes, which could in turn give a fairer representation of the community's general opinion. Of course, the votes could still be averaged to a ten-point system if that is to stay, only we'd have values which would account for the accuracy of on-the-spot voting. Failing that, the beatmap listings don't even show a decimal average, instead showing a vague chart of arbitrary figures and a like:dislike meter. We might as well have this as the scope of map ratings. Please also bear in mind that a lot of people will use 6-8 to represent "average," 1-2 as "bad" and 9-10 as "good/excellent." This sort of thing varies wildly from person to person.
As there are a lot of people who care about ratings to some extent, but detest the unreliability of individual votes, a more generalised approach would be far, far more useful for what is effectively a thought process of, "Do I like it? How much do I like it? Do I like it more than this map, could it really be much better in the context?" That would be from somebody who actually wants to give a well-considered input. The rest of the users would simply think, "I like it," I don't care" or "I hate it."
If displayed as three large, shiny buttons upon the completion of a beatmap, it would be much easier for users to give an on-the-spot reaction, in a way which wouldn't result in a horribly inconsistent manner of voting. Moreover, it would reduce the effects of ragevotes and squeeing fangirl votes, which could in turn give a fairer representation of the community's general opinion. Of course, the votes could still be averaged to a ten-point system if that is to stay, only we'd have values which would account for the accuracy of on-the-spot voting. Failing that, the beatmap listings don't even show a decimal average, instead showing a vague chart of arbitrary figures and a like:dislike meter. We might as well have this as the scope of map ratings. Please also bear in mind that a lot of people will use 6-8 to represent "average," 1-2 as "bad" and 9-10 as "good/excellent." This sort of thing varies wildly from person to person.
As there are a lot of people who care about ratings to some extent, but detest the unreliability of individual votes, a more generalised approach would be far, far more useful for what is effectively a thought process of, "Do I like it? How much do I like it? Do I like it more than this map, could it really be much better in the context?" That would be from somebody who actually wants to give a well-considered input. The rest of the users would simply think, "I like it," I don't care" or "I hate it."