There are different methods of ratings and reviews that avoid all of the listed problems. First, I don't think that "arbitrary" works as an argument against ratings or reviews. While there are many aspects that are based on preference, I wouldn't consider game ratings or movie ratings arbitrary. There are systems in place there, many factors are considered, and personal taste isn't a large determiner of movie or game ratings.
The point of ratings and reviews is to fairly evaluate something and indicate its relative merit for the benefit of the user. Bottom line: ratings and reviews are beneficial to the users. They highlight good qualities and they show problems. They can put deserving things in the spotlight they deserve, and vise versa. Besides screenshots, nothing is really indicative of those things on brawl vault now, unless the creator makes a self-review and puts it in the description box.
Obviously, having a rating system similar to say, youtube's, is impractical because as stated, they would be abused and misused. I do not doubt that for a second in this community. For that reason, it wouldn't be realistic to propose a rating system in which everyone could contribute to. There have been efforts made by some to create reviews, such as
. They're unbiased, quality reviews. Ain't nothing wrong with these reviews.
All that being said, my preposition is this: A review subboard that has some kind of qualification/restricted access/special privilege magic. Set up a rubric/template for reviews and scoring, similar to
IGN's but with pertaining sections and clear guidelines. Add a
read/submit review to the brawl vault entries, similar to csps, and have a box for the forum link, and a box for the score. Use a system like
Metacritic's to calculate a weighted average and throw out outliers. Easy math, not resource intensive. People that abuse it can be removed from the review board.
Yeah, that's my suggestion. Ratings and reviews are beneficial to the community; they allow for constructive feedback that helps modders improve their works, they give users of brawl vault more insight into what they are downloading before they download it, and they allow people that don't contribute to the community through brawl vault submissions to contribute in this way. I really think something like this would be beneficial to brawl vault. Please consider.