What typically happens on other "reviewing" sites is they separate average rating and user review ratings.

One thing I would love to see personally is the ability to see who rated how much. If there's a spike in either direction you could always call out the person to justify. If the person then elaborates there's no issue. One thing though, if you implement such a system you run the risk of people sticking to the average even when they've got perfectly justifiable reasons to vote high or low, just to avoid any hassle.

The current rating system however is very user friendly. You see a chop, if you have nothing to add to a thread you rate it and if something comes up you're still free to post. Some of you veterans probably remember how bad it got on Digimods where the only way to rate was by commenting. Peeps would make 3 word posts like "that looks great" or "love the rims" and had you think why bother posting.

You could always split the rating system into categories. Like;
Originality <0-10>
Quality of brush+c&p <0-10>
Presentation <0-10>
Style points <0-10>
User level recommendation <1-5> (newbie-intermediate-pro-advanced-elite)

Yeh... something like this could work... the only problem with the 'originality' section, is that if some one does an incredible chop, with JDM styling, then they're going to get round about a 0 for that ... even though the design looks great...

on the other hand, someone does a completely new and original design that looks terrible, yet they'll get 10.. so yeh.
I agree about the current user friendliness.
One thing i would point out about the current system, is that it can be easy to vote accidentally - one stray click and bam... your vote is cast, which could perhaps account for some low votes - after all people have no reason to vote low, unless they generally don't like the chop. So perhaps a little pop up box asking 'are you sure you wish to submit a rating of (4) out of 10?' followed by 'yes' and 'review vote'.

Yeah maybe you'd make the orginality a smaller scale or reduce the multiplier on it when calculating average rating, but I definitely think it belongs. I don't see it as a bad thing that an amazing JDM chop gets downrated a bit because it lacks originality.
In the end there's only so many types of mods you can do to a car yes, but in my opinion there needs to be something to motivate originality. Because the opposite is also true, a growing trend of - lets keep the example - JDM cars. Someone decides not to follow the trend or hype and gets lower rating because of it. Even though it can be very original.
I'm hoping that it would keep things fresh for the choppers as well, so they don't get bored repeating the same style over and over.
I remember a while when adding excessive vents to cars was the hype and even though many disliked it, there was no motivation to move from it since it kept receiving good critique from the "plebs". "Plebs" bumping your posts onto the top of the page with a good number of comments is what got you the attention you needed.

Anyways adding categories could also enable you to do something like spotlights, showcasing high rated chops per category in a section of the site.

We remember the "vent trend" all too well

Good points raised here guys, we'll definitely take them on board and figure something out. I wouldn't say it's a priority right now to get the voting/ranking system perfect but everything that's been mentioned has been read thoroughly to make sure we can pick out the best parts and implement them into Autemo in at attempt to do the impossible: Keep everybody happy.

The idea with the mandatory comments is very good.
Another thing that would be important: When the rating system was introduced, Mark promised to explain it to everyone, which has not happened yet. This lead to all chops in higher rooms to have at least 8 points, while the average rating in each room should logically be around 5.

yesh

hell yes jack , cant be more clear about what you said

would make this rating stuff a lot more hounest and clear

some medium chops get star ratings and higher quality stuff is rated low

makes me think that people should not ony base their vote on taste of style but also work quality and overall presentation

thats just my 100000 cnt's

I think the points for originality and correct perspective should count the most And interior brushing offcourse.

Olli's idea is the best i think!