One of the most confusing things about Mouthshut is the rating system. Now, if you rate a software as Good at a download site, it means that it works well. Of course, it does not follow that it will be useful for a reader, or easy to use! (Woe betide the computer novice who read a review and purchased Adobe Photoshop to touch up his photographs!) But when we rate on Mouthshut, we don’t use Excellent, Good, Average etc. Instead, we say Very Useful,…Not useful. This begs a question-what exactly are you rating?

The language used in a review may be fabulous, the grammar may be exact, but was the content useful for you? If we are strictly honest, a large number of reviews will have to be rated Somewhat useful or Not useful. Would a computer professional find an article on the pros and cons of Linux, written by a housewife, useful? I seriously doubt it!

Solution
Change the rating system to Excellent, Good, Average and Poor

The second problem with the rating system is that it fosters the herd mentality that is evident in any community-especially in Mouthshut. Unless you already have a coterie of friends who read and rate your articles, your eventual rating is very likely to be dependent on the first 2-3 ratings that you receive. If they are VU, you are home and dry. But if they are Useful or Somewhat Useful, you are likely to be pinned into one of those categories by every subsequent reader.

Solution
Current ratings of the articles should be revealed only once the reader has rated the article himself (similar to what happens in online polls).

A third problem which I noticed recently occurs in the following scenario:
Someone posts a review. You read it immediately, and rate it as Not useful. In the next five minutes, Mouthshut takes the review off the site, as it is filthy, abusive or whatever! You check your account, and find that your ratings are not counted. This is unfair, as the person who rated the review spent time, energy and money to rate and type a comment, as required by Mouthshut.

Solution
Take the review off the air, but retain the credits for those who have already rated it.

All the other points have already been covered at length by other reviewers, and include
1.     Rate according to merit and not according to how a person rated one of your reviews.
2.     Try to comment if you are rating low (I avoid this sometimes so that the writer will not feel bad about some stinging criticism)
3.     Rate every article that you read.
4.     Rate this article VU :-D