Suggestion Box

I think the rating system on this site really needs to be enhanced. The existing ratings should be kept as an "overall rating", but I'd really like to see more detail. A more detailed rating system would make it easier for readers to provide detailed feedback without going through the trouble of writing a review. I haven't thought this through completely, but examples of different areas or categories to rate might include:

Presentation - Does the author bother with basic spelling and grammar, ...
Vocabulary / Language - Does it sound like the author is still learning English? Does it flow? Is the imagery vivid? ...
Story telling - Was the story interesting and suspenseful? Were there long sections where you hoped the author would just get on with the story?
Subject - Do you personally care for the subject? This could range from "Really not interested" to "I don't mind reading about it as long as it's well written" and "This is totally awesome".
Interest - How eager are you for the author to continue writing and posting?
Potential - Do you think this could be really good if the author fixed a few issues, or do you think this is going nowhere?
Polishing - Do you feel that this needs a lot more work, or is it almost ready for publishing?

Obviously, if you're going to implement something like this, don't just use my example categories here, but try to think it through and get it right.

It would also be nice to provide a reference scale for the ratings to make them more objective and meaningful. What does a five-star rating mean? "Wow, I'd be happy to pay twenty dollars in a book store to get my own copy!", or maybe, "Wow, this is really good for a draft, keep up the good work!"? (I wonder how to fix the punctuation in this last sentence...)

Authors could be allowed to choose which categories to allow for their work, especially since not all categories apply to all types of writing. It might even be a good idea to allow authors to add their own rating category so that they can ask the reader to rate exactly the specific area they care about, kind of like a customizable exit poll. Or it might be a good idea to make some categories mandatory in order to allow readers to filter and sort their search results by ratings in specific categories.