> it's just a casual recommendation system not much more intellectual than a Facebook thumbs-up.
Voting anything than a 5-Star on any entry tanked the entire language bracket, and the ratings overall suffered as a result.
Instead of "5-star votes" I believe it honestly just should've been "likes"/"endorsements"/etc. so there is no rating system period - leave the nuanced deconstruction to the comments system
So no, a Facebook thumbs-up would've been way better and caused way less of a horrendous feeling when you get 7 people to rate your entry but you can even feel any spite about it because "someone maybe voted us 1 star that's why we only have about 3 stars", but you have an entire 2 pages of 5-star rated projects that all contain 1-2 votes each so they top score on the rankings, lol.
If you score based on the NUMBER of votes and not the 5-STAR SYSTEM, this would be a much better fit for nicher communities and mean the votes are endorsed rather than harshly criticized by an anonymous 5-star system when there may not even be that many contestants in a language bracket to begin with.
I apologize if I come across as blunt and harsh on you but I do believe this ranking system was a huge misfire and I hold you responsible, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth for an otherwise amazing idea and opportunity! If you make another one, please just be transparent about how the entries will be judged, any other system would've been better than this as it completely ran against your ideals of a collaborative atmosphere! It shouldn't feel directly taboo and horrible to rate any other entry less than "5 stars".