My two cents on the issue of reviews and marks.

I have found that I pay no attention to the grade of a story. '9/10, one vote' does not carry the day for me.

Also the very idea of reviewing/voting is a chore. We're in this for pleasure (well, pain, too). Don't bash me (or rather, do, please). I'm just enunciating fact. Very few people log on a BDSM site with dedication and the public good foremost in their minds.

However, on reading a story I may feel the need to convey emotions in my own words, to be scathing or effusive, sarcastic or obscene, whatever. The 'review-vote' format is not quite the right one for that because it's a no-feedback, fire and forget thing. Come on guys, you don't want the New Yorker literary review; you want gut feedback from us perverts, us perverts like feedback from you and each other, and there's nothing perverts like better than a good pillow fight or flame war on a topic they like. (well, OK, there are things I like better).

Suggestion: why not open the 'story feedback' forum (or a sub-forum of it) to the non-registered to post in, with a very skimpy set of rules of engagement. (Threads would be story- or author- centered).

We could see what happens.