I'm rather new to this site, so I haven't had a real chance to really get my fingers dirty yet, (uhm.....no, not that way ) but in reading over some of the posts in this particular forum, it occurs to me that there might be a more useful way of dealing with the vindictive reviewers, and also showing appreciation for the more thoughtful reviewers.

Would it be possible to implement something like a reverse-feedback mechanism? For example, if I write a story and received a review for it, it would be nice if I could rate the quality of the review that was given to me. That way, not only can I give feedback directly to the reviewer but there could also be the potential for people to acquire a "reviewer's score". If a reviewer always or generally gives very thoughtful reviews, their reviewer's score could be quite high. If they are always trashing stories without offering any serious constructive criticism, the actual usefulness of their review would be rather limited, if useful at all, and their reviewer score would be quite low.

Perhaps a reviewer's score could even be weighted to affect the overall review such that if the average review rates a story an 8, and a "this story is trash" review rates it a 1, and the author of that review always rates stories a 1 without little or useful input to the author, that 1 would not be as meaningful to the overall review itself since it would be weighted less than other reviewers reviews for the same story.

With each review given to an author, the author should be able to respond something like this: "On a scale of one to ten, where one is not at all useful and ten is exceptionally useful, I found this review to be ...." As a person reviews different stories, and accumulates reviewing scores from the authors of those stories, it can become a bit easier to ferret out the vindictive reviewers from those who are truly interested in providing a helpful review process.

Anyway, just an idea. It might have been discussed before, but I did sort of glance through here and didn't see anything quite like this mentioned anywhere. Thoughts or comments (or reviews ) anybody?