We (us authors) know the voting system can be a touchy subject. Every now and then we feel that something needs to be done about those who abuse the system. Why they are on this site spending time solving puzzles just to get a ruse out of someone like me, is one of the greatest mysteries of the universe...er...internet. Voting is anonymous and should remain so. But I believe something should be done about a particular type of voter: these "puzzlers," who apparently have nothing better to do, solve newly published puzzles and vote extremely low thus wrecking any true merit a puzzle may have for an extremely long time. I don't know on how many threads I've talked about this problem but it's been a lot and it is still a problem. 

I believe a new attribute of our user stats, one where others could see how many of each type of vote we have given out (and maybe even the # of comments), is fundamental in slowing down abuse. No specificity of which puzzles received the votes would be involved so it would remain anonymous. Though this may not do much except be a statistic, the moderators could use it to see those who abuse the system and limit accounts. Maybe a positive aspect to evolve would be that more people would actually take the time to vote and vote more appropriately. 

In the mean time, I think it would be interesting if, those authors who are willing to contribute, list which published puzzle of theirs was hit and how soon it took for that undesired vote to be received. While every puzzle is our "baby," I should say that those puzzles you felt took a lot of your attention and time crafting that were unjustly tarnished immediately after publication should be considered.  Here are a few of mine:

Triddler 9996, 0% within about 5 days.
10985, 0% within 3 days.

These all have a mid-time over 2 hours.

Cosmo, I agree that it's a problem, the "zero-percent gang."  I'm mystified as well why someone would go to the trouble of solving a multi-hour puzzle and then vote zero percent.  If it was so bad then why did they bother solving?  The answer is that they're spoilers, that's all they care about.

Your idea has some merit, to post a little graph of people's voting records without specific puzzles being listed.  But I'm not sure if that would encourage or discourage people from voting, if at all.

Voting is definitely way low compared to solving rates.  But I solved for years without voting, didn't really care.  Until I became an author.

I'm probably a victim too.  I've seen some of my puzzles be listed on the "Favorites" list, and then the next day I'll have a zero, a 25% or two, several 50 percents, and then it's gone from the list.

I don't know what the answer is, other than the moderators monitoring patterns of zero percenters and disallowing their voting privileges, but that doesn't seem fair either.  Maybe they really do think that 85% of the puzzles they solve are crap.  Maybe they're masochists!  Everybody to their own kink!

I don´t really get the big issue here. Ok, there are "mean" people, or haters, bullies, or whatever you want to call them, giving 0% to good puzzles. So what? Maybe it´s just me but I don´t really care about the popularity of a puzzle, specially because I know how most solvers don´t even bother rating the puzzles solved. That is not what makes me solve or not solve a puzzle. Sometimes the comments have some influence, if people comment that the puzzle is a pain I rethink if I want to go to the effort or not.
What is their purpose anyways? Are they authors that want to keep their puzzles on "most popular triddlers of all times"?
I really come to this website to relax and have fun, and I am sure I fail all the races... correction: I am nr 4 triddler author, isn´t that something???
Anyways, there should be a way of having people to vote more, that way all the zeros would be drowned by the other rates. And I really have no ideia how we can achieve that.
Oh well, did I make any sense on this? My aim is to solve every single triddler on this website. I will get there one day, hopefully. So, I will make all the puzzles eventually, all of them, low popularity, big solving time, no discrimination...
Regards

Cosmictrombonis, just a few statistics from my side:

Top voted triddlers:
10032 - 91.67% - 01:12:56 - no 0% - no 25%
9605 - 91.53% - 01:23:06 - no 0% - no 25%
9984 - 90.83% - 00:39:25 - one 0% - no 25%
10033 - 90.44% - 00:53:43 - no 0% - one 25%
9769 - 90.22% - 01:31:23 - no 0% - one 25%

Higher points triddlers:
9767 - 01:04:22 - no 0% - two 25%
9390 - 00:57:28 - no 0% - one 25%
9725 - 01:10:41 - no 0% - no 25%
9702 - 02:00:25 - no 0% - one 25%
9736 - 00:43:14 - one 0% - one 25%

Top time solving puzzles:
(I wish we had a column on our statistics for the mid time, i still don´t know which of my puzzles takes more time to solve. That would be nice to know)

That´s all Cosmictrombonis, enjoy the numbers!

I am presently giving a lot of low scores (0 andd 25). I'm doing it because I am solving all the 5x5. I can't see myself giving a 100% on a mini when comparing with the more elaborate puzzles and the multis. What I don't understand are the one giving 100% on a mini because they like the subject or a 0 because they don't like it. The same for giving a high score because the author was very creative in naming the puzzle. Replacing the numbers by letters and assigning a range to each letter may help since and E would be anything in the lower fifth instead of 0. The designation of 0 seems to imply that the puzzle is worthless while it should indicate that it lack chalenge or doen't result in an enjoyable picture.
Edgar

Edgar, you have made some very good points.  I've advocated in the past for going to a non-zero rating system, simply because the griddlers team has already screened out the zero puzzles.  I would prefer, for example, a "1 to 5" rating, in which case your choices would be 20 40 60 80 or 100.  If you think it has no value then don't vote.

Edgar, I can definitely understand giving a 0 or 25 for some 5x5 mini griddlers as there are only so many combinations that are possible and even I've seen repeats despite a differently titled name. Some people like the simple starter type puzzles and are essential to those who are just starting to solve. Since most of these are so low anyway and have volumes of votes, I tended not to vote on them nor do I solve them anymore.

Every 0 I've given I've contemplated whether that puzzle should deserve even a 25. Since I mostly solve triddlers, the instances where I did vote a 0, were when the puzzles were unnecessarily large with practically no detail or "action" or just had a horrendous picture and I do not know why they were published. Another aspect is that the puzzles are usually fill-in puzzles with no true challenge. I don't mind sections that are fill-ins but this usually is harder to tell when done in the center of a puzzle. I think the moderators probably upped their acceptance standards over the years as I've had puzzles rejected that I thought were better than these, which are pre-2007. Also, I usually leave a comment when I vote low. This never happens when I receive a 0/25 while a puzzle is still new.

But even though there are those who appreciate a good challenge, there are some who vote high on fill-ins and some who hate true challenges (why are they here?). People are going to vote low, no way to stop it, but when it affects the number of people who won't solve a puzzle when they see a low percentage with a high-mid time, particularly immediately after its publication, it's insulting and sometimes infuriating. I had one puzzle receive 3 zeroes within its first week or so and has not received a single zero on it since. It was published in 5/2010. What I find most cruel about this is it seems to happen on my most challenging puzzles which took a lot of time to craft.

While I won't stop making puzzles, the desire I have for creating them is undoubtedly affected by the way past puzzles were received. So get out there and VOTE!...appropriately, please, k thx bye, lol. But that's a topic for another time.

We all seem to agree that the "0" choice is a problem but could the guide to voting also cause problems.
"Perfect puzzle, either by design or solving".
I see by "design" as meaning the creation of a good picture even if sometimes we have to minimize the puzzle a bit to remove the rough edge and really enjoy the final product.
By "solving",  I look at the logic challenge  offered by the puzzle but some may interpret it as how enjoyable they are  to solve or how easy they are to solve which may lead to low scores for puzzles that are too challenging for them.
Thank cosmictrombonis for keeping creating challenging puzzle. I know the effort you put in creating them. I always look foward to solving them because you force me to use my grey cells alot. There still some 1 000 000 point puzzle that I haven't solve yet because I consider them to hard (I am not willing to put in the time and effort to solve them) but the one I did solve were marvelous. A puzzle should never be scored poorly because it is a challenge after all that one of the goals of puzzles, to present a challenge.
Edgar

Quoting comments written in my puzzles.

123673 - Wrench
Poor graphic image. Such a hurry-up designing work as even he can't do the detailed pix which is uniformly easy to complete for his big puzzle listing inventory, especially triangle designs would do the better than this. 0% for this.

• I don't do puzzles with triangles. I cannot solve them.  

123665 - Cat
Tail-crooked poor cat imprisoned inside the overcrowded small 10x15 box. Call RSPCA !! 0% for this.

• I have bigger cats. 81302 is 20x20. I wanted to do a small one.
  

123658 - Carrot
Good but not classic. 50% for this.

• What is classic carrot? Thanks for the 50%!

 
123639 - Flower
Too many 'Flower' puzzles around here and there - Why not try to be more creative, to avoid such similar ideas. 0% for this.

•    

123663 - Surprised
There is just only one dot missing. Can you find it ? 0% for this

• Is it a joke? My English is not good enough to understand it.
   
  Solo 

Solo, do not worry if your English is not good as the commenter's English isn't very good either. Even though he gave a comment about why he left each 0%, it doesn't seem to justify the reason for leaving it.

Wrench: Some people hate triangles, some enjoy them. Not using them should be no reason to give a 0% because some people give 0% based on using them...no way to win here.

Flower: There are too many puzzles of most specific things, especially with griddlers, period. That is no reason for giving a 0%. If you tried to create a unique griddler, say an elephant balancing on a ball jungling peanuts with its trunk, someone may still give you a 0% because there are too many elephant griddlers, ball griddlers, and maybe even peanut griddlers. Again no way to win...

Surprised: I assume you didn't create a fully enclosed border to your puzzle's design and left open an edge. Again, a strange reason to give 0%.

By the way, I did not solve any of your puzzles but I did see they were recently published. You have to create your own "peace of mind" when authoring puzzles and receiving poor votes from the start. I recently created some triddlers that I intended to be difficult. They have a high solving time and because of this, at least I believe, poorer rating than they deserve. This keeps them from being solved often and they rarely get voted on anymore. All it seems to take are those first few voters to set the standard of a puzzle's worth.

I am happy with the current system. Private votes and public comments. If you get ten 100% votes and one 0% vote then you won. After seeing many comments and who wrote the comment you can see patterns...some encourage me to do better or different...some I ignore. Private votes and public comments; it works for me.

We're not going to please everyone so as long as my 100% or 75% votes are higher than 0% and 25% added together then I'm happy.

0% 1146

25% 2962

50% 6452

75% 6979 100%

5345

Hehe,  in response to Solo222's comment on the wrench, I recognise that first quote immediately as I have received a few almost identical, and the author, although of my nationality, is a serial pest.  But at least he is a considered, thoughtful serial pest, so that doesn't both me too much.  A 50% from him is often a 100% from others.  What surprises me is that he is an author, and that usually provides some understanding of the challenges involved.

I realize this is an older thread and there are some more on the same subject. Yet, I would like to make a suggestion. In statistics, it is very common to cut away the top and bottom 2.5% values after collecting data in order to exclude anomalies. It might be a good idea to do the same here.

cosmic,

Only one of my puzzles over the past six months hasn't scored a 0% within one to two days.  I even had one with 4 of the first 10 scores being 0%.  I look at it as a compliment, quite frankly, as the only people who would do this (assuming the puzzles aren't very bad) are those who are worried about preserving some sort of position they may have attained in the scoring ranks.  Fairly sad, when you think about it, that anyone could be so insecure.

Yes, it butchers the scoring for the first week or two, but these abusers are usually vastly outweighed by the community as a whole over time.  Besides, we do it for the art and the challenge, and to provide pleasure to many, so scoring is only an incidental.

jock

I also received most 0 in the first week after publication griddlers. I'm already used to it.

Griddlers my assessment:  
          0 %      183
        25 %      409
        50 %    1198
        75 %    3656
      100 %    8769
      Ø       87,05 %

I also publishe a few dozens of puzzles and also got some undeserved  0 score

(I did not read all the post so maybe someone already introduced here any of my opinions)

I can suggest a few reasons for voting 0

1. It happens by mistake  when the solver either did not pay attention on which side is the high or the low score or... jush moving the mouse an clicking

    unwantedly on the 0 icon

2.  simply a spoiler that have no benefit ( like most internet viruses writers)

3. A "good reason"  (of course from the wiev point of the spoiler) can be that ane (or some)  publishers want to spoil your score believing that it will promote his

published puzzle to a better place in the "hall of fame". 
 

May be allowing voter to change his/her rating would avoid zero rating by mistake.