Can we have our article ratings private rather than public?

Bearing in mind I'm not an experienced writer, nor have I written anywhere else on the internet other than Wizzley, my point of view is that the article ranks are very useful and here's why:

If you're writing articles for writing article's sake, you can argue that you're not too interested as to how well the article does. I know that this is making a massive presumption, but hear me out.

If another person comes along, like me, with no experience what-so-ever, and sees the likes of the front-page covered in 100% articles with ECs all over the place, I want my articles there. Why? Because the front page is publicity. Publicity is hits and hits are potential revenue.

This made me ensure that what I was writing was the best content I could - no half attempts at an article would ever make it near the front page, right? I'd rather put twice the amount of effort in to produce one good article rather than several ones that I'd soon abandon.

If the percentages are taken away, I feel that there'd be no real point in writing quality articles. The front page would presumably have either a new algorithm in place (which would probably be based on similar mechanics regardless - why not have a numerical value to help you know when your articles will be featured?) or the articles would be chosen purely by admins.

We're all here to make money. Me, you, Wizzley. How do we get money? Quality articles. How do we separate ourselves from other, similar sites? Quality articles. What's a sure fire way of ensuring that there's going to be quality articles generated? Percentage ranks.

It's simply only good for the website. People will post their articles around various places to satisfy the ranking algorithm which will in turn only boost the popularity of Wizzley and any other articles placed within the linked articles.

I don't really see what's to gain from removing the page rank aside from the degradation of article quality.

I know some people do just write articles and simply don't care about the figures - I'm sure those articles are of a very high standard too. If they want the article to do well, they'll advertise it regardless and increase the page's rank.

The page ranking encourages new people like me produce good content. Removing the ranks gives lesser quality articles a chance and while it may sound elitist, for a growing website, that's not what Wizzley needs.

PageRank Is a mixed bag :) I personally do not care about my author rank as long as I can look into the mirror and say that the articles I publish are of high quality and that I am satisfied. I know I will not get many PVs with or earn a lot of money with but I can say that I am honest to myself and my quality standards.

When I look at my articles and list them by "rating", I can see that the rating is a summary of some things we know and perhaps other things we do not know - it seems to be a combination of: traffic, comments, likes (and probably bookmarkings as well, but we don't see these on our "my articles" lists) and age. I have lower rating articles that are bringing in more traffic, for example, than higher rating articles.

Therefore, I don't use rating as the only indication of how well my articles are doing. In any case, I am NOT asking that we do way with ratings, just that we do away with having them publicly displayed on our articles as they appear on the front pages and on our own profile pages when the mouse hovers over the article.

When I check out the popular or buzzing articles pages, I look at other people's articles' ratings just because they are there. I don't think they need to be.

For those for whom competition is a fun aspect of writing on a site like this, the best authors page offers some kind of competition if you try to get from a deeper page to one of the first few pages. There is also competition with oneself in trying to get an EC article. These are important, and they are goals that encourage the achievement of excellence. But page ranking, in my opinion, is not important enough for it to be displayed publicly.

Again, I am not suggesting doing away with page ranking, just having it removed from the piece that appears when one hovers the mouse over our articles on public pages.

I believe that hiding the rankings would do pretty much the same as removing it. 

I don't give a hoot about page rank.   I couldn't tell you the page rank of my articles since I rarely, if ever, look at them.  I am not here to play any kind of social game and to get a bunch of comments and likes on my pages.  I did that when I started on my first revenue sharing site 7 years ago, but I have since learned it is not necessary to be successful and to earn money.  I make sales on pages ranked 40% just as much as I make sales on pages ranked 100%.  

I am not saying that you can't be successful playing the social game because you can.   I know writers on other platforms that base their entire income on being a social butterfly.  It is just not the road I choose to take.  Once you figure out how to convert your pages into sales, you no longer need the social aspect because you will be making quite a bit of money without it.   However, if you are less experienced in making pages that convert into sales, then the social game, page rank, editor''s choice awards, etc. can be very helpful until you learn.

That being said, I don't care either way if the rank is public or private.

Just my 2 cents.