NEVERSILENT'S PROFILE

I'm not even sure it's actually spam. It looks more like a case of extreme accidental penta-posting...

Cashmere, I think amerk (and I) didn't actually ask for the removal of review scores. Quite the opposite, I actually agree with your points. I think review scores are a great quality indicator if used well. We only discussed the option of removing the average score that is shown on the gamepage or in the list of games. That way, if a game sounds interesting to someone, they can still simply go to its review section and see what scores the individual reviews have given it, there just wouldn't be an avarage score displayed any more, and thus, less room for premature bias.

Am I truly the only one here who actually likes RMN's review system? Maybe it's not perfect, and obviously there have been occasions where it had nasty side-effects, but it's a lot less prone to manipulation and watering down of quality standards than "public consencus".
As was said before, writing reviews is no Herculean task, but it requires at least some effort and sound argumentation, instead of just mindlessly clicking a button. If you feel a game is worth to be recommended or criticised, you can be expected to actually put some thought into it. This also tends to prevent crazy hypes or abuse, since trolls or extreme fanboys are more likely to just downvote everything they lay their eyes upon (except for the one game they adore) than bring up the effort to write hundreds of reviews.
And as a matter of fact, I usually do care enough to write reviews even if I didn't particularly enjoy a game but still feel like the community should be informed about ist existence - and given the amount of critical reviews on the site, I doubt I'm the only one. Also, I usually tend to take those reviews with a grain of salt that were written by someone whose only submission is that one review. And the amount of reviews for a game as well as the discussions on a gamepage or review's comment section can also influence how people percieve a game. We have many ways of informing ourselves.
Maybe it's just me, but I find that practically every alternative that has been suggested so far actually sounds like a step backwards, away from ensuring a reliable rating system. (Although I do commend the idea of providing a sort-of template for a review's content's minimum requirements.)


Edit:

author=amerk
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the total score removed completely. People can still include them in their reviews, but there'd be no total average score. That way, people would then do what the review intended - for them to go and read the review rather than form an uneducated opinion by simply looking at the score.

I admit that does sound like a possible solution. The average score of a game would then be an invisible value, only used to determine Makerscore rewards for the developers.

Granted, it's a very emotional ceremony with lots of crying, attended by many grieving people, and you are right there in the middle of it.
Because it's a double funeral.

I wish for the power to always win any argument.

(I'm tempted to make an "In Soviet Russia" joke here, but I won't)

Well, there's always still RMN, right? ... Or are we not rad enough?