The short answer is “no.” The reasons are numerous. For starters, the quality of a written work is not dependent on the opinions of 5 or 10 people with questionable or no credentials at all in literary criticism. Nor should any writer have to wait for reviews in order to decide if his or her composition is worthy of more effort. That is tantamount to letting others direct your creative juices, while stifling some and encouraging others dependent on readers’ inner voices, not on your own.   Your creative energy must be free to seek out its own territory uninhibited by the concerns of others. Otherwise, you can easily fall victim to trying to please others with disparate tastes, and that can take you down a pathway far from your own talents—a pathway that leads to the region of lost souls.

 

Of course, we all like approval, or at least applause.   And a “hit” counter is a wonderful applause indicator.   A thousand visitors who come and go repeatedly is a better measure of how well you are doing than are the verbal “attaboys” of a few readers who are seeking only “attaboys” from you in return. Perhaps a simple rating scale (1,2,3,4,5) could be used and averaged for each work.   That would give each author a judgment of his/her impact on readers without knowing who made them or why.   A thousand hits with an average rating of 4.5 should bring a smile to the face of any author. No reader should be allowed to render more than one rating per work. Optional comments could be sent to the author without leaving them to lay beside his or her work indefinitely as an expression of reader bias based on personal or extraneous reasons. Conversely, lavish “ooo’s” and “ahhh’s” next to mediocre works reflect poorly on the intentions and abilities of everyone.

 

Finally, the ancient Greeks took no chances with their audiences. Actors wore “smiling” or “frowning” masks to direct their audiences toward laughter or sadness during comedic or tragic scenes. Perhaps AD could do something similar and let each author post a simple intention so that readers could at least get their moods into the proper emotion, or find the appropriate state of mind from which to elevate or sink yours.