SOL has a long faq about how the ratings are generated and the survey problems they try to avoid by doing so. I don't mind they do this since in the end, they guarantee at least the order remains the same. Like most authors I guess, I've been keeping my eye on the ratings for my new "vignettes" story, in which each chapter will be a scene, but there will be little plot connecting them together. When 10 people had read it, I hit a high of 7.5ish. Then one person rated it a 3 which brought the overall score down. Interestingly, the person who rated it a 3 has evidently gone back, reread the chapter, and moved their score from a 3 to a 2.
From the chart which indicates as of now there are 836 downloads and 32 votes of which 10 of them were "8"'s, it looks like this is the distribution which earns the current score of 6.93. The counts below do add up to 32 which is a good double check. So moving that "3" to a "2" (along with whatever was going on with all the other stories I didn't write) moved me from the 7's to a 6. Very interesting to me, I hope you find it so as well. I'm not really complaining, just sharing some of the stats I can glean from behind the scenes.
Score - Count
10 - 5
9 - 8
8 - 10
7 - 5
6 - 3
5 - 0
4 - 0
3 - 0
2 - 1
1 - 0
Update: One more person gave me an 8 which brought my score DOWN to 6.92, so really only 9's and above help a score, relative to all the other stories. Several people responded in email, so thanks for the pick me up