Why make this site?

Reviewer Planet is my attempt to solve some of the issues with game reviews. Thing is, I don't want to actually build the site until I'm sure I've got it right. Unlike a lot of amateur web developers, I want to make sure the website is what gamers and amateur game reviewers want before I start building the site.


How it works:

This game review site would be entirely community-based. Individual reviewers would obtain popularity, and game pages would not display finite scores, not even in a sense of a ratio of "positive vs negative" like Rotten Tomatoes does. Game pages would just list pure, simple, opinion pieces ordered by reviewer "notability".
Before you whine about "popularity contests", I should mention that the "guppies" and "trolls" would have only a minor impact on "notability".
Anyway, that's the basic gist of the site.

How I came about using a community-based system:

Why do game review numbers suck? Yes it is true that numbers give a quantitative summary of a review, but such a summary is ridiculous because it makes writing the text of the review pointless.

The reason they exist at all is because in the eyes of game review institutions the majority of gamers are idiots... lazy idiots... they don't want to read. So, the executives of these review institutions have to force their reviewers to give a numeric score. Because it sells. "Idiots" like quantitative summaries, and Metacritic can use those quantitative summaries.

Executives also have to be careful. Every single review their institution puts out carries the reputation of the institution with it. Thus, that quantitative score has to follow the site-wide consensus. The idea of a site-wide consensus is unrealistic. Game review institutions can only afford to assign one of their reviewers to a game at a time. They can't afford for all of their reviewers to focus on one game, but then they turn around and expect the public and the rest of the game review institutions to believe them when they say that the review and the score represents the opinion of the institution when it does not (not the whole institution anyway). It is unrealistic and borderline fraudulent for game review institutions to do this.

The idea of a site-wide consensus is not only unrealistic, it's also ludicrous. Forcing a game reviewer to modify their opinion to better tailor the reputation of the institution stifles the analytical ability and creative process of the individual reviewer. In essence, the institution brainwashes their reviewers into being less than they can be, to their obvious detriment.

The only way I've seen to free the reviewer to be everything they can be is remove the idea of forced site-wide consensus. The site should back the reliability of the hired reviewer, not the other way around. This removal of a site-wide consensus is in practice the same thing as having no institutional influence whatsoever. Which, ultimately, is the same thing as a community-based system.