im sure all the track builders here will be familiar with the statistic that your download count far exceeds your comment or award count.
to fix this how about:
have a download limit on tracks. say about 20
after that a pop up bugs you for either a "crap track -1", "Average track +1" or "great track +2" for each download. this means that every track downloaded will always get an overall score.
you can still award and comment like normal but the track maker will be able to see what people think without them.

the ideas rough but simple. fine tune if you like it.

Download count is not just for registered users.
You may have 200 downloads on a track while only 20 registered users downloaded it.
The other 180 downloads are from unregistered users and servers, also someone might have downloaded your track several times (for various reasons such as: he never saves tracks, just plays tracks by opening them directly from the website; downloaded from different computers; etc.).

A download limit cannot work as long as unregistered downloads are permitted.

For comparison's sake, it is rare for me (with a few hundred awards between TMNF TMX and TMUF TMX) to have a >25% download-to-award conversion rate, usually as the number of downloads goes up the conversion rate goes down. Tracks with less than 10% conversion rate and fewer than 5 awards do eventually get deleted.

If you get a lot of downloads and no awards your track is simply not well received (wrong genre or bad). This is not an issue, because if you do get a lot of downloads it means a lot of people are following you, so you can just make a new/better/more conventional/more generic track and turn those downloads into awards next time round.

You should be worried if you get no downloads at all and (therefore) no awards. These doldrums can be hard to get out of.

And what stops people from mass-downloading their own track to boost its rating? Also, what Skunky said is very true. For the downloaders that are servers, how are they supposed to rate the track? Not a good idea imo.

There has already been a discussion of a rating system, just close this topic already.
http://united.tm-exchange.com/main.aspx?action=threadshow&id=3687740&page=auto#auto

well done for spotting a thread on the same topic on a completely different forum.
but anyway, we all know this has been an issue for years otherwise the unknown track of the week wouldnt have appeared.
i didnt know though that if you download it multiple times it still counted. i did know about the server download option but didnt know it counted. and im still surprised you can download a track without been registered.

the fact this topic continues to be brought up means that there must be some interest in it.

just thinking, how about a player / track rating system. if you award or comment on a track your personal rating goes up. the people that contribute will get higher ratings which could attract people to there tracks.

I think that's what the rating on the old TMUX/NX was meant to be... i don't know if it was fully functional though

The old rating was about how many awards from different users you had within the last 30 days.
So it was pretty much the other way around. ^^

@scala:

how is it surprising that everyone can download tracks? Did you think servers had registered accounts? The downloads number simply represents how many times the download button (which is public) is called.

A player / track rating system is not necessarily the way to go. People who are more active will have more say in how a track is rated (if I understood your proposal correctly), and that's not what we want to happen. Instead of striving to rate tracks, users will be encouraged to post anything, anywhere, on any track to gain more sway with the system. This is not a good thing.

The more complicated the system gets, the more ways there are for it to be misused.

this is true.
but its depressing when there are so many great tracks out there that never see an award or comment compared to the absolute turd some people make that get awards because their "famous" or all there mates, clan or otherwise, are expected to award it.
surely we can come up with a solution.

oh and could you have a server registration option?
hey actually if you did that you could link the servers "like/dislike" stats to the track page.