What I am suggesting is a "Watch" button or something. There are some stories that are REALLY bad that get posted that I like to check in on from time to time to see if they improve. I think if authors knew their stories are being "Watched" but not "Favorited" they might put in more effort. And yes, I HAVE in fact offered help to a few authors who weren't doing 'as well as they could' in the past. They wound up really coming into their own with a bit of assistance.
Whilst I believe the intent is pure, I feel some authors might find such things 'passive-aggressive'. I also don't see how this would help an author unless you communicate with them, as it's hard to view one's work subjectively.
If you want to see if a specific author changes his writing for the better without favoriting their story, you could just follow them. Depending on your notification settings, you get informed when they publish a chapter. Having another button/stat for showing that you don't like something yet sounds not quite target-aimed. I think that leaving constructive criticism is a way better solution. If such a stat should convey a negative meaning, it might also make authors quit writing completely.
The rating from 1 to 5 has been removed in favor of a Like/Dislike system. The problem is that the rating isn't quite meaningful. Except for dislikes to scold writers for bad chapters in the middle of their story, you would probably only dislike the first few chapters. I mean, would you really continue to read it if you think it's bad? Or do you dislike all the other chapters as well because it is "obvious" that they are just as bad as what you've just read? The second option could be interpreted as downvoting and could even be used that way to make other stories "worse" than your own or your favorite story. Also, low ratings convey a negative meaning. On the other hand, if users do it like in the first option, the ratings of small stories will suffer by design. (This is why I suggested a rating system which compares Likes with the actual number of readers.)
Here's the thing. there are stories that I follow, but don't necessarily want to frequently check up on or be notified of regularly. Maybe the watch button could be served as a way to further refine what stories and how often I receive notifications for them. Perhaps in a manner like this: Add the watch button, which should function similarly to how the current favorites button works by adding it to a list or queue. Have notification settings linked to the watch button instead of the favorites button. Watched stories should also have an option to adjust the frequency of notifications regarding a specific story (like say, once a week, or once a day, just like some boards and forums deal with email subscriptions for a thread... or the notification bell on youtube). Have the favorites button require the watch button to be active for a story in order to activate. Stories that are marked as favorites are listed before other stories that are watched. Favorited stories that have been updated recently should be bumped to the top of your reading queue. Favorited stories should have the option to send an email notification once per day or week that summarizes all changes and additions to your favorited stories. Have an option for those who list a story as a favorite to automatically like every page of a story (possibly... this idea might turn out to be a bit of a clusterfuck). Have separate stats for watched and favorites. Favorites should be viewable to the public, while the watched statistic should only be viewable for story owners and/or editors.
I would assume that leads to much fewer users favoriting stories. I think that only the ones who are regularly like chapters would consider using it while the others would save the second click and watch the story in anonymity. If anything, I could imagine to favorite a story and then unwatch it, though that doesn't seem to be the intent of this suggestion. That might be useful. A summarization has been suggested as Notification Digest before, so you might want to take a look at it. I think this could be abused easily.
