ShoktMeNoSleep Nah, I was just thinking that your opinion was very well thought out of and it's another insight. No need to apologise. I'm a very open-minded person(but my mind likes to argue with itself cries)
Your solution sounds like a good idea, but the problem is that most of the popular authors aren't professional writers either. They're just...popular. I mean, you've always got to start somewhere, right? Plus, the moments where popular/pros join contests are very little, and it's usually just one or two. So WN holding a completely different kind of contest is pretty hard to do.
I also had an idea: a week of writing and promotions for smaller authors. On Noah, there could be a ranking, and another tab for "undiscovered gems". When readers find what they consider a gem, they can vote for it(before the actual voting, and those in the top 10 cannot have votes for them), and the novel will show up in the tab for undiscovered gems. I don't think this would work to be honest.
Over many contests, we've all seen the complete disparity(especially with the BTS and MLBB contests) between 1-3 place to 7-10. Usually, there's a massive difference(as you see in BTS), and it's even worse for those novels on pages after the first page, because no one ever turns to them(unless you're a hardcore fan). So I thought of this method so people could pick out those novels who are gems, but got buried by the rubble.
I wish there wasn't this kind of disparity. Me wishing for this sounds hypocritical, since I gained so much from this disparity. But I would also like a fair competition, and see how my writing compares to everyone else's. The system we have now does somewhat depend on writing quality(as you see gems like Deviant and BigHit's New Girl Group in the top 10), it is still quite unfair for those novels who join later.