Don't take the rating at heart. It doesn't actually mean anything. I even emailed webtoon about it for the contest and they don't check the rating AT ALL. Other people have 8-9 thanks to an already existent fanbase to create a wall against those 1/10 haters. To be honest, as contestant to contestant, I spotted your webtoon the day you posted and my first reaction was: This one is dangerous. It's actually good. SO DON'T GET DISCOURAGED BY THE RATING!
I subbed to yours a few days ago because I looked at it and went, "This will make it to the featured section for sure!" Your art is amazing and certainly has inspired me to keep at it! Don't be discourage by the ratings. It's a fluid thing but then it ends up stabilizing. You're work is amazing!
Your art is PERFECT for webtoons, well above the quality necessary to get featured. Really nice work. I'm 100% sure you'll end up in the high 9s by the time you upload a few more episodes. But like someone already mentioned, the rating isn't used for anything. I highly doubt it even factors in to the popularity ranking algorithm.
The only thing I can see that could possibly have caused people to downvote your webtoon is the size of the font. It's not that small for me, but I do know that the audience can be quite particular with that sort of thing.
Considering audience engagement, people shouldn't get too stuck on the actual numbers. The 40% most likely aren't to be valued at exactly 40%, because you can't properly scale such diverse values and compare them to each other to get hard numbers. It basically just means it gets taken into account, but the judges decision has more weight to it. Popularity will help with a decision, but it won't be the mayor factor.
It's like owning 51% of a company. Everyone else can give their opinion, but in the end, the big fish got the last word. They mention a high number for audience engagement to make clear they understand that you have to listen to the audience to some degree. It's basic logic in entertainment that you need to cater to the audience, not the other way around.
We don't know their pointing system. Nobody said you will get points in popularity to get added to the points you get from the judges to do some simple math. It's highly unlikely to work this way.
This is a beautiful and inspiring mindset. I wish way more people would share it instead of getting discouraged. Of course, winning would be nice and numbers can be harsh, but we should focus on doing our best and improve instead of seeing this as a one way track.
I think, after a few episodes, it should even out! When I uploaded mine, it was like 9 something, then it dipped down to 6, then 7, now it's 7.5 lol. I only have one episode up so far so I'm hoping it'll do better.
I also think yours is more likely to do well because of the art style/genre. Don't get discouraged 
In my case my comic always end in 8. I´m making changes to my first comic, The comic was on 9 but it went down to 8.40, until my recent update that again, went down to 8.00. I guess during contest this is always normal. I saw in other discussions before that uploading during contests always give the down voting results! ;C
Ah, I didn't expect to receive such kind words...thank you so much for taking the time to comment, I truly appreciate it. I also apologize if my comment derailed the topic at hand, I also didn't mean to do that. 
It's not that I expect people to hand out perfect 10s to comics because I know people have different tastes (they may not like the genre, the art style, etc., I completely understand), I know for one that my comic is definitely far from perfect. I was just surprised to see how common it is for people to mass vote with 1s over there for the sake of hating/trolling since it's my first time posting anything on that site. I was being naive...I apologize. ;_; I'm glad to hear that ratings do not affect people's chances in the contest though! Does it affect those people who are part of the pledge (?) and the upcoming ad revenue program?
@scythe Thank you so much for your suggestion! I am such a newbie, I assumed 35px will be enough, ack. I'll make sure to fix stuff in the prologue before I post the next episode!
(Good luck to everyone in the contest by the way!)
I mean I'm not that inspiring. I just think that if you try hard enough you can find success even if its not what you thought it would be.
Like I remember my life drawing teacher saying that winning or losing an art contest doesn't guarantee success in your art career. So for me it means that even though I see myself as a terrible artist, I can at least use that as motivation to get better and work on what I'm weak at. That and its pretty good exposure.
Ok maybe I shouldn't say that I see myself as a terrible artist lol. Ok my point is just try hard, believe in your work, and get better and your work will speak for itself (though you'll have to advertise, practice and stuff but you know what I mean.)
Hello guys new here. Also made an account to reply about the down voting thing.
I actually thought I was so special that I got the special treatment where all the comments on my entry get a down vote, then my steady 10 rating (coz mine is not famous I guess that's why mine stayed 10 for a while) suddenly reduced to 9.44, then to 8.something, then now 7.something. It might continue to go down to 6, 5, 4 and so on.
It really made me want to quit, so I feel you guys.
And AMAZING ART @K2O !!!!!!!
It's been like this since the contest started, even though that time they only promoted a few of them 
I noted that it was a few in the beginning but now it's almost exclusively contest titles with exception for the binge worthing category.
That was the point of this contest. It appears they don't really care about promoting the entries or getting people to focus or dwell on entries; in other words--they pretty much knew the winners they would choose before this thing started.
Why?
The money is meant to make people delirious and to drag into Webtoons a huge audience of hopefuls and their fans as endless comics are posted. Webtoons becomes THE comic warehouse on the web, it gets huge traffic, and then transitions to its ad revenue model in August (before the end of the contest!) where it reaps rewards from the traffic and gets people to stay and contribute via the ad revenue.
Smart stuff.
Just don't think the prize in in your grasp, because it was never meant to be. The golden ring on the carousel is there to get people to ride an old and boring mechanism that goes in circles for fun.
yeah, this is probably to hide the fact that they already put 2 entries for half of the duration of the contest. They think people will let go of the fact that they favorited a certain comic to the very top by now putting on many of the contest entries into those random sections. That way if that comic wins, no one can complain cause they also put up many (which of course contain none of the comics with higher fair popularity because they wouldn't want those to be able to beat their special sweet chosen comic). Seeing things happen like that, I'm pretty sure many authors will not want to participate in future contests.
so which comic are you talking about. sorry -didn't pay too much attention to the contest but now i'm curious.
Yeah I'm also curious which comics you're talking about and in which category? I'm also debating on which category to submit to. Mine's about the spirit of a teen boy who wants to be an angel, who meets a cynical high school girl, it takes place in current time but also has fictional fantastical locations. I have a lot of personal development and struggles and interactions that could technically go under drama, BUT i feel because my story isn't romance typical drama readers won't subscribe or like it? Fantasy or supernatural is obvious, but i don't know which one. Mine could technically go under gripping, epic or feels, wondering which category is the most strategic. Gripping has less competition, but stories under that category aren't as well noticed as fantasy or drama. And you can't change the main category fml 
Comic's not up yet but here's the some samples of my art style: http://instagram.com/peiweicomic25
Ahh can't decide! I have a feeling since chances for winning are slim, I should just use this contest as a chance to gain followers and the longer I wait, the more obscure I'll risk becoming 
Most of the popular entries seem to have submitted before early July.
