How to solve the versions problem?

Sounds like you need an editor, or trusted raters. Give certain people, (IamMark and Twiggy for instance) their own coloured star and get them to ad their star to the tabs that deserve it, so tabs that have 5 ordinary stars but no ‘Raters’ star can be avoided, you get the gist

The other factor here is participation in ratings. I make an effort to rate every tab I use, meaning play through more than 3 times. That gives me enough exposure to know if A) the song is something I can play at my current skill level and how good/accurate the tab is. The more people who submit objective ratings the less the inaccurate ratings will matter.

If the tab page showed the info on each rating given to the tab it would help. Removing the anonymity would quickly identify cases of your scenario 2. I think the mechanism would be simple: If you submit a rating it also auto-submits a comment documenting the rating.

It's one thing to simplify a song so someone of lower skill (raising my hand here) can play it. To me that's an acceptable reason to have multiple versions of a tab, but the simplified version should be noted as such. And I can see both sides of the debate for how it should then be rated: 5-Stars for being useful, or 3-Stars for being partially accurate to the original.

That might be what we need to define first - what a 5-Star rating should means, and a 4-Star, etc.

But using a 5-Star rating like some people use Like on Facebook is not right.

Another thing – has anyone else noticed how every single new tab that is submitted is rated 5 stars, like, within minutes after it's been posted? As awesome as it would be if everyone here was a bass-playing genius, that's simply not the case.

So, show of hands: How many of you folks have been rating your own tabs? Because you're not only misleading people who want to learn how to play the songs, you're also compromising the integrity of what this place is about.

I would love for raters' names and the ratings they gave to be visible, because it would show you who the assholes are who rate others' tabs lower than their own, even when those other tabs are more accurate. Case in point:

I was thinking of tabbing Doesn't Remind Me, by Audioslave. We already have five versions, but none of them are accurate. The most accurate is version 3; that version was duplicated exactly by someone for version 5 – yet both versions 3 and 5 – which are, again, identical – are rated either equal to or lower than all the other versions, yet none of the other versions are even close. Which tells us the folks who rated those other, much more inaccurate tabs probably rated the better ones lower so theirs would get more views. And despite versions 3 and 5 being identical, one is rated lower than the other. Pfft!

As has been stated many times, it's those pricks abusing the ratings that are hurting this site the most. Multiple versions isn't the problem; dishonest rating is.