I think we're crossing wires here. You're talking about the WbA while I've been explicitly talking about the Library from the beginning. The Library isn't for authors; it's for readers. Stopping lurkers from rating stories in the Library isn't productive.

I don't have a strong opinion on restricting voting in the WbA subforum, but Sesc makes good points about it.

 

This is what I meant about the difference in opinion. There is nothing wrong with that, to my eyes. A review without a vote is worth ten votes without a review. That applies to both For Review as a reader, and WbA as an author, to me at least.

 

Forcing people to post isn't going to get you better critiques, imo.

About the WbA specifically, I can only give you my own personal experience. I like to write good reviews, and often spend some time thinking about my critique before posting it. Occasionally though, I just don't have anything else to say that hasn't already been said better, and the only thing left to do is to rate the fic and perhaps "thumbs up" the critique that said everything that I wanted to. What's the point of forcing a post out of me in such a situation?

There have been other periods of my life when I've been so damn busy with work that I haven't been able to leave a decent review in WbA for months. I still enjoy reading and rating in the brief moments of time that I have available, even if that's the only limited participation that I can have. I always come back to WbA and participate fully, but it's almost cyclic. I don't want to make a stupid one line post just so that I can rate a WbA fic during those busy times. It wouldn't help the author in any way.

If my rating your fic in WbA has no value to you, as you've said, then what is the concern if I rate it with no further interaction? You might as well just ask for star ratings to be removed from your WbA threads altogether. As a selective reader, I'd hate to see them go, and it would reduce my participation in WbA [in particular for reading unknown author's fics], but as you've said, WbA isn't there for me.

 

Your critique will look like this:

 

Sure, if all the moderators die out. If not, I imagine they'd be able to keep on top of it, just as they keep on top of the rest of the recently updated rules. The idea of 'Leave a Review' can't be that complex for DLP. FF.net sure, but we are supposed to be smarter people over here.

That said, your example is all your reviews ever tend to consist of, KrzaQ, so maybe I'm wrong.

But am I seriously being hounded out here for suggesting DLP puts a little stock in some intelligent - or at least more thorough - reviewing? How is that a bad idea?

 

I don't think it's the idea of more thorough reviewing that people disagree about, I think it's the idea that you can only rate the thread if you review. Frankly, I don't think that implementing that system will create any more thoughtful reviews. Personally, I do use how stories are rated as a guideline to check them out if I don't have that much time, but then again I'm just a reader.

I think if you want more intelligent reviews then you're going to have to go about it another way. I know personally I feel guilty a lot of the time if I don't review for a while since I tend to forget that what authors really need is critique to help themselves improve at writing. By the time I read something though odds are someone else has said everything else I would have to say that's useful. So, with your method implemented I would either have to leave a review that just rehashed what had already been said, or not rate the story.

If you do find reviews that confirm what other people have already said to be helpful (maybe to show it wasn't just one persons opinion) then I think your idea could have some merit to it. If you don't, I don't think that it will help at all. Maybe the best way to get more helpful reviews would be to get Vash to update his sticky again and to remind readers that WBA is primarily about helping authors improve, and as such more people need to review it and not just enjoy getting early previews at stories.

 

"Thumbs up" is effectively this.

Maybe.

I think that Jeram and GL had the right idea that an engineered solution would be better. If we can modify their method, or come up with a new one without significant drawbacks, then we'd be better off. Perhaps we should be soliciting ideas from folks who stalk other "instant draft feedback" writing sites and forums. Some of it might fit us here at DLP.

 

You won't find a single review with no justification from me.

Anyway, what you're trying to do isn't getting people to review more, but making people not want to rate stories, because they have to write a fucking essay or get warned/banned.

 

For the last time, fewer ratings that are justified are more valuable than masses of unjustified ratings, to me. It's evidently an unpopular opinion, not to mention one wherein the definitions of 'justified' are too flexible to be ironclad, but fuck it.

I'm not suggesting essays, even a single line of something they liked/didn't like is straightforward enough, or at least should be. If you have time to invest in reading a fic, and come back to rate it, how is two minutes' worth of feedback too much to fucking ask? And if it is, why bother with the WbA at all? Or with being able to leave comments on stories in The Review Board? Why not just have the rating?

Anyway, as said, obviously I'm in a significant minority on that one. I'm therefore fine with working out an alternative. I don't think the promotion of more feedback for writers - and readers - need be addressed with such vitriol, however.

 

Again, you won't get more justification, just less activity.

And besides, sometimes you just don't like something. The Library is meant to reflect what the DLP community likes and wants to read.

 

Here's my point - for the most part, I agree with GL on this. Namely because I enjoy feedback and good discussion on stories, and I feel that often times the thread rating system can exclude that, particularly in WbA.

But here's where I see the distinction - when it comes to the Library, while I would greatly appreciate a review every time someone decided to rate the thread, I also know that's a little unrealistic. With WbA, on the other hand, the entire purpose of the subforum is for writers to collect feedback and criticism on their work, and I think the thread-rating system there undermines that a bit. There, I think if people are going to slap ratings down, I think there should be some justification, given that its the entire bloody point of the subforum. And if you're like me and can do the rough statistical analysis of where rankings fall in, it's gets more than a little infuriating when somehow you accrue a set of 2 star rankings that come out of fucking nowhere, because there's no commentary in the thread to support it.

Now, granted, everyone isn't like me (thank God for that), but I still think there should be a modicum of justification for the WbA threads. The Library... eh, I'm inclined to be more forgiving here, simply because the author isn't always as heavily involved in those threads and thus probably won't be looking as much to those threads for the same sort of feedback he could get from WbA.

 

Yeah, WBA is a whole different issue. It's all about feedback for the author. I'd be inclined to scrap ratings in WBA altogether.

 

I'd get on board with that.

(and in turn I'd stfu about it)

I still think (in WbA) ratings being available after review would be better. The Review Board is a different kettle of fish.

 

No, man, not less votes. Not necessarily, at least, though I'd go for the no-rating-WbA idea. I simply value review, or review + rating, higher than I value a rating alone. Which is why I put 'unjustified' in front of 'ratings'. It's pretty straightforwardly written. Several times, in fact.

I honestly do not believe requiring comments to rate would equal less comments and ratings, in the long run, but specifically in WbA, more reviews (with or without ratings) are what is important. Unless you fundamentally disagree with that, too.

 

In case of the Library: I, as a reader, do not want to have to read reviews before reading the story. All I want to do is check the rating, and the more votes are there, the better.

I disagree completely. There's no way you're getting more reviews worth anything that way. Your idea will bring the same number of reviews as there are currently, in the long run, but you'll get less votes, maybe even less than reviews, since rating is pointless.

I agree that reviews are more important to authors, but I'm discussing that you're not suggesting anything that could help achieve that.

 

I've think the WbA subforum has become more of a mini FFN with discussion in it rather than what is was supposed to be...as a way for authors to receive critique on their work and improve.

Looking at the sub-forum, my problem is that firstly, the critique gets mumbled in between people just speculating on/discussing the story and all other sorts of comments like in normal threads. I think Vash has made the rules stricter now which should help improve this situation.

Secondly, people are probably forgetting that the authors are posting their stories here in this subforum before posting on FFN because they want critique. Your 1 or 5 star rating doesn't tell them squat about how to refine their work. So yeah, I'm with GL on this one, making reviews mandatory for rating, possibly with a sarcastic popup message informing them about the effort the author has put in, would essentially drive home the point the WbA is more for the authors and less for the readers.

This might reduce ratings but the benefit of the ratings is mostly for the readers ("hey, I have time to read one story so I'll read this 4.5 star story rather than the 4.44449 one")...hence their importance in the Review Board. The ratings still have some bearing in helping readers decide between piles of crap (of which there is very few) and upcoming classics. But they should still be able to do this with less but more credible ratings.

 

EDIT: I'm having second thoughts about this post. It isn't properly thought out, and there are multiple issues being conflated. Some authors are hostile to ratings in WbA and want them axed altogether. All of us want to encourage better and more numerous reviews. The two issues have nothing to do with each other and should be treated separately.

I'll leave it up in case someone finds it useful.

Original Post:

Do ALL authors want ratings removed from WbA, or just some? It'd be a bit of overkill if some authors find them useful. As a WbA reviewer I know that I find ratings very helpful and don't want them to just disappear.

I've got several ideas that attack this disagreement on ratings in different ways. If we can reach some kind of consensus that both authors and reviewers can agree on, then I'll put it up on UserVoice. Critique away.

Proposal #1: Allow authors in WbA to disable ratings when they start a WbA thread. Perhaps a checkbox or radio button in the New Thread dialogue.

We treat it like a trial. See how well it works. If there's a notable increase in reviews in non-rated threads, or the majority of WbA authors prefer it that way, then we can make it a default WbA New Thread setting.

Proposal #2:

If WbA users are helpful reviewers in WbA in general, then allow them to rate threads there without restriction.

Instead of forcing us to review in Thread A before we can rate Thread A, stop all users from rating threads in WbA unless they meet a suitable criteria that shows they're good WbA reviewers in general. Perhaps they have to have submitted 10/20/30[?] posts in WbA, or have 1-5 posts that WbA OPs [ie. authors] have found useful and thumbsed up. Are there other criteria that authors would find acceptable?

By rewarding good, or at least prolific, WbA reviewers with the extra functionality of rating threads, we'll be encouraging more reviews or better posting in WbA in general. Are there other rewards/functionality that we can give good reviewers in WbA?

Addendum 1: If we use the author "thumbs up" method, then perhaps allow users' "good reviewer" status to degrade over time. If they aren't maintaining their good reviews then have then have their ability to rate revoked. This wouldn't work if we base it on WbA post count, because we'd get folks regularly abusing the system with non-infringing but still useless posts just to keep their WbA post count up.

Are either of these proposals possible, Raven? I don't want to ask for impossible things. Can we do things like track whether a WbA OP has thumbsed up a user's post in WbA? Can we count a user's WbA posts?