Originally posted by BDSM_Tourguide
The review system has been updated. The descriptions are much better now than they were six months ago. I think the rating system is probably fine the way it is and improving upon it any further would be counterproductive, in my opinion.

B: Generally speaking, I too find that the rating system is easier to use since Jinn put in place the system Marcus proposed several months ago. One of our most prolific reviewers - Hyphen666 - has mentioned numerous times that he finds the descriptions that go with the various rankings to be constraining. I understand what he is saying, but I think that they are useful, albeit imperfect, guidelines. The new ratings help to define, in relative terms, what a '6' or an '8' should mean -- making the ratings more both more consistent and more meaningful.



What you, as a reader and as a reviewer, have to do is to use your judgement and assign a rating based upon how you enjoyed the story. If you thought the story you read was superb and couldn't be improved upon at all, then give it a 9 or 10. If you thought the story was great, but the author really needed a spellchecker, then rate it slightly lower. So forth and so on...

B: The new system has, I think, made for tougher (but much more accurate) ratings over all; I can't prove it, but I suspect that in the old system almost half of the ratings were 10's. Readers who liked a story saw lots of other stories given 10's and felt that anything less would be unflattering.

B: But with the new system one can give a good but not world class story a '7' or an '8' without fear, I hope, of hurting the author's feelings. And even stories that need a fair amount of work (4, 5, or 6) can show promise and deserve constructive encouragement.

B: Scores of 1, 2, and 3 I reserve for those authors who, in my imperfect judgment, didn't make a serious effort to make the story a pleasure to read -- by permitting numerous spelling, grammar, diction, errors. Huge paragraphs are a big turn-off for me, too.



It is perfectly possible to write a poor review

B: Hey, my reviews aren't that poor ;-)


and be nice about it.


B: My niceness quotient went up considerably after someone (perhaps someone whose story I had reviewed harshly, but perhaps not) trashed one of mine. :-)

B: Marcus also suggested that we should use different names for authoring, posting to the forum, and reviewing. Perhaps he is right, but it would be nice to think that we are all adults here and can accept impersonal criticism in that vein.

Many people here do it all the time. If we can get boccaccio out of hiding, I'm sure he'll agree.
B: Boccaccio is not in hiding -- he's just an idiot. :-)

B: Trying to write two full-length stories at the same time (one of them under another name) is just stupid. And he has lost a couple of weeks to business travel in the last couple of months. So he hasn't had much time to work on his own stories, let alone all of the other stories here. But one of the two stories (not the interminable Jade Pavilion II unfortunately) is nearing completion, and maybe he'll be re-entering the reviewing lists in the next month or so.

Boccaccio