Why are Authors and Translators allowed to artificially boost their ratings by delete bad reviews? I have tried to leave 3 star constructive reviews on some of these LNs or Original LNs on this site and they are deleted, with in just a few hours to a day, by the Author. It is very easy to have a HIGH star rating when these Authors are artificially boosting their ratings by being allowed to delete all or most of the 3 star or lower reviews. Some of these authors say that these people are all trolls and ask their 10k-30k+ readers to go leave a bunch of 5 star reviews to offset the bad "troll" reviews (in the author notes at the bottom of the chapter).

For an example the "Author of Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos" keeps deleting all his low star reviews or opinions on their LN. Now I know some may say that the review must be saying something inappropriate or cussing the author out. So, Ill leave an example of what the review was:

"The question I have: Are there ever going to be any normal girls in this LN that arn't going to be chasing after the MC? Why does every single girl claim that all guys are discussing, perverted, lecherous, and only want to grab them and do dirty things to them outside of the MC? It is fine when it is a few or several girls with the MC or chasing the MC, but it is EVERY single girl in the story that is HOT for him.

There are almost no normal girls or guys in the story. All but 2 of his entire guild (Familia) is made up of his Harem of girls that are chasing after him or sleeping with him. Several of the girls he sleeps with only wanted him because they saw all the other girls dating him and sleeping with him. Another girl just wanted to have someone take care of her so she can lay around the house and not have to do anything in life. Why couldn't these types of girls, that have no real relationship with the MC, be used as normal girls in this LN and have them find other guys to have relationships with? This would have made the LN a lot better. At this point it seems that all the normal guys in the LN must not be guys at all, but must be cross dressing girls that like to go around looking and dressing like guys. That is the only reason I can find for why these girls with no relationship to the MC don't go after them instead of the MC."

Anyway, that is the type of reviews being deleted. But, why are the authors allowed to artificially boost their ratings by deleting them? It makes it hard to know if you want to waste your time reading a LN when the reviews and ratings are being manipulated.

    I know what you mean. It's really annoying if an author delete a review especially if that review is constructive criticism. I think WN added this feature because some users kept on posting 1star spam review and they just don't have the manpower to delete those reviews thus they gave the responsibility to the authors. You must admit, it must be quite annoying to the authors to see 1star rating review full of nothing but emojis. So I understand if they want to delete those. πŸ˜…

    But of course, there would be a downside. Some authors tend to abuse this 'delete' feature just to boost up the rating of their novels. I wish they just delete those spam reviews and retain the truly constructive ones.

      Sighgray It is to bad there isn't a report system where we can report authors or translators that are abusing the system. If there were enough reports QI/WN could punish them with removing the use of this function for a few weeks or months at a time. This would help to stop this artificial boosting of their ratings.

        SorcererCat because WN gave them that power. Unfortunately, some writers have no idea how lucky they are to receive constructive reviews. Or any feedback to be honest. Imo, it's bad form to delete constructive feedback someone took the time to post. I wouldn't do it regardless of my feelings. That's just me.

        Sighgray I remember one book faced 1 star spam bullying because of it. So, in this respect is understandable to delete those reviews. It's the only power a writer has in that respect.

        I guess troll and spam reviews would be the exception and reason for deleting, since they hold no opinion on the book or author's writing. Their purpose is to annoy.

          Veronica8 I agree. It is just to bad there isn't something implemented that allows us readers to stop these authors/translators from abusing the system.

          How about those only emoticons reviews? Or just a bunch of letters that really has no words? Just to have a lot of reviews? Or what purpose? Isn't that there should be a system not to allow those kind of reviews right? Spamming to show that a lot of reviews?

            Elise_Elleneth The only problem in implementing a program for this would be that they just need to get some real words or sentences that don't have anything to do with the LN and spam that instead. I agree though. I really dislike those reviews. It use to be a LOT better on QI/WN and didn't have reviews like that. For about the first 2 years of the site most reviews actually had something to say. There were still some who would only say " Great Novel Great Novel". It wasn't as bad as it is now though.

            These types of reviews really do make it hard to find legitimate reviews to read and see if you want to read the LN. They also flood out people how leave reviews about what they have read and wondering about if such and such thing changes later on in the story.

            And some of us can't be bothered to even delete the spam emoji reviews πŸ˜‚. It depends on the author, but it's unusual for a author who has a novel that has so many ratings to spend so much time and effort to go through and delete bad reviews πŸ€” because they'd have to go through a LOT.

            SorcererCat I am an author myself and I get a lot of 1 star review when the one making it doesn't even read my book that's what I delete πŸ˜† I got a lot of low review too but I let it stay since it's from true reader even though they use mean words and insulting me so I think it depends on the author theirselves

            8 days later

            xeacarons I fully agree with you. But they did this to get people to put reviews up on new LNs that have little to no reviews. Maybe if they only gave exp once per LN or had an exp cap on this function it might help out.

              If authors remove 1 star reviews with 0 chapters read, it should automatically remove a 5 star review with 0 chapters read along with it. Otherwise, it doesnt matter what excuse authors give for removing 1 star reviews, if you're removing one because they didnt read your story, and not the 5 star ones for the same reason, you're doing precisely what the title says.

                sekmet022 Um, some authors remove 1 stars with 0 chapters read because of the emoji spam and XP spam? There's also some copy and pace reviews that users post on every single novel, indicating they didn't read it.

                  sekmet022 I do agree with you. The only issue is that it seems that the phone app lets people read the LN and when leaving comments shows 0 for chapters read. At least that is what some people, on WN, have said. And others read the LN and don't login so it shows 0 chapters for them too. I don't know how these people are able to never get their read chapters updated, but it does seem that some of them fall into this situation.

                    XOMatsumaeohana And authors dont have 5 star reviews with the same thing? C'mon man.. lets not piss on people and tell them its raining, we both know that for every 1 star review that gets removed, theres a 5 star thats just as worthless. The only reason authors dont remove those 5 star reviews with tons of emojis or "expexpexpexp" is because it makes their novel's rating look better. Justify it all you want, i frankly find the double standards fairly amusing, but it pretty much means any author that practices this has 0 credibility/integrity, both as a human being and as an author.

                    SorcererCat In the end, its not really about the 0 chapters read, since anyone can click "Read" on the novel, then scroll down a couple of chapters so that it shows something other than 0 chapters read when they review. The main problem is the content of the reviews, a 1 star "This book sucks." should share about the same credibility as a 5 star "This book is great". Yet we both know only one of these will be getting removed. Reviews are not actually being used for reviewing, they're treated instead as a comment section to spam in without properly judging the contents of the novel.

                      sekmet022 I agree with you. Personally I wish they would get rid of both. I want to know why it was GREAT or why it was CRAP. All these spam reviews that say nothing or give no reasons are just a bunch of garbage and a waste of space.

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