Gourmet_DAO I just wrote a review about a book, can we tell the book? and it got deleted by the author. I do not know why authors have the right to delete real criticism. obviously the synopsis of that book was painting a false image of that book. I read all free chapters, 34 chapters, and the synopsis was kept untouched. So thats what I wrote in my review, saying the synopsis was wrong and misleading.
So in the end reviewers get muted by authors. I do not think that is a healthy way to go around dealing with critizism.
Is there anyway to still make our voices known because this way it just is dictatorship on authors side.

      before_after Wow?! And how many stars have you set? Was he correct in communicating with the author? If so, then I am amazed at this fact!

      I personally leave reviews 3 stars, calmly. One dude stopped by and gave me 1 star, but he didn’t discuss my novel, he said that I’m bad, that my romance is bad, that my English is not good and I don’t have the right to write in such English. Well, if we Vulcans would win the Cold War, now I would criticize him for his bad Vulcan. But I have an English third language, I do not justify my mistakes, but I strive to learn from them.

      In short, I deleted his review, he did not even read the novel, he only looked at chapter 1.

      If you come to me and appreciate my romance, you will be objective, you will not swear, give me advice, I won’t remove you, even if you give me 2 or 3 stars! I will appreciate your honest review. The rating is not important to me right now. I want to improve my writing.

      So why don’t they try to evaluate my work?

      I am writing 6 novels. Many ideas. A lot of materials on the history of the Silk Road. I want to popularize this topic.

      My content is interesting, but the grammar is lame, I can’t use grammals, we don’t have any conversion in the country, and my old computer doesn’t pull large programs. I write as I can. The text is difficult to read, but you can understand the general meaning. If you don’t worry much about bad English, then try to evaluate the plot and content.

      My 6 work (I rewrote 5 chapters - 6 have not yet adjusted) on the advice of a reviewer. It seems a little better.

      Waiting for your honest review - https://www.webnovel.com/book/15195393805364505/The-Adventures-of-Treasure-Hunters

          LostInFictions hm alright so lets say readers are just misunderstanding the writer, but what about the writer writing a misleading synopsis? Telling one thing but just going somewhere completely different?
          I read this novel and 34 chapters in it did not go anywhere. Synopsis talks about MC getting the powers to change himself literally shapeshifting and working on his revenge. 34 chapters into the story and all I see and read is a teenage lovestory. Now I wrote that into my review and get angry comments of the author saying I only look for faults in novels and then "shittalk" them. Of course said author deletes my review.
          Is this a case of me not understanding the author? Or plain author deceiving potential readers?

              Gourmet_DAO you talk about taking a class to learn how to write a review. But not everyone will take that class. As long as the person is not direspectful to you and clearly and honestly gives their opinion on the book, then no matter what star ratingyou give them I don't see why the author has the right to delete the review. In the end of you were with a publishing company and your book was published, you would not have the option to delete every review you found unpleasant just because you did not like it. That goes for any field people work in.

                  Gem4Life This is an interesting question. On the one hand, the right to choose, on the other, the strength and work of the reviewer.

                  If you were given an honest review without going over to the personality of the author, without being rude to him, without calling him names, objectively giving an assessment of his work. By suggesting ways to correct errors in your opinion. Then the author must find the strength to leave a review. If he does not agree with your assessment, then you can discuss this. At the same time, everyone can remain in their own opinion. But delete the review because of this is not worth it.

                  But there is still such an aspect, I personally don’t give a damn about the rating because I like it, I don’t get any money from it, I haven’t concluded any contracts, so I’m ready for honest criticism.

                  But there are those who receive money, and apparently in this case negative reviews affect the rating and cash receipts.

                  In the end, now in the world money means more than an objective assessment of the work of the author IMHO.

                    Gourmet_DAO I gave 2 stars and gave my opinion why I did so.
                    Writing Quality 4: there were still mistakes, but overall better then majority of novels
                    Stability of Updates 5: daily updates
                    Story Development 1: no developement since it went a completely different route, also on that route nothing happened
                    Character Design 1: no idea how the people look like, only general feelings, no real thoughts
                    World Background 1: no description of environement or any kind of information, not even info dumps

                    I mean if the author would talk to me or even something, but if you as an author just go around calling people "shittalkter" and then delete their reviews, while outrightly deceiving your potential readers with that synopsis and misleading tags, isn't it the author and not the reader/reviewer?

                    The thing which irks me the most is that synopsis, talking about one thing but after 34 chapters nothing is touched.

                        before_after This is simply disrespect to the readers! This is a lie. Yes, and swear ?! This is a low level, bad manners. This is just not fair! Call someone, actually open the door to the room, throw a grenade and close the door. This is tin!

                        For example is like that:

                        If you do not agree with the review, you can discuss it, if you do not like it, you can write to the reviewer - I do not want to talk with you anymore. But to call oneself, to insult another person, it is at least vile, low. But now, as they explained to me at the forum, the modern world (I used to call it Western, but it is just modern) has abandoned the old morality, calling it archaic. This is probably why the usual norms of behavior in modern people are different from those that were before. Now being a scum is the norm, and being a polite person, respecting other people, trusting them, is considered archaism from the Paleolithic.

                        Well, with such an attitude towards the world, towards people, one does not have to expect another.

                        But I do not like such a modern world. It’s good that so far such phenomena have not become widespread in our country. How wonderful it is to live in an archaic world where there is still morality!

                            Elude Honestly, I wouldn't have replied because I know where this is heading and I prefer keeping myself out of unnecessary arguments and this truly is one.

                            You cleared that you aren't trying to throw any shade at anyone but I believe you are. Your tone says it. Anyways, this comment wasn't for you which I know that you already know. I sincerely wish, you had tried to understand the context before quoting me.

                            I talk from the knowledge I possess. I don't agree to what you are saying. I can share stuff that would back my point if I wish to. I don't mind agreeing if you show me one. Nobody in life knows everything. If you are going to teach me something that I don't know or have different perception about - I would be glad to learn.

                            But here are some quick things which I think you should think about before defending. No, please don't tell me that you weren't here to do that for I would have a little problem in accepting that.

                            I didn't even know who this author was. Perhaps, nobody in this thread except for the thread maker did. If you could read my earlier comments in this thread, I did not support the thread entirely for I didn't know how the novel was and what the TM wrote in her review that was deleted. Later, the author herself/himself appears in the thread - writes almost an essay - and TAGS people. Now I wouldn't have checked the thread and even replied had I not been tagged.

                            The author explained what a constructive criticism is. Since he/she spent time in tagging me, I genuinely decided to take a look and I did that, and dropped by a feedback with the errors that I found from my level of knowledge. Are you, by any chance, trying to say that the readers aren't supposed to do that? Sure, changing the stuff or not is up to the writer. No reader forces the writer to do that but you, here, are calling me out for the CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM that I wrote which absolutely falls under the manner decided by the author herself/himself?

                            Your words - It's not really something to nitpick about.

                            Why would you tell me and why do you think I would listen to you about the things that I should nitpick about and those I shouldn't? Ah, I don't think anyone here is a kindergarten kid to need it to learn from anyone.

                            Having said that, I apologize if this offends you but your tone has offended me as well even though I am sure you might not have meant to. This thread has become a headache which I honestly wish to stay away from for I am already suffering from CVST which anyway fulfils my daily dose of headache. Kindly do not misunderstand and think that I am pointing at you. I am saying it in general about this particular thread.

                            Cheers.

                                before_after Hey! I am so sorry because I am not sure which post you have quoted but I presume it is the one where I shared my disappointment when my readers failed to understand my character.

                                It's not really about misunderstanding the writer but rather about not understanding the characters the way writers want their readers to. In my case, I blamed myself for I truly believed that I ridiculously failed in making them connect to the FL enough to even try to understand things from her perceptive.

                                You've to forgive me because I can't give you an answer for

                                • I haven't read the story.

                                • I have got no idea what you wrote in the review.

                                But honestly, should I tell you something if you don't mind? Let it go. Let the story go. Let your review go (which I truly feel bad about). I get your disappointment towards the misleading synopsis but let's just be a little lenient considering that writers are also humans. Tell me, isn't it possible to begin with a thought - write a synopsis - and then go in some different direction? We aren't robots to work exactly according to what is pre decided. Often, it happens that, we begin writing with a thought, think of the entire story but it goes somewhere else while writing. Sure, there are talented authors who figure out everything beforehand and make sure it goes the same way but it's not the case with everyone.

                                It would be very nice if we can be a little less harsh but even if we can't - can we not let it go? Just think about it. Why should we invest our time in something that we don't like? (The disappointment of having already invested time is another thing but... it's okay.) What are we going to achieve by getting frustrated and by overthinking over - why did someone delete our reviews? I have said this in this thread earlier also and I would say it again - it makes no difference. The better option is to move on and find the stories that you enjoy reading.

                                Life is awfully short to invest even a single minute on the things that you don't like.

                                Cheers.

                                    Why is this thread still a thing? Most of the people talking now are just repeating resolved talking points and responding to people? For what?
                                    This thread was over when I left my review and the author had nothing to say.
                                    What are you adding to this thread?

                                      LostInFictions However, these are golden words! Life is too short to spend it squabbling. We write on the forum, but because of this we do not have enough time to write our stories.

                                      I think that this topic has already exhausted itself. In the end, let everyone do what he wants, until it violates the rules and archaic ethics of the 20th century.

                                      It’s a pity time for all this. Personally, I’m going to write an update now. And I will not write more in this thread.

                                      Sorry, but I won’t answer here anymore. I feel sorry for my time.

                                      All peace, happiness and creative inspiration!

                                        To anyone and everyone who is reading this - I apologize, if my any comment has offended you. I assure you that it was never the intention. I am someone who prefers a respectful discussion even with the different viewpoints. However, I believe, it is solely my mistake to step in when it's clearly not even a month since I joined this place. I should have stayed back and see how things work here prior to getting here because in that case, I would have never stepped in, because my peace of mind, right now, is truly more important than anything else. I am going to stay away from now onwards.

                                        Thank you!

                                          LostInFictions you are right about letting it go, but then again isn't it plain deception of potential readers? Not even talking about the rating, because that is messed up anyway.
                                          At least can a reader not expect some kind of sincerity if there is a synopsis and 34 chapters in it is untouched? I read 2 other reviews saying the same, that the synopsis does not match and they are 66 and 70 chapters into the story. Of course after mine was deleted those 2 (3.5stars) got deleted too lol.

                                          anyways letting it go now, downtalking authors with deceptive synopsises do not deserve my time.

                                              LostInFictions I know how you feel, in regards to this thread. Personally if I knew how to delete it, I would. I originally wrote it to vent, and get my frustration at the situation off my chest. And possibly find people who have experienced something similar. Never wanted it to take such a twisted turn, and as the creater of this thread I deeply apologize for any negative affect it has had on you. I'm sorry.

                                                  Lilliny Well I think that it is some kind of venting for what is happening, with all the power authors have over the review section.
                                                  Venting about not being able to voice their opinion, although it was written in a respectful manner.
                                                  Venting about the blatant deception using the synopsis and tags.
                                                  Venting about possible waste of spirit stones.
                                                  Most of all venting about the down talking and unapreciation from the authors.

                                                      Gem4Life Oh, no, please don't. You have done nothing to apologize about. I have said it to you earlier also that I do get where you and a lot of other ones are coming from. It's okay. It really is. Things happen. We learn from them and move on. That's about it.

                                                      Cheers.

                                                      : )

                                                          the review system was not implemented for you to critisize and give low stars to novels. It was made so wn can show how many 4 and 5 star ratings they have on their site.
                                                          reviews which are lower than 4 stars and contain sound criticism get deleted either by the author or wn. so why bother.

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