Tomoyuki I was being hasty writing "all these authors" in my previous comment, it was an unnecessary hyperbole. From you comments here, I even believe you to be very reasonable. And I do not know what novel you've written, so I do not know either how you treat reviews.

The discussion went in this direction because, from what I read, people are assuming THE_UNHOLY_ONE didn't write a decent review, even though he gave it 1-star. Look at the first reply to this thread. Immediate put down of any reason to post a 1-star review.

But knowing the reality, the fact that you left 1 star review, means that you most likely did it just to annoy the author, making you the bad person.
There are 5 ways in which you judge the novel, and if you can't find even a single possitive thing, then you wouldn't read so far to get invested enough to leave a review. Simple logic

This is why I pointed out that, by this logic, the same could be said about a 5-star review. If you can't find a single negative thing, then you probably weren't looking for it, and probably shouldn't be reviewing. I do not find this to be very sound logic. At least here on WN, where the large majority of readers are amateur reviewers, it doesn't seem to be good reasoning.

That's why a 1-star review saying "I don't like this, it's hard to read and/or follow" should be just a valid as a 5-star review saying "This is the best I've read, very funny/interesting story. Can't wait for more". Even more so for authors (not you..) who doesn't delete 5-star spam reviews, they shouldn't delete 1-star spam reviews either. All reviews, no matter the score, should be judged by the same standards by the author. Can't put low scoring reviews to a higher standard than high scoring.

All of this boils down to that the first reply in this thread should have said:
"Authors have the ability to delete any review, because Webnovel does not have the required manpower to moderate reviews themselves. Therefore, some authors delete spam reviews regardless of the star rating, while some authors delete low score reviews to maintain a fake high rating. This unfortunately won't change before a better system gets implemented by Webnovel."

      JakeRay Oh, as it turned out, the review he wrote was: "Read if you like masochist slave protagonist that makes stupid decisions also he purified the keys of the girl that almost beat him to death."

      I mean, if he actually had a legitimate reason why he thought the story deserved a one star rating, I'm all for it, but this just sounded vague and unhelpful. That's why I said I understood why the author deleted it. If The Unholy One had been more specific and provided more elaboration on what exactly construed a "stupid" decision, and how that led to unbelievably contrived situations, unlikeable characters or repetitive slapstick scenarios whose humor grew old, I would understand and agree, but...yeah.

      Sorry, not getting enough sleep. I shouldn't be taking everything so personally.

          There's a popular saying: Do not force your beliefs to anyone. If they wish to be stuck the way they are, deluding themselves and look bad in the process. It's not your loss... You did your part, rather than putting yourself in a stressful situation. Let them be!

          I said it once already, it is all about respect for me.

          Does a 5 star review with emoticons is disrespectful to me? Not really. At worst, i'm just sad i couldn't get a proper review, but if the review is not fake at least you know someone genuinely enjoyed your work.. There's also children here. They can review however they want. I would delete however spamming reviews, for example when a reader publish the same review once or several times everyday.

          The 1 star review, sorry to say it, but it is almost always disrespectful. I haven't received one yet, but i'm pretty sure the day i get one the review will have nothing worth to keep.

          If the purpose of the review is to help the author to improve, then the rating doesn't matter. If i was reviewing a novel i would let the same rate as the current rating average, but with my detailed rating and constructive critics in the review itself. The author can delete it, since my opinion and advices have been conveyed.

          If my purpose is to make anyone aware that this story is awful and no one should read it, i'm then reviewing for the readers. And the line between defaming the author and informing other readers is quite thin. I could keep such a review, if the reasons made sense as a warning for new readers. I could even pin it. But as before, respect first. The author has the right to decide how he/she feels about this in my opinion.

          Don't be naive, though. If i decide right now to do a false constructive review, falsely respectful, but with the hidden purpose of libelling your story, i can really do some damage, especially for these new stories that don't have yet all these 5 stars spamming reviews to drown the bad fish.

          In the end, this debate is endless. Want to keep 1 star review because you think it's fair, at your own risk. But in general, i think an author should pin a 5 star and 2,5-3.5 star constructive reviews(if he has some). It gives the pro and cons for a new reader under 2 differents perspective and that's an honest behavior from the author.

          I've had a fair number of my reviews deleted. They are solid reviews presenting aspects for each and every star.

          At first I thought: 'This is the author removing everything that's not a five star review. Bloody idiot!"

          I sure some are, bloody idiots that is, but there are probably another reason to delete a review.

          An honest review pointing out weaknesses, say a 3.5 star review, simply becomes obsolete half a year later if the author acted on the pointers, rewrote earlier chapter and overall kept up the new and improved standards. In that case that once honest review becomes false.

            I agree with StenDuring

            What I wrote at the beginning, and what I am writing now, there are some improvements. I myself see this as an author. The comments of critics I take into account. rewrote one novel 4 times.

            I leave reviews in 3 or 2 stars. For all the time since February 2019, as I started writing, I deleted only 1 review. He was 1 star. Deleted, because the reader did not write anything constructive, did not offer advice. But he simply wrote "You are a fool, you are bad, a novel is shit" and a bunch of emojis. This does not draw on a review. And frankly, few write a classic review.

            Honestly, if they wrote me 10 reviews and scolded me, I would delete everything and write a request to the moderation service about furious trolling. But if the author appreciated my works and scolded the characters, even with 1 star, I would be glad.

            I am not very worried about the rating yet, I am writing because I want to share information about the Silk Road and history.

            Grammar has become a little better because I use two DePle machine programs skipping already written text in English, then Grammali.

            Something like this.

              StenDuring Agreed heartily.

              Though I do doubt of the latter case ever truly happening, to any large degree at least, because just from observation, writers don’t edit entire stories in order to make significant improvements. Writing here on WN is fast-paced, so writers are more likely to start a new story instead of honing a finished story like an author who’s looking to traditionally publish might. Few people are both interested to both improve and edit a story in its entirety. Sure, lots might claim that, and I do honestly believe they meant it. But they just never got around to actually fulfilling it in its completion. I could name those that do (of ppl and stories that I know) on one hand.

              So in that case, I hardly doubt your good reviews fell into the latter scenario. At one point, back during my review swap days, I was convinced I’d someday see a StenDuring review on every original book. (jk, but that would be nice, for readers and writers, maybe not you lol)

                  Tomoyuki
                  While the comment is directed at you, the accusation isn't really directed at you. It is directed at all authors who think that deleting 1 star reviews is justified because 'they aren't fair' while keeping all their ridiculous 5 star reviews. I'm just making a statement of my point of view. In my eyes, those authors are just hypocrites, and i'm quite annoyed with them tbh. There is no need for you to take it personally tho, unless you are doing the same thing. You say you don't, so good for you. I will take your word for it, but most aren't like you. I don't know you or your novels, but thanks for having integrity.

                    I rewrote the novel 4 times. But it still contains errors. need to rewrite it 5 times. Cut a lot. But I do not think that after his 5 rewriting, the novel will be read more. Such a tradition on WebNovel. The main thing here is to write more, even raw materials, publish 3500 words a day. Well, they wrote about this in another forum thread "How to collect a million views in a couple of months."

                    As builders say with us - to buy materials and do the work for money. Here, too, because quality does not always mean a large number of collections and views.

                      StenDuring Well, i have seen a couple of those. Low star review having a high number of likes and done many months ago. When you open the comments of the review tho, you can generally see either author or the readers correcting what is wrong with the review and making it obvious that the review is obsolete. Especially readers tho. There are many who comes to the aid. I mean, when i read reviews, i generally check the comments under it too to see what other readers have to say about it, but maybe that's just me? I don't know how the mind of majority works, but that's how i see it. There were a couple novels that i started reading after looking at the comments of some low star reviews, so i guess it can work positively too. At least in my case. Sometimes i see some good responses from authors with logical explanations refuting the review, and it kinda makes me more inclined to actually give the novel a chance. But there are also times authors basically lash out at the review. I generally stay away when i see that. So well, obsolete reviews aren't always have to be a negative in the grand scheme.

                        Chryiss

                        Peculiar. I received a number of "WTF" reactions from people reviewing my main. If the "WTF" from different people concerns the same thing I need to take a good look at that something.

                        In the end I totally rewrote some parts to fix what was obviously an error from my side. At the other hand I kept other parts since they were an integrated part of my storytelling (no I would never have written them if I wrote the story from scratch today).

                        Now I've chosen to let those reviews stay. They're a reminder of what I had to fix, but I can understand a reader reading those reviews scratching his/her head since the funny crap they're pointing at is long since gone.

                            MotivatedSloth You say like the authors don't troll in the opposite direction. Deleting any bad reviews while jumping on dupe accounts and continuously giving themselves 5 stars with nothing in the review but smiley faces or exp repeated. It's a crap system because current mod's "don't have the time" to review every report of potential trolling and Qi doesn't want to spend the extra money on a moderator whose only job would be that so they give the power to the author and as such some abuse to the max.

                            With this being said a 1 star review to try and even out the false positives, while a poor attempt ethically speaking, is "justified." In such an unbalanced system, with so few options, and the inattention of the admins, people will use what's available even if it doesn't seem "proper."

                                The_Unholy_One not all authors but personal feelings can play a factor such that even if you give a relevant review it'll still be deleted because they might be too sensitive or because your previous reviews might have seemed like trolling so just seeing your ID could be grounds for them to delete your review.

                                Of I know some do abuse this unbalanced system, like the author of Dual Cultivation, who will delete anything under 4 stars. With things as they are sometimes you just have to "shake it off and walk away."

                                  Interesting thread. My criteria for deletion is simple.

                                  If your review contains one of the following;

                                  1. Insults
                                  2. Slander
                                  3. Misinformation

                                  I'll normally reply to inform you of your infractions and then take a screenshot for both you and myself.

                                  Then, poof, it's gone. You're free to make a second one with whatever rating you want as long as it doesn't breach these terms.

                                    Kotario I don't see these as reviews, so yeah, fair grounds for deletion. Not sure if the screenshots is necessary, but it's good practice I guess.

                                    It's cool you inform peeps beforehand. I've never deleted a review since I tend to get them once a century. If I had to, I'd be inclined to inform the reviewer beforehand and reasons why out of respect. This activity is probably what I'd capture for record management reasons.

                                    To be honest, I'd probably just use the report function to manage those non-review types as I'm too lazy to bother.

                                    Yeah, overall, you have a nice set of guidelines. :thumbsup:

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