If you are posting 1-star review only to test whether the author deletes it, then it won't be any surprise if he does so
Is there a way to report someone?
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MotivatedSloth no, I really just don't think the novel is good.
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FREEPALESTINEplz
just don't mind him. the authors are allowed to manage the reviews as they want. some don't like critics even constructive ones, so delete all that don't go their way. just don't mind him, if he deletes your review and this review is important for you, post it as a chapter comment, the authors can't delete it. if his work isn't worth your time, just read something else and don't even bother writing something this author won't appreciate. in general, don't pay too much attention to the reviews and ratings, particularly ratings, when you see the criteria (quality of a story has the same weight that the stability of releases which has the same weight that the writing quality), it's not a good system, especially if you remark that the author deletes bad ones.
FREEPALESTINEplz So what exactly are you reporting the author for? Deleting reviews? So what? even if he/she is doing that, is that considered abuse, a personal attack, harassment, pornography, advertisement or spam? Since it's none of those, and it doesn't harm anyone, why exactly is there a need to report him/her?
Tomoyuki More like a scam, not exactly that, but kinda on that line, since if I saw a 4.8, 4.9, 5 starred book then I would think, it's really good and then read it but would be disappointed by the content. Basically waste of time.
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Hater_Beyond That's super subjective, because what is a 4.9 star book to someone else is not to you. How can you accuse of it being a scam when there is no clear definition of what deserves a specific score? You can contest that a story doesn't deserve 5 stars, but obviously the people who rated it 5 stars disagree with you and will argue that it's not a scam.
Also, don't just look at the score. Read the reviews themselves. If they're repeating the same thing over and over again or praising the book for certain tropes (OMG! Overpowered ruthless MC! Harem! I love it!), then that should raise several flags.
Tomoyuki I am talking about the deletion of reviews to keep the good ones at the top, making the novel reach a 4.8,4.9,5
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Hater_Beyond And this is something to be reported? Are you suggesting that authors be banned or blacklisted for such behavior? Because they "wasted your time"?
Tomoyuki Not exactly banned or blacklisted but other limitations could be set for their scammy behaviors.
While authors being able delete reviews that are spam or harassment is important, it also allows some authors to abuse the function. It allows a novel that is legitimately unreadable (e.g. lorem ipsum translated through 5 languages) to have a 5 star rating. This is unfair for authors who have readable novels who do not delete reviews containing constructive criticism because higher rated novels are more likely to get views. This is also unfair for readers who want to rely on ratings to find well written novels.
Hater_Beyond Let me put it this way. You are looking at this from the wrong angle.
If you are unhappy about your reviews getting deleted, you should be requesting that the authority invested upon writers to delete reviews at their own discretion be removed. You should be suggesting ways to implement a fair and impartial moderation system where a third party decides whether a review is abuse and should be deleted.
Not call for a report function or demand some sort of punishment for "scam" behavior. Because right now it seems to me that you are more interested in raising pitchforks and burning writers at stake than you are over questions of honesty and integrity.
Tomoyuki When did I "call for a report function" or "demanded some sort of punishment." A report function or a punishment doesn't have to align with "Limitations" that I mentioned.
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Tomoyuki You should be suggesting ways to implement a fair and impartial moderation system where a third party decides whether a review is abuse and should be deleted.
Isn’t this just a reverse for an option of reporting authors that delete reviews with constructive criticism to keep their 5 star rating? You’re kinda shootin urself in the foot with this sort of argument)
i'd like a banner next to the rating saying: "this author removes negative reviews, do not take into account an artificially boosted rating"
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Sythcake That makes no sense whatsoever. How am I shooting myself in my foot? Royal Road does this, and it works far better than leaving the power to delete reviews to writers. Obviously a third party will be more impartial than a writer who wants to preserve his/her 5 star rating. Even better, they will get rid of those emoticons and fake 5 star reviews that artificially inflates the ratings. Isn't this better than reporting authors, which absolutely does nothing unless you're that determined to ban/blacklit them?
If you're the reader who wrote a super-long review with constructive criticism - which choice is better for you? To report the writer for deleting your review and thus wasting your time, just so, what, you can get him/her banned and blacklisted? Or to have a third party rule your review in your favor and make sure your review stays up there on the site for other readers to read? Obviously the latter, not unless you admit to trolling the author and writing because you expect your review to be deleted. Or you're deliberately wasting your time writing the review just so you can get the author banned/blacklisted.
Hater_Beyond
Then why are you jumping into the conversation and replying to my post, which was a response to 5Head_Osopopototo on why demanding for a function to report the author is irrational? Also you claimed that the whole thing is a "scam", and complained about writers "wasting your time". You were particularly fixated on "scammy" behaviors. If that was not what you meant, then clarify what limitations you want, because right now it sounds like you're disagreeing with me in order to support 5Head_Osopopototo's demand for a report author function.
"Bro just delete your *, your novel and your ideas of a story is a waste of space. You cant write a fucking novel about summoning you piece of horse *..."
"Just delete your story, and fuck off, you piece of ****"
"Kill yourself, ur story is ****"
"What is dis garbage?"
"Fuck you, author! Just kill urself!"
I receive comments like these on a regular basis. Can you guess what happens if you make a report function for readers? They'll just report me for no reason other than they hate my story. I never delete these reviews or comments, but because they obviously hate me, they will abuse the report function to get me banned or blacklisted. So instead of preventing writers from abusing the power to delete reviews, you instead decide to give readers power to abuse. You know, I got driven out of Royal Road because people spammed 0.5 ratings on my story everyday (different from reviews, which are moderated), to the extent I just deleted my account and left the site. And now I'm seeing people here call for functions to allow readers to harass writers by reporting them. It doesn't matter what your intention is behind this, if readers hate my story, for example, they will report me for no reason other than because they hate my story just so they can get me banned.
Probably you guys want to consider the implications of this before suggesting such measures.
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Tomoyuki I feel you may be taking this too personally. Perhaps a report function would be okay if it simply escalated a case to a Webnovel employee to review if the deletion of a review by an author was justified or simply points inflation, whereby in the later case, the author (perhaps after several strikes) has their review deletion ability revoked.
Now before you make the case that there would be too many reports for any number of staff to handle, the reports could first go through some regex matching against a database of deleted reviews. If the ASCII content of the review (to exclude emoticons) does not repeat itself several times in a row, does not have a 90% match to some threshold (let's say 20) of deleted reviews by other authors, and does not contain pre-flagged hate speech (e.g. "kill urself"), then it would escalate to a staff member to determine.
To discourage false reporting, IP bans could be leveraged against the reviewers especially in the case of hate speech. Honestly, IP bans aren't harsh enough for those who engage in cyber bullying, but there's not much else that can be done that would be more severe. Perhaps make their coins cost more?
FREEPALESTINEplz A good novel or a bad is all subjective though. You don't like it doesn't mean others don't like it
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I got 3 1 star reviews in one night because two characters had a boring conversation according to that person. All three reviews were from 'different' level one accounts and said the similar thing.
A point to note is that the conversation is on chapter 247, so a level 1 account already raises certain flags.
Just imagine how spammed this community will be if the authors won't be able to delete such spam targeted reviews with no real constructive criticism or judgement of the story. Anyone would be targeted and forced to delete their account once they are to tired
Ohhh, we need more oil to fuel fire in this thread
Demonic_angel This kind of spam and the botting that happens in WPCs is the reason reviews from Level 1, 2, and 3 accounts, even if genuine, seem like bots and scam if you don't open their profiles to check. :cry: