Yes Authors Can and Will Delete Reviews/Comments - Open Sounding Board
- Edited
What I find truly frustrating with this review system is that we all have the same rating, good or bad stories.
My 4.8 is genuine (I don't say it is worth 4.8 though. 4.8 should be a near perfect masterpiece) : except for 1 star review at chap0 reading status, I've deleted every 5 stars spam reviews. I only keep one from each reader since we can't check our readers' profile anymore either.
It is frustrating because with this review system, my rating becomes worthlesss and even worse people will accuse me to manipulate my ratings. A too good rating basically becomes your worst enemy to bring new readers when it should have been the most trustworthy indicator to decide if a story is worth reading or not.
The problem is that even if you can prevent authors to delete bad reviews, there's still ways to keep a good rating with bots and alt accounts.
I have a long list of novels/authors that I could mention here that keep every 5 stars spam reviews and/or delete bad reviews(even legit ones). I could even give you a few that I suspect to use bots/alt accounts to drown their review section with spam 5 star reviews.
Now even if Webnovel doesn't have enough staff to create a real moderation team, there's one thing to implement that would fix 80% of the problem: Readers should only be able to review a story once. If at some point their opinion of the novel changed, they can just edit their former review.
Believe me... That's the first step.
KitKatxKK I agree 100% that one should read at least 10 chapters for a review (barring that each chapter isn't incredibly long, 10k+ word chapters and the novel only has 16 chapters - Looking at you The Lazy King... Great novel.) The earliest I've dropped a novel is 12 chapters, and that was only one novel. Others I've read at least to 30-40 before dropping. But those have always been because I personally didn't enjoy the route the story was taking and had nothing to do with the quality of the story. So I don't leave negative reviews since its purely a subjective reason for me stopping to read, and probably not that useful to others.
And when it comes to poor grammar... It doesn't really bother me. I notice it, but I've read so many translated novels that have awful grammar that I've given up caring about it. I just correct the grammar to myself and move on. If they want people to report bad grammar so they can fix it, I will sometimes attempt to make note of it and leave it as a comment so that it can be fixed for others.
- Edited
Arkinslize I like your thoughts just that there is a small problem. Readers can not edit their review. I already checked just now. I can delete the review, yes or reply to it but not edit. Additionally, i had to look for the review manually since i have no access to my own comments and review history, after the last update, which is another issue. Therefore, a good suggestion it is just needing a few small changes here and there to implament.
I like writing a second review on novels i love or feel that are underappreciated. Sometimes i may even forget that i reviewed a novel in my library. But again this is personal opinion and i am all for one review per novel as long as i can find it and somehow delete it or edit it.
camy011 The last one could be added on an update and have quite a possitive impact! I have read many reviews were the reader has nothing bad to say speciafically for the novel but it doesn't suit their taste. They ususlly leave a positive review give or take a star but they clearly do not recommend the novel. That could balance things out.
camy011 I actually really like to see how someone might have gone from just not loving it as of chapter like 29 to loving it so much they want to own everything about the novel by say chapter 152. To me having that chapter tick is like a really cool progression and also a motivator. I wonder if there is a way they could keep that chapter progression tracker and still make it so that you only could leave one review. Maybe if they auto put in what chapter you were on every time you edited your review. I dunno how this would work. It's just a pipe dream.But I like the multiple reviews for the chapter progression stats alone, But that's just a me thing. This is the only place I have seen it before and I really like it. XD
SIDENOTE and unrelated to anything. I really wish they would bring back the women to men novel readers shown on the novels front page again. I loved seeing what the audience ratio was made up of. Even if it was 90% unidentified, knowing that actually still helped me gauge my reading decisions on here sometimes. I know they still show the graph wheel for authors on our author stats. But I liked seeing the little people half/fully filled with color and sitting on the front page chilling.
What can I say. I like cute things.
giggles
Signing in for the participation reward
AriaKang is just salty cause her books are so bad every author leaves a bad review. Don't listen to her. Authors have every right to be a reader and review other book. If the book is bad, they will point that out but Aria thinks her novels are so good that she doesn't deserve any bad reviews. If that was the case, she would already be at the top or rankings but she is not. I wonder why. Cya.
Arkinslize I have the same problem, iin the last two days i have had three people rate the story one star with 0 chapters read, saying so many fake 5 star reviews so giving one star.
And i have left them up, but they don't even bother to check out the other one star reviews who have said the same thing
Dan_Ryder Shaming tactic really? :( objective....Please
- Edited
Self-absorbed readers who think too highly of themselves don't understand the simple fact that one star reviews insulting a novel is incredibly hurtful to the author. Whereas, the reciprocal where the author deletes a review is nowhere near the same to the reader.
The author spends hours and hours of their life producing a unique work. Even if some of the criticisms in a very negative review may be warranted it still does not change the fact that it is incredibly hurtful for novice authors who don't have a large base of support to offset the negativity. The reader has thousands of books that they can read if they don't like a certain one. There are also thousands of readers that will read a novel and have thousands of different viewpoints. Why does the reader think his thoughts are so important that he must make himself heard?
In a perfect world we would all agree to not harass authors even if we dislike their novel and authors would agree to not delete comments and reviews. But it's impossible for this to happen as there are bad actors in every case.
- Edited
john_john_OO Why does the reader think his thoughts are so important that he must make himself heard?
john_john_OO The author spends hours and hours of their life producing a unique work.
So according to your logic, someone who spends hours and hours to create something does not deserve critique or anything negative in return and the person consuming it has to either like it, then he is free to voice that, or shut up?
Well-founded reviews with several hundred words of 4 stars have been deleted to boost the ratings on this site. It is the exp-system which creates fake-reviews and are responsible for this problem. Anywhere else you can only leave one review and edit it, but on this site there are so many nonsensical review with just some random emotes and 5stars, but of course since those boost the rating, they do not get removed.
The reviews and the star-system should be an indicator for how good a novel is, which is absolutely not the case if the author can moderate their review section. Authors publish on this site to get feedback or in ideal cases earn money. You have to keep in mind though that once you publish something you are not only presenting it to others, you are in fact inviting them to have an opinion on it, but by deleting their opinion you are trying to censor it. So in return I am asking what makes the author think he is so important that he can censor others opinion?
I agree with people who say you have to read at least 30-50 chapters of a story to be able to write a review and I also agree with people who say authors should not be able to moderate their reviews.
Most people stop after they left first their "negative" review (most of the time it is negative bc it is below 3.5 stars), in most cases it is just when their opinions get deleted they turn into "trolls" and "vengeful" creatures to "harass" the author.
The sum of negative and positive reviews should determine how your work is perceived and graded by the audience and as such the reviews should be able to express that not your selection of allowed opinions.
- Edited
john_john_OO Indeed giving out 1-star reviews is insulting because the novel must be utter crap in quality and with broken English. The lowest reasonable score I believe that can be given is 2 stars e.g. decent writing skills however the character development is poor with a bunch of plotholes ect. Personally I have given 1-star reviews when the author is extremely aggressive and hateful towards its readers, mostly when they delete 3-star reviews just to keep their fancy 4.8 stars and over. In terms of 'hurtfulness' well that's subjective. No matter how hurtful it is to the author it isn't completely the reader's fault if they give actual reasonable rightful reviews which outline the 'CLEAR' faults of the novel that can only benefit the author in the end. Only actual hateful 'trash' reviews(Insulting the author etc) I would consider negatively 'hurtful' towards the authors who put lots of effort and hard work into their novel and then being insulted.
- Edited
chu_chan You miss the elephant in the room by a mile. These low read count, low score reviews don't even reflect the paid content of the novel. Contracted authors write to sell a product. We are required to give readers ~100k of free words before the novel can go premium. That's an entire free book.
These low reviewers never bought our product in the first place.
An example would be if you owned a steak restaurant and distributed some hamburgers for a charity event.
This is what it's like dealing with spamming trolls:
I didn't enjoy their free hamburgers!
I bet the steak tastes disgusting in there!
Sir, did you ever try the food there?
No, but he's telling me to leave!
I have the right to free speech!
I'm going to hold a picket sign outside the restaurant!
Sir if you would just try the steak your opinion would surely change?
No, the hamburger didn't sit well with me I'm going to make sure no one ever tries that steak!
Sir aren't you a vegan anyway, why did you even eat the hamburger?
Yeah, but I came here expecting a premium salad!
Well, we don't sell salads here sir!
I don't care I wanted a salad!
The author should stop serving steaks every day and go make me a free salad!
But, sir... That doesn't make any sense.
My free speech makes sense!
So you're a vegan that likes salads that got a free hamburger, and are complaining about the steaks.
This is 'Merica!
That's what it's like dealing with every spamming troll.
A great example would be @JohnnyKbca who's currently on a mission to spam my novel. I clearly pointed out why his review was misguided. Even gave him the relevant chapters to read to why his opinion was wrong. Nope, continues to spam the same copy/paste low review 50+ times.
- Edited
Dan_Ryder You miss the elephant in the room by a mile. These low read count, low score reviews don't even reflect the paid content of the novel. Contracted authors write to sell a product. We are required to give readers ~100k of free words before the novel can go premium. That's an entire free book.
I guess you just think everyone should like stuff they get for free and cannot accept it when people actually tried it and do not like it. What you fail to realize is that 100k free words is a benchmark to the site to show your ability to produce that much in a set time, it does not however by no means indicate anything about if the reader likes it or why you should have a right to censor their opinion.
Also you are always going on and on about paid this paid that. I can and did borrow books from libraries and read them, so did I pay for that?
No!
Do I have to like it?
No!
Can I still have an opinion about it and post it to amazon?
Yes!
People do NOT need to pay for something to be qualified to have an opinion about something. YOU as an author INVITE people on this platform to read your product for FREE. And when they do they can have an opinion on it and they can choose to not like it.
I just had a quick look at your "Devil's Rise" 77 reviews and 4.9 rating atm.
A lot of those 77 reviews are 5 stars and a lot of those are random emotes, nothing substantial. Why are you not living up to your own standards and delete those nonsensical emotes? or what about the reviews below even 30 chapters but have 5 stars? (Edit: Several are even Reading Status: C0, only emotes and 5 stars.)
The double standards!
About that guy who you said is on a mission. How about you just leave his comment and how you point out where he was misguided and leave it for other readers to decide on if you are right or he was? Just invite the readers to judge instead of trying to censor his opinion?
And about your example with that vegan person, no real meat-lover would care about a vegan standing outside a steakhouse crying.
I get it you are proud of your brainchild and want to have success. I wish you all the best.
Dan_Ryder Review misguided? What does that even mean? Opinion wrong?! Are you thought police? Opinions can't be wrong on this sort of thing as long as they a backed by some sort of logic or evidence and displayed politely, there no one 'RIGHT' review. The problem isn't that his opinion is wrong but because he gave YOU a lower score then you like, therefore, you deleted him are called him a troll. Some people as you say spam their previous reviews because of deletion as they feel like you spat on their faces for the thoughtful reviews that they put an effort to write to let you and other readers know. Also, I am not talking about trash reviews like 1 star or without any actual reviewing,
- Edited
Uncle_Sheogorath
Even you know it's wrong since you read Volume 1.
It is strange that everyone is trying to argue a "must read X chapters" what if the novel is literally all lower case words, no punctuation, spelling errors, etc? Oh let's pretend that such novels do not exist.....
The reason the "experience" system exists is because it makes users remain on the platform for longer, helps authors who are trending by forcing readers to leave a review, comment, like, read, etc.
The main issue is that authors who feel that they deserve 5 stars no matter what, will always complain about anything lower which would make WN's jobs much harder. Why would WN remove a system that is currently in place to force readers to interact more, and why would they want to stir the pot with authors who think they are perfect?
Gourmet_DAO English is not my native language, it is a third language.
That's amazing actually.
JohnnyKbca that makes sense. Thank you.
- Edited
Veronica8 it's not for you to decide whether or not the review is fair.
Deleting a review just because you don't agree with is an A move.
Like it or not you are biased towards your work, and deleting reviews just proves that.
I've personally researched extensively into the matter as my review of a particular novel novel was deleted 4 times by the author just because I gave him 2 starts and he didn't agree with me.
While I agree that there should be some sort of moderation for reviews or at least requiring to have read a certain chapter before showing the review to the public, I don't agree that the author should be the one to moderate.
I can prove it to you that you can leave absolute gibberish texts as a review and get away with it 99% of the time if you rate it 5 stars.
Well, what can I say to the people that sensor the word fu*k but leave the word nigga alone, as if a racist slur ok