Uncle_Sheogorath Thanks for expressing your views. They're valid points. Please be mindful of keeping them objective and not lead to the path of feedback directed to a person.
Yes Authors Can and Will Delete Reviews/Comments - Open Sounding Board
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I just had a thought. Since webnovel has a system in place that tracks reader activity and time, why not implement that? Say, each reader has to spend an X amount of time reading Y chapters and then having the review function unlock. Depending on the average reading rate for each reader, webnovel can calculate the time and chapters. Any thoughts?
Dan_Ryder Wait am I understanding what you're saying correctly? If someone reads 68 chapters (what you have as free) and decided they didn't enjoy the story enough to continue reading then their review isn't valid? That seems a little absurd if that is what you are saying.
I personally have stopped reading novels after 20-40 and sometimes even 60-80 chapters because they weren't engaging enough for me. Granted I don't go and leave a bad review because I don't particularly like the way the review system works on this site. Just seems ridiculous that because I never unlocked any chapters that my critique should be invalid.
melonbread Yep I don't even read any Original Novels on the site because of the facts you mention.
Towel The core theme of my post is there are no detailed reviews by one-star trolls. They are incapable of providing valuable feedback for other readers or the author period. The fairy tale 1-star detailed review after reading 68 chapters does not exist.
You don't even read original novels to start with, so your opinion in this matter is void.
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Veronica8 Please don't feed the troll. Why would you ever condone the actions of someone who spammed a novel over 50 times with a 1 star review. Spams negative comments throughout all the chapters. Then left negative comments on every review posted on that novel. If webnovel had an actual moderation system he would have been banned long ago.
One should probably distinguish between two types of reviews:
- Swap
- Honest
Swap means confidently getting 4 or 5 stars. Equivalent exchange as in the manga Full Metal Alchemist
Honest. Well, he speaks for himself.
Although there are exceptions in Swap Reviews, it is easy to get 2 or 3 stars.
An honest review, the good thing is that the critic points out weak points to the author, suggests ways of correction, and gives advice. It really helps to fix the job.
At the same time, usually those who have English as their mother tongue, they treat with some prejudice, maybe from the side seeming a little snobbish, in relation to novels written in not very good English. In reviews, the main criticism comes down to grammar, not complex assessment, content, title page, schedule of updates. This aspect is also worth considering.
At the same time, having given someone 5 stars in a swap review, you, as an author, can get 2 or 3 stars, which you did not expect. Since the principle of equal exchange is violated. But we are all human and the rules that exist for swap reviews are based on their word of honor.
Sometimes I receive notifications that about three dozen of my comments and reviews have been removed. These were honest reviews. A bit unpleasant. But on the other hand, this is how the author received advice on how to fix it and reacted to them.
I myself am happy to receive advice from critics on how to improve my novels. But at the same time from adequate critics, arguing their criticism and showing ways to correct mistakes. It only makes the novel better.
It should be noted that there are few real reviews, so to speak classical ones, which would analyze the text, first giving strengths. then they showed the weak, talked about the structure of the work, paid attention to the content without focusing on grammar.
Here it would probably be nice to somehow highlight the "swap" and "honest" reviews, maybe in the background color scheme or put letters.
Or maybe the form of filling out the "review" itself should contain all the points of the evaluation criteria, and only then such a review can be admitted to publication. But this is all difficult to accomplish.
Plus, there will always be biased reviews. For example, few people control whether the same author has multiple accounts. He can write to himself from 2 to 10 reviews. He can call friends and will wind up his rating.
If you are honest and objective as an author, you will fail ... if you don't write a swap review, no one will notice your original work. If you limit yourself to 10 swap reviews, someone will write themselves 100. You will lose again.
Being shameless means doing good PR to your work. But this is not interesting.
Such are my thoughts on this matter.
The thing with negative reviews, although they are annoying they are also a good indication if a book is good or bad.
If i see a 1 star review on a book and the reviewer hasn't read more than 5 chapters I'm going to ignore it because its obvious this person is a troll.
I've started reading books because of bad reviews. These ones were from people that actually read hundreds of chapters and wanted to tell the author something they didn't like.
Sure, they may have left three stars or something but they actually gave valid points.
As a reader i got interested because of those points and I want to see if the author ended up adressing them later, and guess what. Most of those complaints got resolved in later chapters so I feel like if the review wasn't there in the first place the author wouldn't have seen it and fixed the plot holes and the book would remain bad.
Negative reviews are not all bad. Aside from the trolls, there are those giving constructive criticisms. Real fans that actually bothered to read the book and give an opinion rather than just flattering the authors ego.
EternalNightLotus Good critic, I agree it allows the author to grow. I rewrote two novels 5 times, in my opinion they became more interesting. But they can still be rewritten 2 times.
Reading tips and solutions to problems is interesting and informative. But there are trolls, and there are snobs.
But constructive criticism rarely happens.
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Gourmet_DAO
With constructive criticism, some authors welcome it, others will delete it because they won't want that review to derail their rating.
But isn't the whole point of reviews to get feedback?
Unless its a stupid pointless review or the person is a troll harassing the author then I don't think they should be deleted.
Plus people need to understand how to rate.
1 star is like saying your book is trash. With absolutely nothing redeemable in it. Bad grammar, stupid characters, no world building at all. Basically you just wrote crap and posted.
Which is not true for any book on here.
Unless such a terrible book existed then the 1star should never be used.
I feel authors should be allowed to delete such a review, especially if the reviewer never said what needs to be improved. At that point a review like this is just harassment.
On the other hand if the author wants to delete a review that actually makes sense. That someone took time to write out their criticism in hopes the author reads it and changes something, then that's just the author being a little ****
This only applies to reviews that actually raise valid points, not random exp reviews or hate reviews.
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EternalNightLotus I am a beginner author, so the rating is not particularly important to me now. Criticism that can improve my work, I need it!
"If it's a stupid, nonsensical review, or a troll chasing an author, then I don't think they should be removed." - I think the opposite needs to be removed. It is a pity that the moderation service practically does not work. With effective moderation, trolls will always be in line.
This is democracy ... freedom of choice ... I choose constructive criticism because I want to improve my writing skills. Rating, while I do not really care. I am not interested in getting money from writing books either.
And so the author should have the right to remove the idiotic review, trolling, bullying, it destroys creativity.
I agree with you!
I think it comes down to WN's issues as a platform. If people are spamming reviews, in more cases than not it is for "experience". I think that if WN changed their experience system to remove reviews and instead replace it with how old said accounts are, it will limit at least 80%+ of the so called "spam/fake reviews".
As for the rest, I have seen authors delete just to keep a particular rating when it is genuine criticism of said novel. If a novel is truly a 4/5 star novel, an author should not be mad and delete 3/5 star reviews that have criticisms about said novel.
This is also a reason that although I have written novels and continue to do so on this platform, why I am unwilling to give ANY original novel a try as far as reading because of the unfair taking away actual genuine reviews just because again, said author does not want to receive fair criticism. How am I supposed to know what novels are actually worth a try versus those that I may not like, if all of the genuine reviews are deleted?
So, in other words, remove leaving reviews as a way to gain experience, and I would say if an author wants to delete a comment, it needs to be approved by the WN staff if and ONLY if it is spam. This community really needs to start being more honest when it comes to reviews. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole
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Dan_Ryder I'm not condoning. He had valid points from his view. But doesn't mean I agree with him. This conversation needs to be kept objective.
You do raise a good note about trolling.
Add: Aah! I just realised that my last post might have sounded like an endorsement. Sorry about that.
I respect the fact that both of you have been able to come here and express your views and experiences. To me, those are valid points. I don't think I explained it. Sorry.
I just think that if there are good critiques on novels and real ratings were left alone, that there would be a much higher meaning to a book that is 4/5 stars as an example. At the moment, it feels like if a book is under 4.7 stars, it might as well be 2 stars. However, if the best books on the platform were at maximum a 4.5/5 stars rating, then all of the sudden I am willing to be more inclined into giving a novel rated 4/5 a chance.
As it currently stands, anything under 4 stars is considered enough to not even read the synopsis and anything between 4.2-4.5 is still somewhat in that category while you have spam 5 star reviews on novels that should be under 3 stars. This is the same reason why some authors who average 4.5/5 star reviews (which are mostly 5 star spam reviews) average less than 3 stars on a different platform like Amazon because 3 stars on Amazon in most cases mean a 4.5+ stars on web novel.
As an author, I would not mind receiving genuine reviews even if it dropped my novel's rating because it would push me to do better. Alas, I hope one day web novel will change in that direction but the first step would be not allowing authors to remove reviews that are real and not spam like majority do. We authors deserve to at least give our readers that right since they are giving our novels a chance to read. :)
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Veronica8 Yeah you're right we should look at it objectively. On another hand, as long as 'webnovel' does not have some sort of system for managing reviews it makes sense for authors to have the right to delete more 'toxic' and 'unreasonable hateful comments. However, this also leads to extreme abuse of power by the authors who tend to delete anything they 'feel' like is attacking their work even though the 'attack' (reviews) may be truly objective which could benefit the author's story. It's funny to me when some people say authors should have the full right without reason to delete anything deemed 'negative' because the way I see it, is that it leads to authors only seeing in one way which is their way, therefore, anything that goes against their thinking gets purged from any critic no matter how reasonable and respectful. (Of course, I am not saying all authors are like that) Finally, I think the word such as 'trolling' is way overused and used more like a way to quell and discredit anything they dislike which makes the real trolls win.
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Hi! I wanted to offer my thoughts too.
There is something that poeple collectively forget. Very few readers can actually give the reviews the authors want. Specific mention on grammar, vocabulary, stracture, world building in a way that helps improve the novel, character and side character building etc. Unless the review system gets more detailed to help guide the reader and give actual feedback to the author not much is going to change on the quality of the reviews.
I agree with many comments mentioned earleir but i still think that the easiest way to lessen the bots would be to change the exp system. Maybe reward the reviewer that the author finds helpful in exchange. I do not like if the author delete a review based on the stars given. If it is a complete troll/bot yes do it. The positive troll/bot reviews too though. I loved the system suggested early on about authors reporting a review, it geting evaluated and deleted or not afterward but it does take a lot of time and needs a lot of volunteers. Another inetesting one is the algorithm for screening the reviews might be easier to set so as emoji reviews get deleted automatically for example or reviews from readers that haven't even read any chapter but go for the exp.
Someone raised the problem of authors exchanging positive reviews. That sounds really bad and hypoctitical when here the authors are pointing fingers to the readers. How can the readers trust any good review under the novels? Unless the review is objective and said author reads the majority of said novel to give constructive review since they can most likely point out the weak points of said novel. Which seems not to be the case.
On deleting the comments.. Well i am conflicted on the subject. I know readers can be really harsh, unreasonably some times. Spams should definetly go and maybe the exp from a comment can be changed but that leaves the problem of where the readers would get the exp they need to level up. Plus, some readers like troling (not a negative sense, playful) or having a hate-love relationship with the author and the novel.
I feel like this is more of a reform of webnovel than a suggestion for improvement. 
Cheers!
*exp=expereince
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Thanks everyone, for expressing your views and experiences so far. Really, appreciate it.
I'm just going to sum-up my understanding of what is said so far, and the need. Apologize if I get it wrong.
In my understanding:
- Authors would appreciate reviews to be legitimate feedback of the content.
- There's definitely a need for content moderation of reviews with quality standards to be in place.
- Readers need a review system that they can trust. Right now, the review function is a fking piece of sh.t. Not good.
- There's a need for community moderation mechanisms to actively deal with unwanted reader/author behaviors like spamming, trolling, indirect bullying and cancel culture.
So, now the question is... What if none of the listed is possible from Webnovel management?
As a community, what can we do to work around and deal with the things that bother us with the review system?
Keep in mind, if nothing is to change with the site, we can't rely on it to enforce any improvements towards these points.
Could we all agree to some common rules and practices for feedback? Those that would answer to the four points that I listed above?
Although, it would be hard to live by if WN themselves aren't supporting them.
What are your thoughts?
Veronica8 I hope that a bot-moderator from WebNovell will appear in the review thread. If the moderation is effective and efficient, then there will be no trolling or bullying on the site. This is one of the solutions to the problem.
Second, if the site administration for some reason cannot conduct moderation, then a community should be created within the forum. Which will make a list of those short stories that use dubious methods to promote themselves. They will mark the readers of the trolls, inform the site administration about them.
It will also develop a form for a real, objective review. Or maybe two of its swap options (marked in a different color) and an honest, objective review. And the reader himself will choose the review that he wants to read.
Since freedom of choice is also part of freedom of speech. Moreover, it will not violate the rights of another person, author or reader.
Since direct contact with the author may not always have a positive result. All people are different, so one author will agree with the opinion of the community, while the other will swear and swear. At the same time, all community actions must comply with the internal rules of WebNovell.
I see such opportunities.