MeriemR
Maybe it's just me, but I tend to ignore all the 1star and 5star reviews because they generally don't tell me anything. Like when I buy things on Amazon, I always look for what people find wrong about it, and decide for myself if I'm bothered by it.
Guess I'm just one of those that genuinely does not care about ratings.
Yes Authors Can and Will Delete Reviews/Comments - Open Sounding Board
MiddleEastern well I went back to reading on websites of translators, since people only translate web novels, which were successful and which they liked.
Don't know what got me to open up WN forums lol. Nothing changed, it is still the same mess.
Still frustrated readers and authors with god complex. TBH most, like 90%, of original novels on this platform suck, contracted authors and premium novels included. Too many think they can make quick bucks and there are no editors, so quality is sometimes nonexistent and what WN cares about is the word count, hence the 100k words before any novel can go premium.
As you said it is about money, no one really cares about the quality of these "novels". If quality was considered 99% of the content here would never be published.
- Edited
I've been Ranked #1 too. In the opposite direction at Rank#1111111110101010 XD
Okay. That was a lame joke. Cue canned laughter. Although that rank position is relatively correct.
Veronica8 Now English is the language of international communication. Nowhere to go :)
EternalNightLotus Very true!
I find it hard to believe this discussion is still going on.
Reviews are worthless as a rule, and the whole system is a joke. 95% or more of so-called reviews aren't even reviews. They're mind farts.
What's sad is that so many readers are guided by those silly little stars. And that they waste time reading that 'review' crap instead of reading the story.
If they bothered to read the first page of the story, they would x) instantly know whether they personally like it or not, y) develop their own critical faculties, z) save themselves tons of time. It takes less time to read a page of a story than to dig through dozens of asinine 'reviews'.
I think the whole system was set up that way so that kids who want to write could engage in interaction. It was never meant to be a serious system, just something to encourage people to get more involved (and maybe watch more ads while they're at it. I wouldn't know, I don't use the app).
So my suggestion would be to stop treating the review system with seriousness it doesn't deserve. I use it solely (and rarely) to encourage kids who clearly have talent to keep going.
And yes, authors definitely should have the right to delete the bullshit masquerading as 'reviews'. But it's probably best just to ignore it.
Gourmet_DAO You can speak other languages as well. I'm always impressed when others can master other languages with English. It's impressive.
Veronica8 Russian is one of those languages in which I can also speak and write, it is a second language.
Veronica8 Yes I agree, the authors should only be able to remove spam posts and real content reviews should be locked. Short one liners or two liners should be comments on chapters not on the book as a review. It would be an easy fix too, all webnovel would have to do was make sure that the reviews have a word count they can't be below. They have it all over their site, the word count limits in certain places, just not reviews. Which astounds me. The letting authors only delete spam and not good criticisms how they would implement that baffles me. I legit have no clue. But it would be nice and a girl can dream. XD
KitKatxKK Reviews have a min requirement of 140 characters, which doesn't help much. Ask them to increase it, maybe, so there can be longer Imma-smash-mah-keyboard-and-see-what-melody-it-makes.
bottosapien Unfortunately people would just google something random and post an excerpt of some random website or something similar. I'm actually surprised more of the spam reviews aren't that already since that takes much less effort than spamming 140 random characters on your keyboard.
7 days later
chu_chan I've read couple of books from this site, and most of the big authors act like they are on a high horse, legit if you roam the top rankings only few are actually gems, while most are what you call just decent books. The story are littered with the wuxiac formula and cliche troupes, that literally you can't expect something new. And I don't like complaining about writing style but I really suggest if the authors step up on their game, put some ambience on their writing, perhaps avoid flat lines if they can. George RR Martin is a God, dude, you can't compare him with anyone here, his diverse characters are very realistic, not to mention they all collide on a plot that forks into multitude of possibilities and the twists are consistent. Most big authors here only focus on their main character, and on a single plot, I also dislike the fact they kept dumbing down their female leads. Well just an observation.
Most authors here in Webnovel are not typing to improve but typing to earn money. Here in this website, there are only a few authors who respect constructive criticisms but the rest? Hell no. All they care about is their stupid ratings and bullshit five star reviews. I reviewed a fanfic yesterday and poof, it got deleted. The author even said he appreciates all forms of criticisms, and then in the next day he deleted my review. I'm getting triggered by WN's system here. Don't give the rights to the authors to delete their reviews. it's a waste of time to depend on rigged ratings.
Most authors here in Webnovel are not typing to improve but typing to earn money. Here in this website, there are only a few authors who respect constructive criticisms but the rest? Hell no. All they care about is their stupid ratings and bullshit five star reviews. I reviewed a fanfic yesterday and poof, it got deleted. The author even said he appreciates all forms of criticisms, and then in the next day he deleted my review. I'm getting triggered by WN's system here. Don't give the rights to the authors to delete their reviews. it's a waste of time to depend on rigged ratings.
20 days later
I reviewed a novel called "New Age of Summoners". The novels grammar and storyline are terrible beyond comparison, at least until the 100 chapter after that I dropped it. I wrote a 1 star review because of the grammar and storyline and it got deleted. I saw a few other 1 and 2 star review at that time. I revisited the novel site today and found my review deleted, but not only mine but all reviews under 3 stars are nonexistent. The worst thing is that the novel has a rating of 4.6 even though its terrible and got many negative reviews before. The support didnt give ashit when i reported this. This system is incredibly stupid and broken.
Dyrem Omg yes I hate looking through the reviews and seeing the same three people give five stars with only EXP!!!! as pretty much their Entire Review. It’s such a waste like, at least add something, anything!
Dyrem Omg yes I hate looking through the reviews and seeing the same three people give five stars with only EXP!!!! as pretty much their Entire Review. It’s such a waste like, at least add something, anything!
To be honest, I rarely bother reading reviews much less rely on the star rating. Most reviews are either trolls being trolls or authors/fans rigging said review section. What I usually do is simply go to the Browse section and select a genre I'd love to read (i.e. romance, fanfiction, comics) then select either Updated or Collection.
Updated = I can see that said novel is still active or new
Collection = Number of possible readers = It got to be good if lots of people read it? (I rarely use this method)
Then I read around 5~20 and sometimes up to 40 chapters (depending on available chapters) based on how engaged I got to a novel. Some may consider that 5~20 chapters aren't enough to check whether a novel is truly good or not but this is why being able to write a good Prologue/Intro is a must, it allows the author to hook in readers.
Back when I still used the review function, I honestly tried to write a constructive criticism free of bias as much a possible with a clear format
2stars = I don't plan on reading the novel in the future
3stars = I plan to revisit the novel and see whether the author improved or at least tried to improve on what irked me away from the novel (i.e. grammar, character, plot, etc).
4~5stars = I plan to read the novel up to the end unless there's an unexpected development (i.e. author dropped, somehow it got worse(it's rare but it happens), or simply it went to a diverging path I didn't like).
Sadly, most if not all my reviews of 3stars and below got deleted... Hence, I stopped using it.
Well, I'm an author myself and all I can say is if reviews are done, I'll be more than willing to keep them for the constructive feedback. But if a review is done just to point out that the novel is bad which differs from most, then I might consider deleting it as the review doesn't even specify why, but just, "it's bad", something along those lines I would say. Never deleted a review before, but I guess that's the type of review that would honestly be unappreciated.
14 days later
As I've read each of the comments in this discussion, I came up with an idea. Why don't we make a discussion by the name of UNBiased Rating System. In this discussion we'll have both readers and authors in the discussion where feedback, both negative and positive are allowed. In this case, authors can't delete the posts of other people's opinion and people can express their true feelings. At the same time, we can report any messages that are deemed to be unnecessary.
Future_M_Animator sounds like a normal review system 
It's a good idea. There used to be a couple of critique groups on Goodread that did this once upon a time. Not sure if they run anymore.
Useless discussion since not everyone has the same preference. Even Harry Potter still has many haters not to mention the author in wn. Even if you said that book not worth it and give 1 or 2 star review. It still doesn't mean that book did not have any worth since many people are still willing to read it. And also why the readers always want to leave their low review even though the author delete it. Sometime the review even hurtful that the author stopped writing because of it and the readers did not even feel anything after destroying one author carrier or possibly his/her future.
Future_M_Animator Your link to discord does nothing
yeah, I have no idea what happened, but i'll delete the comment and post again soon.
yeah, I have no idea what happened, but i'll delete the comment and post again soon.
As a reader who's spend thousands of dollars on this site deleting reviews just puts me off your story. Writers who delete reviews for the stats are the norm and I avoid them. Like the author of the vampire novel deleted a crap ton of negative reviews once his story started getting advertisements on the app and readers with different tastes started reading and didn't like it.
Tbh basically all the authors delete any real reviews that have criticism. I think it was a mistake giving authors the ability to delete all reviews at will. It should have been way more limited. Idk any of the top stories basically delete reviews. Only translations don't give a fuck unless they're fan translation the contrqct where they dont get commissions for chapters and instead get paid by coins spent.
I know there was a problem with readers bombing negative reviews before and author would spam bad reviews at each others stories before it was implemented but now it's like reading fake reviews on Amazon or the app store. Just makes me think those authors are pathetic.
So, I am Crazy_Beast and this is an alt, as my name is already taken by someone.
Honestly, I don't care to delete any reviews, even they are trash but I would when it spams.
I can reply with trash reviews, but HOW THE HELL WILL I REACT TO SPAMS, this giving me no option to delete them.
I am linient in exp comments, sometimes readers become mad for exp, and I can allow some but not a my every chapter, and only if he/she is a loyal reader, which I don't have yet.
For swaps, I am pretty sure swaps are kinda shady.
As a writer, I too take books to review, but before reviewing I read the first chapter, even if it's beyond my genre. As first chapters are important, but I am very sad why other authors don't do it.
I would nt be asking for swaps if peeps review it, but most of our readers or my readers are lurkers, So I have to ask authors for swaps in the past, most of them are spams or random repeated lines, but some did give me an honest review.
There are even some writers who don't want any criticism on WN, but rather in personal, so they can improve without affecting their book, but asa dumb writer, who is re writing his book for the third time, I like to show others the critisism, and also let them see that I worked hard to fix it.
Depends on the content of the review. That's my answer! Senseless reviews without content, criticisms, or any value needs to be deleted. I do not really care about my ratings since there is no perfect novel. What I care is that for people to actually give insightful and constructive reviews no matter how much they hurt. The type of reviews where it really try to reach out to the author.
If I am just reading emojis I might as well delete them!
a month later
Zetheryl I used to put real reviews that I'd write for ten plus minutes for. Then I put 1 stars and fives consisting of 'Horrible english' and 'good novel' with enough spaces to fill the character limit. Then I stopped all together. No use putting anything below a four and no point in adding to the spam of "EXP".
It's not like I need exp inside this app.
Zetheryl I used to put real reviews that I'd write for ten plus minutes for. Then I put 1 stars and fives consisting of 'Horrible english' and 'good novel' with enough spaces to fill the character limit. Then I stopped all together. No use putting anything below a four and no point in adding to the spam of "EXP".
It's not like I need exp inside this app.
a month later
Yeah there's definitely authors out there straight up abusing this. I know one story in particular almost all negative reviews are deleted. But the 5 star reviews posted by the same people over and over stay up lol. I bet his story would drop almost below a 4 if he didn't prop it up.
Michael_Ryman Ok so what about the authors deleting legitimate reviews? I read one story all the way to around chapter 800 and something changed in the story that completely ruined it. I left a genuine and honest review because I felt like other people would probably like to know before getting 800 chapters in. Came back awhile later and it's gone. Started looking and found that almost all reviews under 4 stars are deleted while all the 5 star spams are kept. The authors can and do abuse the system just as bad as anyone else.
MiddleEastern looks like they deleted that to wtf lol
I find that there are always more 5 stars spam reviews than 1 stars spam.
if you delete bad reviews because they don't contain any criticism or because they didn't read long enough, you should do the same with every good review. Because 5 stars means PPERFECTION, which I doubt people use correctly since people vote 5 stars for every novel that they barely like
Of course. You're absolutely right. That's why the whole review system is fucked, and shouldn't be taken seriously.
- Edited
Readers can delete reviews/comments too! Might not be as often, but it happens.
I had this...somewhat obsessive reader posting condescending comments on almost every chapter in my story (and many paragraphs), calling my protagonist gay and using homophobic slurs. Apparently there was one time he posted the same comment twice (or double posted), and I think he deleted one of them. Since I usually respond through Inkstone, I didn't know he deleted one of them, so I replied to the first one. He received the notification in his inbox (or so I guess) and saw that I was replying to a deleted comment.
Guess what happened? He copied and pasted one of his comments, ranting about how my protagonist is a beta cuck white knight, etc. and then claimed that I deleted his comment. I was like, I've never deleted any of your comments, what the f are you talking about? He then proceeded to point me toward the WRONG comment...only to embarrass himself by admitting that he thought I deleted his insulting comment about beta cucks and whatever (way to jump into conclusions) and thus he decided to "out" me by copying and pasting the deleted comment (which I didn't delete because I had never deleted any of his comments at all, and he found out too late). And then he proceeded to declare that he will continue trolling me after an insincere apology.
So I pointed out that maybe, just maybe he deleted a double-copied comment of his own, and then he fell silent after that. And not before he deleted his inflammatory review.
Yeah, Readers Can and Will Delete Reviews/Comments too.
4 months later
Yo gonna say it like it is this Dan fellow is an arrogant tosspot thats really just a mongrel among dogs. Iv ended up here down the rabbit hole of the internet and lets put it this way Ebay Amazon any other review system i believe is third party managed. I leave a shitty review on some resteraunt or a spam call company for legitimate reasons on google and theyre still up probably because they have no access to delete and theyre honest reviews. You want to be scammed on ebay with five star reviews buy an item then when something else is delivered put a warning 1 star review just to have it deleted its fucked up guys that this is what happens here. Nobody should be able to censor shit with a bias and yes troll reviews on chp 0 should be deleted by a moderator team same with those exp 5 stars. Just to point out that Dan your a fuckin idiot iv read this post and one other so far about you its ridiculous why you try to defend yourself when the evidence is there youve just made yourself look like an absolute tosspot. God forbid powers like these were ever given to any democrasy otherwise you would see someone like Putin only allow people to vote for him and noone else. Your really sick in the head man you really are petty and delusional if you believe half the crap you spout on here about people being trolls when your just aiming for a profit.
Um. 
Grand_Void_Daoist locked the discussion.