I don't normally remove reviews unless they are obviously pointless. But lately I have been receiving both advert reviews for a different web novel site offering to pay $$$ for my book (clearly spam) and a review where the user has put random characters interspersed with the word 'bad' in a single long string.

The Book is at https://www.webnovel.com/book/treasures-of-heaven-and-earth_14483591505502705

The bad reviews are visible there

Now, I would not normally delete a negative review simply due to a negative opinion, but the user has also given a full five stars. So it looks like I am keeping a troll review around for the rating - which is not the case.

I am unable to delete either the spam reviews or the review with the single long string. The Spam reviews still appear despite multiple attempts to remove them and the review with the single long string just says 'Failed to delete. Try again later'

From a programmers experience, I believe putting in a single long string in the review is causing a string parse exception of some sort, probably due to string length causing the delete process to fail. Obviously this is a bug that is deliberately being exploited by a Troll reader to prevent his reviews being removed.

Could the issue with being unable to keep my novel neat and tidy please be looked at? It's a turn off to readers to see five star ratings with junk or spam contents - looks like the author is so desperate to get ratings they'll leave anything on their jacket

Note: If anyone has doubts that that particular reader is a troll, he has put nasty comments/questions on many chapters. Now that is his opinion - so that's acceptable - I'm not gonna try get rid of comments just for critiquing. I did try reasoning and answering his questions sensibly, but he just kept escalating no matter how sensible my explanation was.
I know my novel is not the best, but it's not absolute trash.

When he accused me of doing a 'bad disney crossover' when I included references to the original text of the Ballad of Mulan in my Novel (and specified that it was from a translation of the original oral tradition in my author's note - nothing to do with the movies from the Cultural Appropriation Conglomerate) I realised he was just seeking conflict and stuff rather than speaking from a place of sensibility, or you know - an awareness of history and culture - so I stopped replying to his comments. And he stopped commenting lol.

    WheeledWriter I don't normally remove reviews unless they are obviously pointless

    I would probably suggest not removing them unless they are obviously spam. There is a minimum character limit on reviews, so whether someone is giving a one star or five star review, they may just spam a character in order to leave that review.

    Of course, if you choose to, that is entirely up to your viewpoint on them.

    As for the spam review you are talking about, it looks like it has been resolved.

    WheeledWriter I did try reasoning and answering his questions sensibly, but he just kept escalating no matter how sensible my explanation was.

    You need to understand that there are people who view things their own way, and they can be quite expressive of themselves at times. By replying, whilst it is good to defend yourself, it can turn into a case of “who has the last word”. This is also very common when we can all be sticks in the mud on a particular viewpoint.

          8 days later

          Wolfick

          I am still seeing the spam reviews - user account skyinsummer51989 - I now have three of them in the last month - the oldest is 19 days old

          As for the troll review/comments I do understand what you are saying. I feel it's interesting that the individual stopped commenting once I stopped responding, but of course I am leaving the comments there. It's up to individual readers to decide the merits.

          I am just concerned that leaving a five star review up with random scramble looks like I'm pandering for ratings rather than curating to provide prospective readers with useful critiques or recommendations

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