Webnovel.Forum

Tomoyuki I was being hasty writing "all these authors" in my previous comment, it was an unnecessary hyperbole. From you comments here, I even believe you to be very reasonable. And I do not know what novel you've written, so I do not know either how you treat reviews.

The discussion went in this direction because, from what I read, people are assuming THE_UNHOLY_ONE didn't write a decent review, even though he gave it 1-star. Look at the first reply to this thread. Immediate put down of any reason to post a 1-star review.

But knowing the reality, the fact that you left 1 star review, means that you most likely did it just to annoy the author, making you the bad person.
There are 5 ways in which you judge the novel, and if you can't find even a single possitive thing, then you wouldn't read so far to get invested enough to leave a review. Simple logic

This is why I pointed out that, by this logic, the same could be said about a 5-star review. If you can't find a single negative thing, then you probably weren't looking for it, and probably shouldn't be reviewing. I do not find this to be very sound logic. At least here on WN, where the large majority of readers are amateur reviewers, it doesn't seem to be good reasoning.

That's why a 1-star review saying "I don't like this, it's hard to read and/or follow" should be just a valid as a 5-star review saying "This is the best I've read, very funny/interesting story. Can't wait for more". Even more so for authors (not you..) who doesn't delete 5-star spam reviews, they shouldn't delete 1-star spam reviews either. All reviews, no matter the score, should be judged by the same standards by the author. Can't put low scoring reviews to a higher standard than high scoring.

All of this boils down to that the first reply in this thread should have said:
"Authors have the ability to delete any review, because Webnovel does not have the required manpower to moderate reviews themselves. Therefore, some authors delete spam reviews regardless of the star rating, while some authors delete low score reviews to maintain a fake high rating. This unfortunately won't change before a better system gets implemented by Webnovel."

Lilliny Mad? No, just disgusted, genuinely. Also, you've never really "called me out" on anything, are you sure you aren't confusing me with someone else?

The only thing I've said that you've commented on is about the meaning of a 5 star rating, whether it means "perfect" or just "worth your time", which is an opinion, not a fact.

No idea what you're talking about, what 'give you a number out of 5'? What are you arguing against? Is it still even me you meant to say this to? If it is, you're talking in riddles.

Also, if you don't care about it, why do you get involved at all? If it's not your problem, just ignore it and let others talk about it.

For someone who has been involved in so many threads about reviews, it's really a wonder how immaturely you speak about it.

Lilliny bruh, yall are the big dumb-dumbs. In the context of this website, 5 stars doesn't mean 'perfect,' it just means 'this is worth your time, you should read it.' I don't know who in their right mind told you 5 stars on webnovel meant 'perfect; without flaws,' but that just... is foolishly ignorant.
The only reason some authors care about the ratings system is because they could lose their income if their score gets too low (or something like that.) It doesn't help that this website encourages review spam with their leveling system.
PLUS, you're literally saying that someone's opinion isn't fair. It's not supposed to be fair? Its an opinion broski. The review system is arbitrary and allows a user to quickly browse this site to find something to look for. Augh god, this is the fourth or fifth time I have to explain the definition of a review. As in... you're looking back at what you read. You're in review.
All this BS about 'human nature,' is dumb and makes you sound like an isekai villain. Go outside. Interact with others. It's good for you.
OnLy ThoSe wHo DoN't toUCh ThE ReViEw SyStem aRe FrEe Of hyPocRaCy reaLLY. <-LMAO

Lilliny What a condescending twat you are. I like how you feel like you're the only authority of what a review is.

Also, by your logic, which I don't actually disagree with, if a 5 star review means it's worth reading, then a 1 star review must mean it isn't worth reading. This is a fair opinion.

But man, you talk like a repulsive teenager. I feel disgusted reading that comment.

N0xiety Exactly, all these authors on their high horses talking about 1 star reviews being unfair, thinking their work is actually work is actually worth a perfect 5 star rating. It's extremely hypocritical.

You'll see them respond here that they don't think their work is worth those ratings, but what do they do about it? Delete them? I'll believe that when I see it. If they can show just one of their novels that doesn't have any 1 star nor any 5 star ratings, I'll believe them to be justified in their opinions here. Otherwise they're just arguing to make themselves feel better. If people are free to make 5 star reviews, they should also be free to make 1 star reviews. My personal opinion though, is that neither of those are proper scores to give in 99% of cases.

Chryiss My idea wasn't to gather a group of users, just that a decision wasn't in the hands of a single user. Every decision is taken alone, anonymously. No user is chosen as a decision-maker, a user opts in to the program and reviews flagged cases. As many facets of the system as possible has to be completely anonymous for it to work.

Chryiss I haven't seen a Trust Factor system on any other platform such as this, but that is because I have never seen a system as it is here on WN. They built it around gaming the system, earning Exp for menial tasks, which degrades the whole purpose of these features. They need some sort of Trust Factor system to restore actual meaning to features such as reviews and comments. Tying Trust together with the current Exp system doesn't sound feasible to me in the way you describe, unless they overhaul the current way to earn Exp.

Moderation could be solved without hiring people. A moderation system like:
Set up an Exp system and a whole isolated Mod Trust Factor system, where flagged issues get sent (in an anonymous form) to ordinary a big group of users on this site, who then decide what kind of fault or no fault lies in the given situation. The majority answer then gets chosen, and the users who chose that answer gets a +1 Trust Factor +Exp, and the users who chose differently gets -1 Trust Factor +Exp. Keep a decent Trust Factor and you can keep earning Exp or maybe Fast Passes (just flinging out ideas), or get too low in Trust Factor (like -10 or something) and be unable to earn Exp through the Moderation system.

It's poorly explained, but I hope it's understandable.

I've seen systems such as these before, so they could definitely work. It's just not in WN's interest to take any such action to implement it, as the work it takes to accomplish would not be proportionate to what it could earn back.

I'm with most authors here, if I understand correctly; I'm against being a "free" customer, paying for any service with only watching advertisements. Honestly, I think it ruins most content on the internet, news and creative works all the same.

I just know that I and many other consumers similar to me, isn't going to pay a cent to a service or work like this. If Privileged chapters were kept as it is now, but the rest of paid chapters could be accessed with a 1$ or 2$ per month subscription per novel I wanted to read (up until Privileged chapters), then I'd actually be able to afford this. But the current system seems to rely on Whales, which I and many, many other just aren't. I do pay for amateur work with a few subscriptions here and there, but I just can't see any reason nor make any justification for me to pay anything here.

I just hope those who currently do creative work here WN actually feel they earn what they should, because, from my perspective, I can't see how this system can possible be successful or at least be the most optimal.

Chryiss Those 10 wouldn’t be considered dummy accounts because they’re from real people sending the stone themselves. It’s as you said, dummy are bot accounts.

Dummy account is a pretty ambiguous term, but this is not really true.
Bot accounts are automated, and operates mostly without human oversight. A Dummy account is manually operated, and serves as a reserve account, alternative account, extra account or fake account impersonating someone else. They aren't really the same.

Back to the Review system though, there is one feature that could really improve this site, which wouldn't remove anything, but build on the current procedures in place:

A Trust Factor system.
I'm not an expert in the mathematical calculations nor code behind such a system, but it should be possible.

An author would be able to delete whatever reviews they get, but if they get flagged and judged by moderators to have abused the system, they lose their privileges. A system to regain Trust and privileges should then also be in place, as permanent punishment is unhelpful.

A reviewer would be able to post whatever they want, but if they get flagged and judged to have misused the features or posted with harmful intentions, they lose their ability to post a review for a month (arbitrarily chosen amount of time) and perhaps lose the ability to earn Exp or Fast Passes for a while.

This would significantly improve the current system.

Cantiara Nice idea, I'd probably do that in one of the next chapters.

And yes, I understand all the reasons why the system is the way it is now. Lack of manpower and lack of care for integrity, which is a pretty common theme. I also don't have any hope of bringing any changes, especially here on Webnovel. But as long as this is how reviews work on this site, we should always try to shed some light on it. Other users should have the right to know that these problems exists.

Constructive or informative reviews are always a good tool to show other potential readers of what to expect from a novel. I would even say that just a simple review score alone in general can be a decent indicator of what to expect. But for them to be effective, they have to be allowed to exist regardless of the score, outside of the authors reach. If an author is allowed full rights to delete any kind of review at their own discretion, without oversight, the review system and score will lose all truthfulness and relevance.

I wouldn't have even considered writing this, if it wasn't because there is concrete evidence of this happening here. An author of a novel here on WN with a score of 4.8 has deleted my review with a 2.0 score 3 times in the last 2 days. Picture below shows how it looks in my System notifications. I went through 10 pages of reviews, sorted by newest, and found not a single review with a score below 4.0. I'm not sure anyone will believe that to be possible in any scenario, other than it being evidence that author deletes negative reviews to keep his average score high. And this is regardless of the reviews being constructive or informative or not. He deletes everything. I'd be happy to copy/paste my reviews that gets deleted if you guys want, but I don't want to turn this into a witchhunt against the author. He's not the problem, the site allowing authors to delete at their own discretion is.

All of this has been said before by other users on this site, but I feel it should be spoken of every once in a while to let others know what's happening.

To reiterate; review scores on this site are unrepresentative and untruthful to the novels, because authors can delete any review they want to keep their scores high.

SouthToiletWizard:

well once upon a time our ancestors lived in mud huts and had babies with their sisters. I know that it's not the case for either anymore. I respect that you are upset but impotent rage gets you nowhere

That's probably the most condescending reply to a completely civil conversation that I've ever read.

I'd recommend you read the comment you responded to and your own reply once more, because it's actually disgusting to read. Imagine if you were the one getting talked down to in that way. Totally uncalled for.