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Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

Ratings as a Reviewer

Marius-6 🚫

I have only reviewed six stories on SOL so far. Partially because I am currently reading the stories and posting the reviews from my phone.

I noticed that Appeal is rather consistent from 7 to 10, and mostly 9's.

Technical is usually a 9 (most are short stories with no errors I noticed; or an 8 for a few noticeable spelling and/or grammar errors).

Plot is all over the place. Six stories and I have five different ratings, none is a 10, and none are a 1 or 2. Short Stories I tend to rate from 4 to 6, because I don't expect a sophisticated plot in less than 5,000 words. There could be exceptions, but not in any of the short stories I have reviewed so far.

I rarely if ever award 10's, and I have not bothered to write a review for any story that I would rate any part of it at 3 or below. The one 10 I did award was partially tongue in cheek; it was about making and drinking coffee in the US Coast Guard, it was witty, a bit snarky, and included some slang and written accent(s).

I have noticed a lot of 8 to 10's in other reviews I have read.

I think I am rather generous with 9's for Technical. If there are no spelling, grammar, or formatting/structure errors, I tend to give a 9. {To earn a 10 an author would have to do something significant. Beyond just a simple story. There are some on here that I would award a 10 for Technical, I just haven't written a review for those particular stories. I believe I would have to write a review worthy of such an excellent piece of writing.

What are other people's thoughts on writing their own reviews.

Replies: Pixy Switch Blayde richardshagrin joel.sommers Quasirandom

Pixy 🚫

@Marius-6

I think if you are consistent in your reviews and are (dare I say it) constructively critical, then more people will read your reviews.

If I saw a reviewer that consistently threw out 10's willy nilly, I would quickly stop reading the reviews by them, because the reviewer obviously has no personal standard. If that individual were to consistently throw out 5-7's, then I would pay more attention to the story that 'only' scored an 8. This is especially so if the reviewer explains concisely why they score they way they do.

I've started to read many reviewed stories here and eventually I stopped because, quite simply, the stories were garbage and the reviewers were in fantasy land (Partly, I think, because honest reviews are not accepted and they have to be 'positive' otherwise the review is rejected). Like a literary equivalent of 'The boy who cried wolf'.

Obviously this comes with the caveat, that everyone has different tastes and one readers wince inducing read is another's ambrosia. Personally, I hate ego strokers and would much prefer reviews to contain the much more helpful (for both writer and reader) "But"...

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Marius-6

What are other people's thoughts on writing their own reviews.

I don't write reviews, but "technical" would be a lot more than spelling and grammar for me.

Replies: Marius-6

Marius-6 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I don't write reviews, but "technical" would be a lot more than spelling and grammar for me.

I agree, for the most part. Very short stories don't have much else. Formatting (paragraph breaks), and such are important too. Sentence structure is another thing that is important.

Longer stories have many more issues that influence my rating for their technical quality.

While I have read a number of very long stories here, I am not prepared to review them; for a number of reasons.

I enjoyed Demigod of War, however, it has become Incomplete and Unfinished (although I harbor hope that it will one day be continued and completed). I have read all of the Stupid Boy books, and am reading the Better Man stories as they post.

Writing reviews for the "epic" stories requires that I become better at writing reviews, before I tackle such a review. That is my own opinion. Part of the reason I posted this in the Forum is to gain further perspectives on writing reviews.

I have read quite a few reviews, and then sometimes read the story that was reviewed. I have also read reviews of stories that I have already read. I am interested to see what other people thing of a story I have already formed an opinion of. If their review is close to my own opinion, then I believe I am more likely to enjoy a story they favorably review.

It is my belief that by writing a well written review, I may not attract any new readers to my stories. But if I do a poor job of writing a review, then I am likely to discourage people from reading my stories.

richardshagrin 🚫

@Marius-6

Average is a six. Above average is a seven. Good is an eight. Call them the high school scores, C for 6, B for 7 and A for 8. There are a handful of A+ or nines. Ten is very rare. I didn't say never, When I reviewed I probably gave more tens than I should have, but there are some I like that are better than just an 9. The scores are your opinion. If you like a story you can give it a bunch of tens, but your readers will realize that your scores are off. Particularly technical should be closer to C than your opinion of the quality of the story, which might be a ten. Even if you didn't see any mistakes, tens for technical should be even more rare than for plot or your opinion of how good the story was to read.

Replies: Marius-6

Marius-6 🚫

@richardshagrin

I believe that is very sound advice. Or, perhaps it just meshes well with my believes of how to rate reviews on a site such as SOL.

Thanks Richard.

joel.sommers 🚫

@Marius-6

Good evening, y'all...

Very much a noob here; in fact, this is my inaugural communique. But since my day job includes some writing and editing, I decided to take a dive into this site's editing and rating systems, and found this thread as a result. It's always fascinating to hear people discuss how they rate or grade content. Obviously, I've not consumed or critiqued enough of this community's stories to weigh in on the matter; but one thing did confuse me:

Regarding the assignment of ratings for stories--am I correct to understand that some or all folks base their final story ratings at least partially on how well a work is technically polished (syntax, grammar, spelling, formatting, etc...)? I'm probably just misunderstanding the conversations in this thread but it almost sounds like there's not at least a few iterations of editorial critiques and suggestions before any kind of ratings or grades are given.

My personal approach to giving any content a grade or rating (depending highly on the medium or platform on which it is published) is to generally exclude any demerits for the technical assembly (spelling, formatting, subject-verb agreement, consistency with caps or italics, etc...). It doesn't mean I don't notice stuff like that; it just means that I assume there's some work done to a story before its ultimate publication to the web that necessarily either modifies or overlays at least some of the editing work already done by the author or others, before a final version is posted.

For this reason, I rarely ding web-based content for technical problems because I just never know how much or how little a webmaster or content manager has tampered with something. (This, btw, is the reason why I personally prefer to publish anything I've written as a PDF; I hate seeing my efforts flattened by a website's appearance branding.)

So I guess my question is really about whether or not the "ratings" being talked about in this thread refer to grades given to a work in its earlier versions, or to a community-edit version that has been posted as the "official" edition of the story? I'm only asking because when I start rating stories, I want to do it with a proper understanding of your system. (Related question: I notice many stories have an ending blurb that says a serialized story is incomplete or expecting additional chapters to be added; are these incomplete stories still graded like other final and complete stories? Or do they get some kind of temporary grading?)

I really do apologize for asking such basic questions. It's probably tiresome to keep getting different flavors of the same ol' noob queries. It's only because I am really enjoying this community's content (enough to fork out some cash), and because I am legit intrigued with potentially volunteering to help with community editing one day. So if or when somebody has the time, please school me.

BTW...again great community. Lots of non-templatized story-telling, which is hard to do with erotica-infused genre fiction. Kudos...and happy new year to all of y'all!

-- Joel

Replies: tendertouch Switch Blayde StarFleet Carl

tendertouch 🚫

@joel.sommers

I'm having a little difficulty connecting with your question. In general, the story that you read here is finished, including editing. Some authors (e.g. yours truly) are happy to learn of errors and will attempt to fix them. Some get downright surly when something is pointed out. Some pointedly say somewhere on their page that they don't want to hear it.

Some (many?) stories here don't go to someone else to be edited before being posted.

I don't know that the webmaster here tampers with anything, other than turning formatting flags into actual formatting, and adding the navigation features.

What people score on is strictly up to the individual. Some seem to get their jollies passing out 1s. Many grade on a combination of technical merit, prose style and story content. Reviewers have the ability to give separate greades for plot, technical prowess and how much they enjoy the story as a whole.

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@joel.sommers

am I correct to understand that some or all folks base their final story ratings at least partially on how well a work is technically polished (syntax, grammar, spelling, formatting, etc...)?

For me, definitely yes.

I rate how I enjoy the story and technical issues take away from that enjoyment. Saying that, I take into consideration that the authors here aren't professional authors with professional editors at their disposal. Think of it as grading on a curve.

StarFleet Carl 🚫

@joel.sommers

am I correct to understand that some or all folks base their final story ratings at least partially on how well a work is technically polished (syntax, grammar, spelling, formatting, etc...)?

Yes.

I am much more inclined to be forgiving of a simple typo in an otherwise well written piece than I am of multiple and continuous mistakes in a piece that has potential, but due to the sentence construction is unreadable.

I also will grade and score regardless of story content. As an example, the just completed story Dark Times is a very well constructed novel. The content is, to be blunt, quite horrifying to most people. Having said that, I gave it a 9 as a reader, since I'm not an actual reviewer. If I were, I would give it 2 for Appeal, simply due to the subject, an 8 for Technical, and a 10 for plot. Now, having said that - the 2 for appeal - when I started reading it, I felt the same visceral gut punch that I got reading 'Classy Conversions'. But once I got over it - and that took 3 chapters - then it was just reading it like any other story. I did PM back and forth a couple of times with the author, and I think I disturbed HIM, due to some of my life experiences when I was younger.

a community-edit version that has been posted as the "official" edition of the story?

The only community editing that happens here is when a reader finds an error and takes the time to tell the author he fucked up, and then the author changes it - if he's willing to do so. Otherwise, that's it.

Now, that's not to say we don't have editors. I personally have three, and I have a specific process. I send it to each of them sequentially. That's MY process. Some authors simply send a chapter out to ALL their editors at once, then combine everything. It's up to each of us as the author to determine what we do. I hope that helps explain things a bit.

Quasirandom 🚫

@Marius-6

My reviews so far have been relatively high because I've specifically been reviewing stories I'm enthusiastic about. Once I get through my backlog and start reviewing as I read, I suspect the numbers will go down.

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Ratings as a Reviewer

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