Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

I agree that bandwidth is not the real problem limiting the number of stories on SOL and Fine Stories. I suspect finding authors who are willing to share their stories without receiving pay in money is far more important. I hope many authors who do post, post here because they are far more likely to get comments and support of a community of readers.

I may well be wrong, but it seems likely to me that one way to reduce the number of those authors is to publish negative reviews. I am not saying every story should get straight tens. But fives or less without any constructive comments may chase away authors who may have other, better stories to share with us.

This is one reason why "one bombing" stories defeats having a broad range of stories available and attracting new authors and retaining ones who have already been attracted. Readers who don't like stories can do what floats their boat. Reviewers have special privileges extended by the site to make known their opinions. That privilege can be withdrawn if it jeopardizes the site continuing to prosper.

I have a few reviews where I gave fives. If I had it to do over, I might not have posted those reviews. On the other hand, Celeste, the best known reviewer of erotic fiction ever, gave some fives, as well. I suggest newish reviewers read some of her reviews. Some are very short. Some are much longer than the typical SOL review. Almost all are better written than most reviews here. Experience and talent matter. Lets try to do a better job at reviewing as we get more experience.

Maybe I am way off base on why the site wants reviews, and why reviewers want to write them. Comments could be helpful. You could always just tell me to shut up.

however the plot & spelling & grammar were excellent so those would have been marked as 9s or 10s.

I hope it is OK to disagree. I have read reviews where the reviewer claims the story is better than just a ten and is sorry he can't give it an eleven. The problem with all reviews being nines and tens is its hard to praise the really exceptional stories enough. Some other reviewers have agreed that an average story is a six which is the equivalent of a C. That makes seven a B, good, and eight an A, excellent. There is nothing wrong with giving good stories a seven or excellent stories an eight. That saves the three standard deviations above the mean score of nine for the top fraction of one percent that meet that standard. And tens for the story other reviewers want to give an eleven to. I try to give at most one ten a month. Some months I fail, particularly when there are really much better than just a nine stories. And I didn't always fell this way, there may be some tens in my list of reviewed stories that I might now give an eight to, or maybe a nine. I recommend other reviewers decide if they want to give every story they review a ten, just because its a good story. I hope others will give good stories a seven and excellent stories an eight. Lets save tens for Dance of a Lifetime or something else that winds up in the top fifty, or maybe the top half of the top fifty. Or at least the best story you read that month.

I hope it is OK to disagree. I have read reviews where the reviewer claims the story is better than just a ten and is sorry he can't give it an eleven. The problem with all reviews being nines and tens is its hard to praise the really exceptional stories enough.

I don't see how you're disagreeing, or why you think you are.

The plot & spelling and grammar for this story was really excellent, it's just that the story itself didn't do anything for me, hence the extremely low appeal rating even though the others would have been so high.

And I agree about he ridiculousness of people awarding 10s to really good or really great stories.

10s should be only for most amazing/incredible/awesome stories.

Or even those that give 8s & 9s to stories that are very good or really good, but aren't great or excellent.

It's the opposite of 1 bombing.

How old is the old scoring system? Was it one to five stars, like on Fine Stories?

I'd like to advocate others rate stories 6 is a C, 7 is a B, and 8 is an A. If you think a story is an A Plus, rate it a nine. Tens should be rare. And ones should be as rare as tens. Normal curves have as many scores below the median as above it. Fives are not a failing grade, just below average. And some of the stories that get scores below six are interesting and downgraded by many voters because of content choices, like MM or Scat or other squicks. Rache lived with it, other authors can if they want to. And they do the site a service, unless we want every story to be a Post Apocalypse or Do-Over, or something about a cheating wife.