This has happened to me three times already. I spend a very long, careful time reviewing somebodys piece, only to find that they hadn't reviewed 2 other pieces yet. So the thread gets locked, and all my work goes to waist. Yes, people really need to start doing whats expected of them. But do the moderators have to go as far as erase the posts that have already been made. Sorry, it just bugs me to see my efforts go to complete waist.
The posts are not erased, just soft deleted, so that once the person meets the requirements, the posts you make are then un-deleted and viewable again. I can understand your feelings towards this though and I think you have raised a very valid point. It can be very aggravating to see the time and effort you have put into a review be deleted like that. The best person to talk to about this issue is, Cogito. He is the head moderator on here and generally the only one that is actually active now. I'm very sorry that your reviews have been soft deleted because other people on the boards haven't put in the time and effort like yourself. Sherie Supporter/Reviewer
I had the same thing happen when I was new to the site, and at the time I was pretty frustrated too. Ever since, I always check out a poster's reviews before I commit myself to reviewing their work. Still though, I understand where you're coming from- one of the reviews I worked hardest on was lost this way.
Yeah, it's a tough one to have your efforts nullified, but I would suggest putting it down to experience and taking Agreen's advice. It's unfortunate that so many still post material without regard to requirements, considering how beneficial critiquing is to skills development. Then, I suppose we've all been guilty in some way, after writing something, of wanting to have it seen and commented on, just to have it out there.
I also learnt to check how many posts the writer's made before they post their own work the hard way. Used to spend quite a bit of time critiquing only to find out that that was their first post or something. Isn't there anyway the mods could put some kind of notice actually in each subsection of the review room that says 'your peice will be locked until you have reviewed two pieces of other peoples work'? I expect not, but I for one am getting tired of going into the review room to do some critiquing and finding three or four of the threads on each page are locked.
The Lock Threat is all over the Noobie Packet, written in the rules, and scrawled across every ill-fated thread. Although it is quite frustrating to have your work made in-vuable (I know, bear with me), it's also a benefit. If your work can't be viewed, then the person who didn't take the time to help others will not be able to reap the benefits of YOUR hard-working review. Why should somebody else be allowed to take a short-cut and then reap the benefits of having done things thoroughly? Also, if you REALLY want your work made viewable again, then be the monkey on the OP author's back until they meet requirements
The reason is to prevent those who have rushed their threads in, often knowing they don't have adequate reviews, from getting their feedback anyway. I understand your frustration, but keep in moind that YOU have benefitted from writing the critique, regardless of whether the original poster ever sees it. Truth is, if the thread stays locked, 90% of the time is because the original poster never cared enough about critique to attempt to get the thread reopened. In fact, many of them never even come back after they have posted the piece. Strange, huh? There's no prize for getting in the first critique. It never hurts to take a look at a member's posting history before deciding how much effort to invest. The members who put in a real effort from the start before posting their writing are the ones most likely to benefit from, and appreciate, and reciprocate your critiquing efforts. Also, rest assured, you don't lose critiquing credit when your post disappears in a locked thread. The moderatiors can still see it in its entirety.
I experienced this once and since then I try to avoid commenting on posts that start with "This is my first attempt at a short story/poem..."
Sorry, I've been off writingforums for a while. But I appreciate everyone's advice and incouragement. I'm not worried about my review credits, I just honestly wanted to be the good samaritan and help some poor guy out. I know you guys are right though, I really do make myself a better writer by giving indepth reviews. So in some way, the benifit is not lost. This is the attitude we should all have when critiquing other pieces.
If someone just posted something, and their post count is still in the single digits, the overwhelming odds are that it's gonna get blocked. Most people that come here just don't get it, 'least not at first.
I can see what you guys are saying, but that isn't fair to some of us who do have our reviews in, and now our writing is ignored simply by the fact that we're grouped with the dishonest ones because of our post count, even though we used those few posts in the "right way."
When I'm determining whether to critique a piece, I always check the person's critiques, both to make sure that the thread isn't going to get locked and to make sure that that person is putting in a good effort critiquing other pieces. So for me, it doesn't matter if someone has 3 posts (two critiques and a post). As long as those critiques were good, I'll probably critique their piece. I haven't been around here very long at all, so I'm not sure if that's common of most people around here, but from what I've seen so far it seems to be that the main determining factor of whether a piece is reviewed or not is piece length, not post count. I guess my main point is that I certainly don't group everyone with small post counts in a "dishonest" group (maybe since I don't have many posts myself ), and I doubt many people on the forum do.
Most people don't decide based on the post count, but it IS true that the vast majority of those with a single digit post count, including a post of work to be reviewed, either will have their thread(s) closed within a day or already have. In my standard welcome post, I do point out that the Review Room is not intended for new members. It's a critiquing workshop that demands a lot from those who post there, and it's worthwhile to make yourself known and learn your way around the site before even thinking of posting your writing there. If you ignore that advice, or the advice that you introduce yourself and get to know the site first (remember the advice given when you finish registering?), then you have placed yourself at a disadvantage. Maybe it would be better if we blocked posting there entirely for new members, say for the first 20-30 posts. It would certainly make life easier for the mods.
Or spawn LOTS of "filler" posts, in the same way as some members post non-reviews in order to post their own work. *shrugs* Whatever we do, the internet is full of morons, so we'll have no shortage of crap to deal with, Cog.
Aww hell, lemme toss in my 2 cents. The simple fact is too many people come here and simply want to post their work and be told they are the next JK Rowling or Stephen King. They dump their work and then get annoyed if and when they are criticized too much. The simple fact is writing, like any other craft, involves a hell of a lot of work. Ego has to be put to the side. What's one of the greatest ways to improve your writing? Learning to properly critique the work of others. If your critique diappears (even through a soft erase), you have still had the practice and come one step closer to mastering the common craft that unites all of us. Ultimately, most of these complaints is simply a matter of missing the forests for the trees. ~R
It depends on how the blocking message is worded. Something like: That way, they would not be led to believe they only had to dump more noise posts. They might even feel driven to read the site rules and other key informational posts. Something really needs to be done. About 90% of the locked threads never get reopened. The posters just dump and run. That isn't the kind of membership we need.
Obviously I'm brand new here, so I feel out of place offering a suggestion. However, I read Cog's post stating that the Review Room has a larger character requirement in each post, but it still leaves open the possibility that instead of posting "that's good," they might post, "that was really good, keep it up." Is it possible that the character requirement could be greatly increased? I can't imagine many truly constructive reviews that are only two or three sentences, for instance. What if the character requirement was at least a few hundred characters or something? It seems to be that that it would be far more difficult for a reviewer to post a full paragraph of empty praise. If it is decided that raising the post limit for participating in the Review Workshop is necessary, I do hope that that would only be for posting one's own work, not for posting reviews. I think that's what's being discussed, though.
It has nothing to do with the character count. The minimum character count was the first attempt on this site to deter people from posting slapdash critiques. But character counts mean nothing. A concise critique CAN be quite constructive, and 5000 words of bullflop is still only manure.
Part of me [the part that despises authourity] sees it as a type of censorship. The part of me that is mature and respects it sees it as an overbearing teaching tool. I'm not young but I am new and when I first found this place I did hope to have everyone be thrilled for the chance to read my astounding work and be humbled after having done so. RE-AL-ITY check!!! Even writing the shoddy reviews I've done so far is an experience for me that never would have come about if not for finding this place. I see the need for Cog and the other moderators to do what needs to be done and although I don't look forward to having one of my threads locked I do understand why It's sometimes done.
My policy when finding a poster who has posted work but not ccritiques has always been to leave either a visitor message, a pm, or a comment in-thread about proper critiquing, and sometimes a promise to come back and review once they have met the requirements. I've had times where that has worked (even though the thread usually gets locked), and times where it has not. But I've never had a negative response. At least twice, I've gotten pms from those people reminding me of my promise when the thread was un-locked. Now, I'm going to say something that a lot of people won't like. When I joined writingforums.com (another writing site set up similarly to this one) two years ago, I read the rules, marathoned the info threads, and ended up with well over a hundred posts--most being critiques--before I posted even one piece of my own. It made a big difference in the number of people who responded to my work, and also in my own knowledge and skill as a writer/critiquer. Most people, especially the newer ones who have just started writing, will not have the perserverence or the patience for that. But it is something for them to consider when they join any writing site that runs on an honour system for critiquing. In my ideal world, everyone would do something similar when they first joined (any) forum, so that they could have a feel for the site, and an understanding of how it worked when they began to post their own material. This will never happen. It warrants mention that I did not follow those tactics when I joined here, and I have talked to several people in similar situations who have felt very left out when "senior members" have attacked them or otherwise made note of their newness when they first started leaving critiques, or putting up work. However, my average critique per piece ratio has always been well above the minimum requirement. It is a simple fact that there will always be noobies who do not follow the rules, and who do not attempt to give back to the community. No one ever said keeping a forum like this active and effective would be easy. (I do not intend this to be a slight towards the very diligent staff here.) The staff shoulders a lot of the burden of weeding out the undesirables, and we as members should be very appreciative of that. In order to be a successful community, everyone has to work together, and I think it's the least we can do to ignore a little inconvenience like soft-deletion of critiques to help the mods keep the site running. It's really not that hard to find out if a particular member has met their critiquing requirement. Just go to their public profile and click the "Find all posts by this member" option. If a persone has too many posts for this to be done quickly, odds are they will have enough critiques to legitimately post work. That way, this policy will not become an issue for members honestly trying to follow the rules.
