Would it be possible to work on a post that explains what IS and what is NOT a helpful review? I feel like a lot of people are just joining and responding to two posts with "I liked this, you could change a few things but otherwise it's good". Then when these people post their own story, all I see is that they have more than 2 posts so I assume they've made their contribution. After spending thirty minutes reviewing them, I take a look at their posts and see that they've just left two stories a useless two-line comment. My reviews aren't anything amazing, but at least I try to put some thought into what I'm saying to help them make specific changes. Cogito does a great job of catching these people and locking their threads, but if there was a sticky/announcement we could just put at the top of each review forum (my specific problem is in the Novel forum right now, not sure if others are experiencing the same issues in other forums) with guidelines on how to leave a HELPFUL review. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
This has been mentioned quiet often. AT the end of the day, if someone spends two post rviewing very minor details and post their own peice up for review chances are they'll just get reviews from similar posters (doing a quick 2 minutes review). I generally dont review people's work if i disciver they have posted only a handful of posts. And the same day the joined th site. Im sure i'm not the only person.
Yeah it sounds like I just need to do a quick background check BEFORE doing my reviews So its partially my fault. Do you spend time in the other review forums (besides Novel) and if so, does the same problem occur in any of those?
At this stage i cant say i do. Im not really into story stories and i dont really have the mind for poetry so i dont go there (Well i did review one short story, only because it wa s when i first came here, and the best short story i have ever read in my life). I would expect it to be the same, maybe not as big as a problem, but im only assuming. BTW its not your fault, just a scenario that you live and learn.
I usually do that also if the member has very few posts. But, doing reviews benefits you also. Even if you do a review and the story gets locked, you still came out ahead. Any time spent thinking critically about others--and your own--stories is time well spent. But, yeah... I prefer to spend my time on contributors to the forum, not just folks that wanna get their stuff up asap.
That said, there are hundreds of post here. You could always review them (even if they may not still be around), as for helping out the unworthy (did i say that!) Whilei m here, can i ask how do you put a strike though a word? (eg when reviewing) thought it was [strike] word [/strike] hmm
We DO have an entire forum discussing reviewing strategies. It is Writing Issues -> Reviewing. I keep meaning to put together a How to Use the Review Room post, but I honestly have been too busy chasing down problemns to get around to it. Hopefully when that post is completed, it can be included in the Important Links pane on the home page of the site. As for the strikethough, the advanced editing pane does have a strikethough icon, in case you don't feel like typing [NOPARSE]text[/NOPARSE] to get text. Also, if you want an em dash, it's sufficient to use the manuscript shorthand --. You should be know that for your manuscript anyway. However, I think an em dash copied from a Word document will be preseved in text. Most versions of Word will autocorrect -- to an em dash.
