Top reviewers

[Tiger]

I wrote a small script to display who's the top reviewers and top posters on the forums. You can find the link at the front news page. Or click the link below:

http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/topusers.php

Any other thoughts on how to encourage people to write reviews?

Jinn

[Marcus]

Any other thoughts on how to encourage people to write reviews?

Judging by a recent story, a bit of author's blackmail/pleading/petulance seems to bring reviewers out of the woodwork!

OK, Jinn. Here's your next task (...should you choose to accept it ;-)

How many reviewers only write one review ever? And why? My estimation is a great many. Perhaps they have found their perfect story and no other, before or since is worthy of a review :rolleyes:?

Perhaps the reviewing experience just wasn't enough fun for them to repeat it?

Perhaps they were thinking 'why the hell should I bother, I didn't get paid for the last one!' (Unlike the epinions site where, to my amazement, my two cents worth has literally earned me two cents :) )

Sorry to give more questions than answers. Maybe someone else has some ideas....

[boccaccio2000g]

Originally posted by Jinn
I wrote a small script to display who's the top reviewers and top posters on the forums. You can find the link at the front news page. Or click the link below:

http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/topusers.php

Any other thoughts on how to encourage people to write reviews?

Jinn

==================
Jinn,

Speaking purely in the interests of equity and having no ulterior motive, ;-) you might extend say, a month's free membership to the top reviewer or two or three each month (or quarter).

Seriously -- if 10% of the people here are as

A) frugal, (I vastly prefer the designation 'frugal' to 'cheap')

and

B) sex-crazed

as I am, a few will be climbing all over each other to write reviews! ;-)

I'm not sure I'd want to vouch for their quality, though!


Boccaccio

[Tiger]

To answer Marcus's question: there are about 300 out of 570 total reviewers wrote only one review. If you ask me why, I can only guess and I think your reasons all could be valid. People are lazy.

I was acctually considering the idea proposed by boccaccio. The question is how to setup the system. And again, how to do the quality control. You can't just say 'good story' to become a top reviewer.

[boccaccio2000g]

Originally posted by Jinn
To answer Marcus's question: there are about 300 out of 570 total reviewers wrote only one review. If you ask me why, I can only guess and I think your reasons all could be valid. People are lazy.

Only 570 reviewers out of the 7600 who went to the trouble to register? That seems very odd, doesn't it? I would have thought that most people registered so that they could write reviews.

But maybe they just wanted to follow the Brenda brou-ha-ha. :-)

Of the 300 who wrote only one review, I'll bet a fair number only wrote a review to their own stories (under a second (third?) identity. I've seen some 9's and 10's for some stories that... oh, well -- there's no accounting for tastes, I guess.


I was acctually considering the idea proposed by boccaccio. The question is how to setup the system. And again, how to do the quality control. You can't just say 'good story' to become a top reviewer.

Do you have a way of measuring the number of words or lines in a review? The award could go to most reviews of, say, 3 lines (or 30 words?) or more. With a certain minimum number of reviews required, at your discretion (10?). And it might be a good idea to stipulate that no one could win the award more than once every six months or so. This wouldn't absolutely guarantee the quality
of the reviews, but if someone is going to write a few lines, they might as well write something useful.

You might have to reserve the right to disqualify someone who reviewed a lot of stories, but gave no hint of having read them, though.

It's not impossible that, in the long run, this might actually add paying members, Jinn -- I don't know what you have Behind the Green Door, but very likely some of the winners might continue as paying members. Or at least give the membership zone some good word of mouth here and elsewhere.

In case of ties, of course, I think the most equitable solution would be to give extra credit for having written stories set in 19th century China, don't you? :-)

Boccaccio

[S_Couture]

I only review stories a the genre that I would tend to read and find pleasurable. There are some very good stories out there that I would give a style review on:

ie The Author writes adequately, but I didn't find the story arousing.

I wouldn't feel I was being fair to the author to submit such a review, so I abstain.

[BDSM_Tourguide]

I try to read the story and write the review based upon merits like good sentence structure and punctuation and such, but also I feel if it doesn't particularly arouse my interest, I don't feel it deserves a good of a review as other stories I read do.

[Marcus]

I was actually considering the idea proposed by boccaccio. The question is how to setup the system. And again, how to do the quality control. You can't just say 'good story' to become a top reviewer.

Easy! It's a discretionary award rather than based on quantity of reviews, amount of vocabulary used etc.

Just simply announce a 'reviewer of the month', at the webmaster's discretion, based on the reviewer's general contribution. No arguments!

[boccaccio2000g]

Originally posted by S_Couture
I only review stories a the genre that I would tend to read and find pleasurable. There are some very good stories out there that I would give a Boccaccio style review on:

ie The Author writes adequately, but I didn't find the story arousing.

I wouldn't feel I was being fair to the author to submit such a review, so I abstain.
=================
Yours is certainly a principled point of view, and one which many people would share, Couture.

Most of the stories that I have read and reviewed (since making the suggestion a few months ago that we authors need to take the lead in generating more reviews) are ones that caught my eye, based on the synopsis and/or story codes. But sometimes the synopsis and the story codes are not as descriptive as they might be, and one finds one's self reading a story (well-written or not) whose subject matter is not to one's personal taste.

I reviewed your reviews, so to speak, before writing this; you have been reviewed quite often (well over twenty reviews, much more than most of us) and very favorably (only one score below six, if I recall correctly). And deservedly so. You write very well.

In my one review of one of your stories (which I gave a 7) I said something like 'a 9 for writing style, but only a 3 or a 4 for content'. And went on to explain what it was about the subject matter that I personally didn't care for.

And a thoughtful person could read my comments, and, based upon his or her tastes (and possibly his or her familiarity with my tastes) give my remarks a lot of weight, some, or none at all.

Isn't that how it should work?

I found much to admire in your story, as I indicated; and if you were to take a few hours :-) and immerse yourself in my long story, I think that you would find much to admire in mine -- even though there are perhaps a number of passages that you would want to pass over rather quickly.

And then if you were to write a review of my story similar to the one I wrote of yours "Nicely written, but I could have done without so many extended scenes of sexual violence," or whatever, that would be fair. And perhaps helpful to the next prospective reader.

Bottom line -- I still think it best to encourage people to write more reviews, rather than limiting them to stories that tilt toward their own particular interest. And those who read the reviews should read them, always, with that in mind.

Regards,

Boccaccio

[S_Couture]

Too many names start with a "B" around here and I screwed up. I removed the above reference to your name Boccaccio. I appologize.

Your review kind of blended in with another that said something very similar. (ie I didn't care for the subject matter.) Now I know there are plenty of gray areas and you might not know that you will not care for the subject until you read it, but I still feel that if you don't like 'fetish' 'tg' fill in the blank stories . . .and it is coded appropriately . . . and you are going to grade/review the author down on it, you probably shouldn't review.

If I were a new author submitting my first story, I wouldn't rather not get a review at all, than get panned by someone who wouldn't like the story no matter what I did, due to the genre.

I also differ with you regarding reviews. A review from a critic who hates westerns about a western would be of no use to me if I liked westerns.

On the other hand, if the critic liked westerns and he/she found one they didn't like. . .there's a good chance I probably won't like it either.

[boccaccio2000g]

Originally posted by S_Couture
Too many names start with a "B" around here and I screwed up. I removed the above reference to your name Boccaccio. I appologize.

No problem

Your review kind of blended in with another that said something very similar. (ie I didn't care for the subject matter.) Now I know there are plenty of gray areas and you might not know that you will not care for the subject until you read it, but I still feel that if you don't like 'fetish' 'tg' fill in the blank stories . . .and it is coded appropriately . . . and you are going to grade/review the author down on it, you probably shouldn't review.

I would agree with that; I don't think any of us consciously goes looking for stories that we know we won't like -- that masochistic, we're not! :-)

But very often the codes are mixed or misleading, and you find yourself in the middle of something a little different than what you expected. I still think it is possible to review such stories fairly, if not enthusiastically. As long as you explain that it didn't "push your personal buttons", as opposed to simply saying "This story sucks".

And I think that most of our fellow readers are able to draw the proper inferences from reviews of that type.

S C: If I were a new author submitting my first story, I wouldn't rather not get a review at all, than get panned by someone who wouldn't like the story no matter what I did, due to the genre.

I agree; I would not 'open' a story with the intent of reviewing it, having already made up my mind in advance that I was going to pan it because of the subject matter; I doubt if any of us would.

S C: I also differ with you regarding reviews. A review from a critic who hates westerns about a western would be of no use to me if I liked westerns.

Not even if she said "I don't ordinarily care for westerns, (or horror stories, or sci-fi dramas or musicals) but I found much to admire in X's latest film?"

S C: On the other hand, if the critic liked westerns and he/she found one they didn't like. . .there's a good chance I probably won't like it either.

Very true; and by the same token, if a reader was familiar with the critic's tastes, and shared them, the critic's review would be of some value to that reader regardless of whether the critic was enamored with that particular genre or not, no?

I think we're both in danger of taking this all too seriously; the stories should be fun. And the reviews should be part of the fun. We're reading and writing erotic stories, not holy writ.
You and I might rue this or that review that we thought was unfair, but if we think that anyone else in the world cares about the "injustice" done to us, we're crazy! ;-)

Boccaccio

[Faibhar]

I think we're both in danger of taking this all too seriously; the stories should be fun. And the reviews should be part of the fun. We're reading and writing erotic stories, not holy writ.

Sage (b)(Boccaccio's take of writing/receiving Reviews is well-balanced with it's implication that reviewers and some writers take their Reviews all too seriously.

Again, Reviews should be as a gilded lily: welcomed if they flatter, observed if they instruct, or simply shrugged off if they offend. The bottom line sits with the writer composing the story as best he or she can possibly do, at all times respecting the potential readership.

[Mobius]

Most active Forum poster.

Ok I blather to much sorry. I have been trying to cut back and lurk. But then the post to the favorite threads count for post also so hopefuly most of it was in there

but I will try to fade a bit and hopefuly come in 3 next month
:)

[vanillaslave]

okay i am paranoid enough about posting here. i guess i could have done a whole new nic since i KNOW the vanilla people from another board will be here cross posting my "deviance" at another forum.. but this is just me. people i meet online still call me "'nilla"

i am not so sure that many of us are comfortable with being "a top poster" here.

i think Jinn if you want more posters you might make it clear it is free to join the forums.

I have read here for years and thought i had to pay to review.

i may be slow but i doubt i am the only one.

to me it seemed you paid to get into some picture site. and well as a female pics are not nearly as interesting to me as a good story. i never really knew the forum was here and i am a message board addict.

but back to the point i don't think a TOP LIST OF PEOPLE WHO POST AT THIS DEVIANT PORN SITE FOR LOSERS type list really encourages us to come out of our shell.

plenty of us have personal issues with the whole deal to start with and advertising who posts here the most does in my mind at least not encourage posts. or reviews. i see no benefit to it.

i see nothing about it that encourages people to post or review and think it may have the opposite effect.i know it will for me. i found it mortifying. i was wishing we could somehow keep google from putting these posts in their webcrawl.


just my 2 cents.

[Curtis]

I had the same problem as you about finding the Forum. Tourguide chided me in another thread when I claimed they were 'hiding' it.

I do differ with you about the 'Top Poster' and 'Top Reviewer' lists, though. In both June and October I put on special pushes to bump up my Reviewer ranking. (I won't be doing that again. I think the quality of my reviews suffered.) I check the Poster ranking every week or so, just to keep track of who's active (my memory blurs the names from day to day). Usually newbies have a big spurt their first month, then stall out.

I suppose it's time to Google myself again. I was very surprised to read that "these posts are in their webcrawl." When I checked in June, I wasn't listed on Google, even though I'd been posting here for months, so I wonder when that changed.

If you're really worried about being known for posting to a "DEVIANT PORN SITE FOR LOSERS", maybe you could make up a nickname, instead of using your own.

Have a nice day.:)

[BDSM_Tourguide]

Originally posted by Mobius
Most active Forum poster.

Ok I blather to much sorry. I have been trying to cut back and lurk. But then the post to the favorite threads count for post also so hopefuly most of it was in there

but I will try to fade a bit and hopefuly come in 3 next month
:)



Not to rain on your parade too much, but when I weeded out the forums earlier this week, I knocked my post count from 813 to 733, for a total of 80 posts lost.

To be fair, though, you lost quite a few, too, in the great spring cleaning of the forums in the winter.

Blather all you want. We don't have anything better to do that read what you post. LOL Heck, half of my posts are semi-intelligent crap.

Unfortunately, my work with the forums is not yet complete. I still have to do the BDSM Library and Community sections.

[BDSM_Tourguide]

Originally posted by vanillaslave
i am not so sure that many of us are comfortable with being "a top poster" here.

but back to the point i don't think a TOP LIST OF PEOPLE WHO POST AT THIS DEVIANT PORN SITE FOR LOSERS type list really encourages us to come out of our shell.



Well, not to blatantly disagree with you or anything, but I'm guessing my complete lack of PMs, emails or IM messages regarding the Most Active Users/Reviewers demonstrates that many of us are quite comfortable with top posters here.

I personally like being on the list every month. It's not so much that I'm proud of being a big blabbermouth, but it's kind of a neat thing to see how I rate against others here. I just wish I wasn't so picky about the stories I read so I could get on the top list for reviews as well.

Besides, if you think this is a list for deviant losers, perhaps you should consider why you are frequenting these pages.

[vanillaslave]

Well, not to blatantly disagree with you or anything, but I'm guessing my complete lack of PMs, emails or IM messages regarding the Most Active Users/Reviewers demonstrates that many of us are quite comfortable with top posters here.

well then i am glad we discussed that in a mature manner. I'm sure the people who lurk around the edges here feel really comfy PMing You... ::giggle:: Thanks for being sensitive to my feelings.

oh wait i just remembered the last line of your post. clearly irony goes well over Your head..

ps i PMed you to make it all official and shit.

[BDSM_Tourguide]

I didn't get no PM from nobody today but Curtis.


As for my level of maturity, I'll try to improve it a little.


I disagree with what you are saying. I think plenty of people are comfortable posting here. As for your suggestions to draw more attention to the forums, I hope Jinn has a look at them when he comes in next.

[vanillaslave]

sigh.

if i smacked you about the head...

would it help?

perhaps your wife could interpret this for you. not everyone is as comfy here as you are sugar,

and when people make a suggestion here in a forum started by Jinn, we assume he will see it without You doing some sort of interpretative dance or whatever you planned to explain my post.

you can look at the forums and the last poster to post and see that i am not holding back on posting here.

i like posting here.

i also think that i had to decide to risk a whole lot to do so. and that others won't do it if there is abig flashy sign that advertises that fact.

i don't need my name on a list of really cool people who post here. you like that feature. i agree to disagree.

[Faibhar]

As for my level of maturity, I'll try to improve it a little.

One wishes that everyone could exhibit the same amount of patience and restraint as does BDSM_Tourguide with his responses, especially to vanilla slave's vitriol.

As for top posters
AT THIS DEVIANT PORN SITE FOR LOSERS
as vanillaslave is wont to characterize this bunch, well good for those that are so much better than the rest of us.

[vanillaslave]

*sigh*


poor poor TG.

jesus.

[sm4hg]

Well, I'm not listed in the TOP 20, still I sometimes review a story. Strangely I feel more urged to review a story if I'm displeased with it. That leads to problems, because I don't want to offend the writer (although I sometimes feel very much like that). Writing, in general, is a good thing and I'd like to encourage people to write. Sometimes I simply can't. A good story doesn't need a review, it's enough to vote. A badly written story needs a review to tell the author how to make it better or to keep him/her from continuing.
Another thing is, that I don't like to be online that long to be able to read a story and then review it. I like more to download them and read them "at home". So I'd have to go online again to review it and normally I don't do that.