Do you think people should see who rates them? Webtoon

[IM17MI]

I'm asking cuz I have someone that's constantly sabotaging me with bad ratings.
Everything is going well with 10 to 9 ratings making my score around that number but then my rate drops which means someone gave me a 1 or 2. So, I think it's really ez to sabotage peoples ratings and imo this wouldn't happen if we could see who rates? Since they know we can't see them there are people who troll and rate people underserving scores which sucks for everyone.

What if only people who comment could rate? Their rating would show alongside their comment. Would you prefer that?

[Jenny-Toons]

I actually think Webtoons could take it a step further and allow creators the option to dismantle ratings. Meaning, they give the choice on whether they want people to rate their comic or not.

The logic would be -- if you have something to say about the comics (good or bad), you'd write it in the comments. And if you don't have anything to say, you'd just go on about your way.

I can see the logic behind the rating reveal, especially if you have the same person trying to actively downvote your work. But I also feel this would result in possible attacks on anyone who just rated a comic poorly, especially from the types of creators who'd actively try and get readers to attack those raters.

Maybe there can be a way to see who've recently rated your comic or something, but I dunno if all of the ratings should be available.

[IM17MI]

Agree. It's just people because you can't see who it is take that freedom to just sabotage you. Every time I release a new episode the ratings are above 9 but then all of a sudden drop drastically, then gradually start raising again...I just find it sad and kinda demoralising.
I thought of a system where when leaving a comment you are given the option to rate it so above or bellow the comment it is shown the rating the person gave you, this way people would feel more discouraged to sabotage since their names would have to appear by commenting.

[baasinsimple]

I mean I gave some criticisms to a comic artist who didn't take it well and I was very nice and stood my ground (also said that she was being very unprofessional, sad thing was she was a good artist), next thing I knew her and a couple of her buddies bombed me with ones when I had a well earned 8.55 so I ended up with a 4.6 instead because I didn't have a lot of ratings. So it would be nice, but what would it help? if you could report people who are sabotaging your comic, then there's a potential that someone who can't take criticism will misuse that feature. I am all for blocking ratings though. There's no reason someone shouldn't have that privilege already.

[IM17MI]

That sucks.
Then how about if only people who comment can leave ratings? Their rating will be visible alongside the comment. This would discourage trolling behaviour, no?

[Jenny-Toons]

I can definitely see that as a better option, along with choosing not to have ratings up.

That way, if someone does comment, you have the why and the how, if they choose to rate. It probably wouldn't completely get rid of trolling behavior, but it might just reduce it.

[baasinsimple]

I don't think that would help too much with the systems separate, even if you could rate only if you left comments, if there was no connection between the two processes besides that, it wouldn't help. Plus, some people are too lazy to leave a comment but want to rate. But you do have a point if we exclude those people, and You left the comic rating with a comment and the rating shown on the banner would be the accumulated averages of those. But not only would it be overly-complex, Webtoon has other concerns rather than that. Plus, there's the fact that if you could report comments and thus the ratings would be gone with the comment, then there's the issue of a lot of webtoon readers being younger or not taking criticism well, so they subscribe to the "Don't like it, Don't read it" or the "every single bit of criticism is a personal attack" mentality so you could be bombarded with insults for sharing your opinion (it gets rather out of hand sometimes).

[shazzbaa]

This idea makes sense when you're thinking about the person leaving the rating being unreasonable, but as soon as you imagine the opposite scenario, it seems like it could go very badly. Like, if people could see who rates them, and then you leave a less than stellar rating on a comic you didn't care for, some artists would take it very personally and get extremely angry at you. Even if you weren't trying to sabotage anyone -- you were just using the rating system the way it's meant to be used -- some artists would get angry if you messed up their score.

If your rating appeared next to your name when you comment, many readers would be super shy about leaving negative ratings.... you would only get negative ratings from the most contentious/combative people, because most people don't want to comment just to say "I don't like it," so everyone else would just avoid rating if they didn't like something. I think that's a polite way to handle comments -- you don't need to comment on something if you don't care for it -- but for a rating system, that doesn't work. If only the people who care about your work enough to comment can rate it, then the ratings will all be skewed positive.

If a comic is read by 20 people, and 5 of those people really like it and give it a high rating, and the other 15 don't like it and give it a mediocre rating, then the rating reflects what it's meant to reflect.
But if a comic is read by 20 people, and 5 of those people really like it and give it a high rating, and the other 15 don't like it, but don't HATE it passionately or anything, so they shy away from leaving a rating because it will show their name in some way, then this hypothetical comic's rating is 100% positive with 5 reviews, which is very inaccurate.

I'm not on webtoons, so like, take all this with a grain of salt, but I don't think it would fix ratings -- they'd just be inaccurate in a different way -- and it seems like it could cause problems with creators being mad at negative reviewers.

[Jenny-Toons]

Yeah. I feel that's why I'm more on board with the idea that Youtube uses: you're provided the option to dismantle the rating on your uploaded content.

Instead of rating, people just right down exactly what they think in the comments, good or bad, and it doesn't affect them at all. And if you have nothing to say (good or bad), you're just able to go about your business.

I think this option here would work more for people who don't care about ratings and instead want actual feedback they can use. Of course, you will get those rambos who give poor feedback (good or bad), but from that point, I think it's up to the creator to develop the ability to pick and choose feedback they take in.

[Shanny8]

I gonna say I dont wanna know who rates my comic- why would I want to know/see that? What would it change?

Not everyone is going to like your comic. The goal of a comic creator [on Webtoon] is to make their comic good enough to where the positive rates arent affected by the negative ones. I dont have time to worry about who rated my comic badly and why- that is extra unnecessary stress that I dont want or need.

[yonaremi]

Not everyone is going to like your comic.

I'm pretty sure authors here are frustrated not because people don't like their comics, but because it's obvious that some individuals rate their work 1/10 without even giving it a read ^^;

[TheFalseVyper]

I'm not on Webtoons and everything I hear about it is from the forums, but at this point I'm surprised the rating system is still around. I've heard nothing but complaints about it. The fact that there are people out there who actually do sabotage other comics is really disheartening.

My only question is what does the rating system actually accomplish? If your comic has an amazing rating, does it increase your odds of being featured?

[fischhead]

Shazbaa and Jenny have some good ideas here. Simply clicking a number is very vague feedback, so if someone is going to leave a rating, they should be able to say what they did or didn't like about the work. I think these opinions could be posted anonymously to the creator, but should be known by WT staff to prevent harassment and abuse of the system.

[Luminosophy]

That'd be great, it's basically just like Deviantart's critique system. Some people also still just leave "critiques" that are text walls of compliments, or just post blatant personal attacks to the artist. But the fact that you need a comment to justify/ explain the rating makes it easier to understand which reviews have value. If that makes sense, lol.

[TenguHarley]

It would be nice to see who rates them along with a comment connected to it but I do agree with everyone else's points, including @shazzbaa reply.

I get tons a views. little comments and likes here and there despite I have about 120+ subs with a rating of 7.42 stars. It was 8 stars about a few months or so ago.. but I think it's due to that one update it got intense XD and I'm like oh. I guess I upset someone?? or etc etc I at most take it as a grain of salt. I give my honest rates to others, give a comment if wanted to along with a like but either way I still read the story either way. I'm kind of a silent reader like most but I do try to be more er "vocally" supportive to the creator's work.

I don't know if having more subs or high ratings would attract more into loving your story .3. especially how much content you have and if it's to their supposed tastes. More or less to the supposed tastes...

Though the one thing that REALLY bothers me is when new creators get attacked by readers that said character or story is copied from a popular webtoon or other well known content .x. or mean comments that the story is bad. I'm not sure for those who post there get that sort of experience

[LittleMissDevil]

I'm not a fan of the rating system myself. It doesn't tell me anything at all. Did the person read the comic and dislike the story? Did the person klick on the first page and dislike the artstyle? Is the person against political themes in a webcomic? Did a specific scene bother them? Did they pay attention to the comic or did they just take a quick look? Or the other way around: why did the person rating my comic like it at all? I am pretty starved for feedback and the rating system just frustrates me in that regard.

My comic has a small viewerbase as is and just one random person rating my comic with a 1/10 can seriously damage my overall rating. Which happened. And I think a 1/10 star rating is a little unfair to most comics that get it anyways. I personally have never seen a comic bad enough to be considered one star.

5.5 for my comic is not the worst rating ever, but I don't even know how many people contributed to that. I honestly would kinda prefer the like - dislike ratio from youtube, because that at least is quantifiable. But as many have said my favorite option would be to disable the system. It's useless for the creator and most viewers anyways, because it doesn't display any information.

[baasinsimple]

Nah, you have to get hella subs for that, to get featured you need to be a guaranteed success. Which is why a lot of amazing artists don't get featured. Ratings tell you absolutely nothing about your comic despite that someone came along and said, "meh, whatever I'll boost your ratings". For a hobbyist or student artist, it doesn't do anything.

[TheFalseVyper]

I guess that further pushes the idea that the rating system is busted? It doesn't seem helpful in any aspect that it was intended for.

[eyewater]

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please delete everything

[IM17MI]

Exactly my point.
Every time I post I get someone rating 1/10 dropping my score...
I don't care if some people are not going to enjoy my comic but I'm pretty sure my comic does not deserve a 1
With the possibility of showing who rates your comic the "trolls" would get discouraged, just that, as it is anonymous they'll even create fake accounts to sabotage your comic.

Euphoria