Opinion on Reviews

[silverraven0]

If my memory doesn't play with me, there's a review page on tapas once upon a time. I don't know when it's removed, but I'm very sure it's on the site before.

I made this because tapas has removed the rating system a while back and I don't really think of it until today. So here's the thing. I don't particularly care about ratings, because a series can have a 10/10 ratings but still s*it flow or characters development so it's not something I often believe in.

Like, don't you often see people rate a restaurant with "Great food! Totally worth it!" and then they gave 1/5 stars? I don't know why or how that happens, but it does. Miss click is one of my guess, but yeah, I don't trust ratings and I don't even realize tapas has a rating system? Because it escaped my eyes? lmfao.

So anyway, if I don't trust ratings, what did I trust? It's a readers review.

I often goes to goodreads just to check on fellow readers of what they think of a book I stumbled around in a bookstore, because the scope of my favorite writers is honestly so small so I don't accidentally bought a book that looks awesome by the blurbs and synopsis but trash upon reading.

I also have to mention that some trash book by one reader doesn't made it a trash book for the other, because people preference and liking is different. I mostly took the reviews by the grain of salt, and use it for a reference to weight in my mind if the book seems worth it or not, but they do will impact heavily in my choice as I don't want to waste money and time for it.

I am not a good reviewer, but sometimes, I really want to make a review just to pour my love into that one series (that I can't even read because it's locked in my region hahahahhahahahah....;x; ) just to say that "ITS A F*CKING GOOD SERIES!" or when I'm reading something that's totally bad, I want to point out what the hell is wrong with the thing and stuff.

Sure, I believe it have the good and bad side. Like I mentioned before, it can cause people to deter from reading something that can be potentially good for others/be good in the future, or if someone were having malicious intention they could completely trampled on someone hard work just for the hell of it.

But then again, a simple review like "The story look s*it in the first five chapters but it kicks off to the heavens in chapter six like a bang and everything is so awesome after that, so hang on until then!" will makes me hang on until I at least read the series that far to decide if I want to continue or not.

I honestly like reading reviews, because you can sometimes read the happiness of the reviewer when they found a good s*it and spend their precious time writing good and lomg essays of what the book they found did good for them (or the despise if they found a real s*tty book lol).

There's some other thing I to say but I already forgotten, so I'll stop here.

(it does been a while since I made a topic for conversation haha. I'm just being a hermit for a while. Sorry about the grammar mistakes)

TL;DR : I like having reviews on a potential reading material, so what's your opinion on it?

[DesiredUsernameTaken]

I used to really love reviews and trust in them. In general, I've been leaning more towards not bothering with them at all.

If the review is from a professional reviewer, I stop reading immediately. Often, these are written by people who have to be entertaining, so they exaggerate their opinions and might even completely crush something they liked otherwise because funny. (Admittedly, I used to think they were hilarious, too, but I've softened over the years and I don't think tearing someone's work apart is amusing anymore, it's just unnecessarily cruel)

If it's from non-professional reviewers, I look for very specific things on whether or not to even trust the review. Were they specific about what they did and did not like? Does it feel like their gripes come down more to personal opinion, or not? Preferably, did they mention what type of consumer they are and what they were looking for, and what expectations did they go in with? 95% of reviews I come across don't mention the latter, so it can often be very difficult to gauge what type of person is writing the review and if they have similar tastes or not.

Then, there's the whole debacle of how easily the review game is cheated! Goodreads, for example, has a lot of bitter writers who will review other stories to bring down their ratings, get their fans to help, or even buy fake reviewers to bomb other stories. Some of them can be very convincing, and most people will not go through the trouble of looking into the profiles of each reviewer to see if they're legit (if they even know this is a thing that happens at all).

I'd really love review systems if they gave a template to fill out, and required every single section to be filled out, in a manner that forces you to help pinpoint what you were looking for, if those expectations were met, what you thought about the content, etc. This would definitely reduce the number of reviews, but I think it'd ensure better quality. Reviews can be really helpful, but the ways in which they differ is too much to the point that I can't be wasting my time sifting through them for the good ones.

[VibrantFox]

personally not a fan because in the same way a person can bomb a person with lots of negative ratings a person can do the same with negative reviews even if it's not an accurate reflection of the work.

if i really want to get an idea of peoples opinions of a work i'd rather try to sift through social media a bit than a potentially unreliable review or just find out for myself. maybe it's because there's always a big chance of my own personal tastes not matching with someone else's or just seeing people call something awful while i enjoyed it so i just do the whole read one chapter/the first few pages things to get a taste and then go from there

i don't think rating or review systems are bad but in a time where people are more prone to acting malevolently for next to no reason at all it's hard for me to find them reliable anymore. i mean to each their own but i just don't care for them

[fleurravenbooks]

Ratings can be bad, you can have rating of (totally random numbers) two 5 stars and one 4 star, making your rating 4,6 then i can go and give you one star ,making your score 3,,7 (almost whole number ). People can bombard your ratings out of jealousy (personal or just wanting to have higher stats than others), also some people might just make fake acc to give themselves 5 stars.

While reviews tend to take more effort, they can still be as damaging since everyone with a bit of free time can think of bad reviews.

In conclusion, there is no efficient way to stop this, it's happening on good reads quite a lot.

[darthmongoose]

I personally think this wouldn't be very helpful.

Most of the people who like a series will comment "THIS IS GREAT!" meaning that you'll just end up with popular series having more "THIS IS GREAT!" comments, and how is that functionally different from having more likes or more subs?

It would also then leave an opening for any person who has beef with me and thinks I need taking down a peg because they don't like that my comic has more subs than theirs, or they didn't like something I said on the forum, to slide on over into my comic's review page and write. "Don't bother. I think this comic is VERY overrated. I thought the art and plot were mediocre and it shoves the homosexual agenda down your throat. There are a lot of comics on this site much more worthy of your time." or something, which isn't particularly helpful either because they might not even have read it.

I'd personally rather have my cover and blurb and the number of likes and subscribers I have and the fact it's been featured by the staff speak for the quality of my comic than leave it in the hands of random people who already have the power to bookmark and leave likes if they like it.

There might be a handful of people who leave really great, thoughtful reviews, but I don't think a lot of people would, so I'd prefer if the thoughtful people went and got themselves a blog or something, so the people who want to read an in-depth review can go and find one if they want one from somebody who they can see has built a reputation for trustworthy reviews.
The only alternative I could think of would be if people could get rated for the quality of their reviews and become a "trusted reviewer" or reviews could be rated "helpful" or "unhelpful", but that feels like something where some creators would encourage friends and readers to downvote negative reviews or reviewers (or friends and readers would do it on behalf of a creator without being asked).

Overall, I can see the good intent, but also it feels so likely there'd be so much abuse, as there is with the webtoon ratings system, I wouldn't personally like to see this implemented.

[fleurravenbooks]

i agree with you, have a "beef" with one person, and they can try to ruin your stats (it's also really easy to make new acc so what's stopping them from bombing your work with negative ratings)

[VibrantFox]

even with no personal beef involved i've seen people purposefully harass or rate bomb marginalized creators so unless certain protections are put in place to prevent folks from abusing the systems in place then there's really no point to keep such things around

if implemented there's loopholes that must taken into consideration so to make sure they're not exploited

[fleurravenbooks]

you are right..... i don't think there is a way to do so, people will always find loophole and abuse the system

[UrMom]

I'd say it's silly to trust a review, it's a personal opinion, and those don't always align with your own opinions. Although everyone does it, there wouldn't be reviewers if there weren't people who trusted their opinions like gospel, so I'm just the oddball at the end of the day. Lol

Regardless they're really good for getting more eyes on someone's work, there have been a few comics I've discovered thanks to reviews, and they really help with indie creators during crowdfunding campaigns. Like, apparently that is the best time to hunt for reviewers because more people talking about your comic/novel means better chances of getting your project funded, doesn't matter if it's negative because you're still getting traffic and possible backers directed to your campaign. They're advertising, sometimes free, and that's what they're best for imo. Also a good source of entertainment, sometimes you just want to see someone talking about how they read a piece of fiction, especially so if it's a story you enjoy. Video reviews like The Webcomic Relief make for great background noise.

[silverraven0]

I did thought about the 'trusted reviewer's thing too but it escaped my mind. But even so, there must be a criteria for it right? (I think there's that in goodreads?) if a criteria really do being implemented, how do the criteria work? It would probably be easy if the reviewer has an existing blog and sites, bit what about other more casual reviewer? Does it acquired based on likes they're getting or by submitting request to admin? Either way I think it probably kinda hard to determine.

Also can I ask something? Does people who were featured and then the featured series were no longer on the featured tab has the 'it's been featured by staff' on your series or something? im genuinely curious hehe

[IndigoShirtProd]

The thing about reviews is that they're not for the creator, they're for readers/consumers. Sure, a novelist or comic creator can use reviews to gauge how the public is responding to their work, but other than that, it's not very helpful. Creators really should have neutral opinions towards people giving reviews because they're subjective and highly opinion based. I think because it can be very easy for people to go in depth about why they might dislike something versus why they might like something, so it can be very easy fo reviews to swing negatively. Plus the possibility of one person going out of their way to leave negative reviews to hurt the creator.

So I'm neutral towards reviews. Fine with, fine without, though I do think there should be a way to monitor them, if they are implemented, to prevent harrassment.

[darthmongoose]

Also can I ask something? Does people who were featured and then the featured series were no longer on the featured tab has the 'it's been featured by staff' on your series or something? im genuinely curious hehe

No. There's nothing that says you've been featured by staff. You can sometimes tell by the sub count though. It'd be rare for a comic or novel to have over about 500 subs without having been featured on the front page at some point.

[rajillustration]

The reviews I tend to trust the most are actually the off-hand comments a person might say that are off the site. So like someone tweeting out "Spent the whole weekend reading this comic, it's hilarious" is a lot more trustworthy than someone who gives 10/10 on Webtoon or someone who leaves a huge long essay about how much they loved a book on Goodreads. Mostly because people rate bomb in both directions. If it's a stat that's on their page, authors will join rating parties to give eachother 10/10 without even reading the series, just to raise the ratings up. Because, to an author, the rating isn't trustworthy anyway, so may as well skew it upwards.

Like it's really common to meet another artist on Webtoon, and they'll say "oh hey, I saw your comic, I'll sub and rate it 10 for you." (when it's clear they never had time to read it and never will) or to hear someone say "man, my rating went down .4" and then have 4 other people say "don't worry, I'll rate it 10 and get it back up again." And at that point it's like...it's just a really fake thing.