Alojzy

Answer#1- a) What you will learn from taking your review writing to a higher level, will stay with you, even if a review does get deleted for some mysterious reason. b) the author may get to read your review before it vanishes. c) one of the first responses to that situation, besides the debugging code, was a "carbon copy" mechanism, so that the review would be saved and could be added back to the submission from the backup file. d) If you follow out my experiment for optimum review writing, you will have your own back-up copy of any review you write by that method.

Answer#2-I haven't heard anymore about it. Chances are, if it were a persistent, pervasive and unsolved problem, you would see many more people talking on that thread with Lippy and Kareem. I don't see it as a great worry.

Great advice!
I would suggest re-posting this thread in the "New Members Post Here"-Forum. Or at least have a thread there saying, "These are the threads you should read before enetring the workshop:..."

Great advice, everyone. I appreciate it, as I think everyone else does.
I'm getting better at reviewing, but it is difficult sometimes. I don't mean that to be like, "I'm here for me and no one else" it just comes down to laziness. I constantly say I want to be a writer, but I spend most of my time doing anything to avoid actually writing. I hate that. So, when I see someone complete something, I automatically have some respect for the completion.
I took a class where one chapter was dedicated completely to revising and reviewing. Man, that was the hardest chapter in the entire class. To go through pieces, line by line, and pick things apart some difficult shit. In the end, though, it really does help everyone to improve. Like many have mentioned, nothing sucks worse than putting tons of effort into something then getting "This sucks" as a review.

definatly great advice.

This will help my reviewing by a lot.

I try to only correct 1.) spelling errors that a normal spell checker program wouldn't get, like the names of prescription drugs and 2.) homonyms.

Examples:
1.) It's spelled "Vicodin" not "Vicadin"

2.)"Semen" is the stuff that comes out of a dick, "seamen" means sailors.

I'm taking a poetry and upper level writing class this semester. It gets hard but I'm finding that I actually like the sometimes brutal truth. Sure, I get depressed for a few days but after that I'm filled with excitement about what I can potentially create. And by brutal, I don't mean "this sucks." I've gotten a lot of in-depth feedback from close friends in the past few weeks. They've told me when (and why) my writing is boring, when it's unclear, where I should tweek a sentence, and everything else that hurts but is helpful.
Yesterday I reviewed for the first time. It wasn't very long but it felt good to say things honestly and know I might be helping someone. Of course it's easier to assess complete strangers but I agree with Asgenar that this advice should be used in all of our workshops. Thanks for being here.

[QUOTE=chad lott;1083760]Here's a question for all you experienced reviewers.

Do you guys consider two or three stars to be the "no real problems, no real stand outs" level?

It seems like the ratings are all over the place. If anything there seems to be a tendency of low balling people on the stars.

I've seen something like "good work, sweet cheeks. Two stars from your daddy!" and then "Uhh. Stop typing forever please. Three stars." (these are of course only fictional examples). Do the stars really make or break a piece?[/QUOTE]

I consider 3 stars to be in with the 'no real problems no real stand outs' It's an average score, but I know what you mean. I've seen people say that someone's Characters are excellent and give it a two star rating. Or when There is little dialogue in a story that doesn't call for dialogue much at all get a two or one star rating. If there's not much to review on a particular aspect I think it should be left blank. If there SHOULD be more dialogue then yes, a two rating may be accurate. Same can be said on plot. If the short piece is more of a character study (like many modern things tend to be) The plot is going to be a side aspect, if it's there at all. Just because it's not what you wanted it to be doesn't mean it's any good.

So yeah, what I'm trying to say is that star rating isn't mainly what you should look at it's the review itself. There are of course many exceptions but it does happen.

I think the advantage of star rating (used correctly) is as follows:

Plot, dialogue, character, style etc. are exclusively to help the author see where he needs work.

The overall rating is for both the writer and other viewers. A higher rating naturally catches other peoples attention, while a lower one can discourage people who are looking for an easy review. Not really fair but if the anthology project starts up again It'll help. Plus if you're not looking to review and just wanna check out a thing or two for the fun of it then you can grab something that's more polished and thus a more enjoyable read.

Hope this helps
-j

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[QUOTE=JCarlson;1083776]

The overall rating is for both the writer and other viewers. A higher rating naturally catches other peoples attention, while a lower one can discourage people who are looking for an easy review. Not really fair but if the anthology project starts up again It'll help. Plus if you're not looking to review and just wanna check out a thing or two for the fun of it then you can grab something that's more polished and thus a more enjoyable read.

Hope this helps
-j[/QUOTE]
random, but this thought occurred to me while reading your response...

being a workshop, i agree, it's very important to read what others write of the story, just like you were at a table and heard what others have said. you can agree or disagree with other members' points before beginning on your ideas. so if i have a story and someone confronts the dialogue as being cliché or "too whiney", and then four other people agree with the assessment, then it would be in my best interest to take a stern leer at my dialogue

if several people in glee point out the same character description, then i would know i got that pretty close to perfect

i think the reviews are far more important than the star ratings, but i also agree that when i look for an old story to read recreationally, i usually pull the five and four stars stories, and very seldom pull from the two and ones.
kabol

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I can't see the advice you guys are talking about. It's just a whole bunch of smut pics and porn stars name. So can someone be so kind and re-write the advices here again ? Thank you

so where can i view the tips  ?  if anybody has the possbility, please re-post them

oh.  this pisses me off.  [i]reviewing quick tips[/i] is a vital fucking thread, and this is supposed to be a "closed" thread.  what other vitals will be fucking decimated?  plus having a lot our intellectual property available to the naked internet threatens my nerves more than just a trivial little.  perhaps we should close the site down for the final fixing, bring it back up once it's secure again.  i'll miss the place, but that's better than one day coming and seeing it changed to an asian b.aby p orn site in which all or most of our stories and reviews are fucking gone.  i dont think i'd sue over that or anything, but i do take my work here seriously and just having everything open to the world bothers me immensely.  stupidly, maybe, but honestly. 

should i just start deleting all of my submissions ? 

or are we gonna be able to lock this section off again and very soon ?

-kabol

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