runouw.com

As I read stories, I couldn't help noticing the stupid comments (or "reviews") that some people gave, specially about the ones that they didn't like. And yes, this is a post to critize user's posts, and it's not about n00bs, it's about veterans and staff members.

First, let's make thing clear: A review is an opinion that has as an objective to help or to congratulate someone about his/her job.
What does this mean?
1-It's an opinion, it's stupid to think that your review is true.
2-A destructive critic, al least for me, it's not a review.
3-As in any art content, nobody gives you the right to tell if something is good or bad as at only truth. This statements should start with the phrases "for me", "in my opinion", etc. Remember that it is an opinion.

Now, how to difference contsructive from destructive? Well here there are some REAL exapmles:

MK wrote:

The chapters are short. Really, really short.

And the plotline is weak.

And everyone treats you like a VIP.

'...then afterwards, Scardy's Mother got kidnapped by the same airship.'

Could you elaborate? Make it something like this.

'As they left the community building, a bubbling noise was heard. It was the airship again! It descended slowly, and touched the ground with a thump.
A beam, the exact same one that took Ruach away, shot out, and grappled Scardy's mom in a burst of gravity. Then she floated slowly into the hatch where the beam had come out of, while she flailed about and screamed to be put down.
Click went the hatch over Scardy's mother, and the airship took off in a cloud of smoke. By the time it cleared, the airship was no more than a small blob in the sky. Much too far for Scardy to reach.'

Isn't that much more detailed?

It's not as bad as previous submissions I've seen *cough*Bogdan*cough*, but not good, either.

3/10

This is a constructive review, but it's not perfect.
-Talks about what should be improved.
-Takes bad parts and shows how to make them good
-Has a rate that makes sense with the rest of the review
-Doesn't point out anything good from the story (if there was none, then this would get a 0/10)
-Makes a bad mention that has nothing to do with the story.

My point is, at least this has a point, and it's not hurting the others.

Ridder wrote this:
This story is over? Really? Good. Because it sucked. a lot.

Ok, do I even have to point out the negative of this? I wouldn't be surprised if this offended the writter.

Blabob wrote this:
This seems to lack any effort whatsoever, and I could tell that from first glance. Looking closer at it, you prove my case. There is no development in your story whatsoever. The plot is minimal and unoriginal, and the characters are bland. Also,

The next story will come out in 3 months

You can't be serious with this. There are so many things wrong with this one statement that I can't describe.

I could have written this in about 2 minutes. Maybe less. Put more effort into your stories, because right now you have a lot to learn.

This review is quite destructive. It doesn't add nothing at all or points out the positives, the only thing I can save is the example (yeah, he/she couldn't be serious with that.) and the last sentence. The rest is seems preety useless.
Also, who cares about if you can do it better or in less times or bla bla bla. Nobody cares about that either.

superMIC wrote this:
One of the greatest challenges of writing is action scenes. There must be just a perfect amount of description, text, and dialogue. It seems to me you guys have a bit to work on, not that I don't fail as well. I read through Chapter 41, and what I really can say is just NOOOO to the colouring of the words. Font size changes aren't the best as well. Keep it white, and where needed, use italics.

The black colouring makes it extremely hard to see the word and is therefore pointless. The plot just jumps up and down, and just doesn't conenct smoothly. You're definitely missing out a lot in description, dialogue is way to overused here. Correlate the characters to their senses. Describe the area around them. Add much more action-y text to make it more interesting!

I got bored almost 5 times through the chapter and I just skimmed. "KyRay" is so freaking overpowered, make the characters more realistic! Everyone has their limits, and I'm not seeing any. It reminds me of a little child's fanfic that's just so surreal and not real at all.

Spelling and grammar was very good, which was nice...

So really, I think you guys have a WHOLE LOT to work on. Hope JRFD takes some of these points into account and implements them into te next chapter.

7/10

-SMIC

This is how any review should be, points out both positives and negatives, and gives a good conclusion.


Well, I don't want to see this as you are probably seeing it. This is NOT an agresive statement, or a self declaring to be perm-banned, it's just something that I thought, and I think it's right. Don't post just to post, think. Because if not, you'll be even more "stupid" than the writter of the ♥♥♥♥ story is. Feeling someone ashemed of his own work is not what reviews are about, it's to help the progress, and expres your opinions. If you wanna review, make full reviews, don't put insults and stuff like that, that doesn't prove you're smart, it proves you are arrogant and stupid.


Off-topic: How many seconds before someone locks this?

Okay, let's think about this for a little;

Would you agree with these reviews? The stories that these reviews are from are indeed, quite bad (IMO). Most of them lack grammar, plot, length, and the sort. If you need us to be more specific, too bad, we're not going to point out ever single spelling or grammar mistake separately.

If you're wondering why a story with no good points got a 3/10 it's because some people will rate based on 5/10. Meaning they subtract or add points for all the bad a good parts of a story.


Some reviews can reference other works, as a comparison. This is what MK did in that review.






Actually, most of this is advice, not reviews. It can be vague as long as the point has come across to the writer.

Bad stories get bad reviews.

Sorry for that. I abused from the word "review", but if you read my definition of review, them most of them are not reviews.

nin10mode wrote:Okay, let's think about this for a little;

Would you agree with these reviews? The stories that these reviews are from are indeed, quite bad (IMO). Most of them lack grammar, plot, length, and the sort. If you need us to be more specific, too bad, we're not going to point out ever single spelling or grammar mistake separately.

If you're wondering why a story with no good points got a 3/10 it's because some people will rate based on 5/10. Meaning they subtract or add points for all the bad a good parts of a story.


Some reviews can reference other works, as a comparison. This is what MK did in that review.






Actually, most of this is advice, not reviews. It can be vague as long as the point has come across to the writer.

Bad stories get bad reviews.

There's always a veil of illusion on deconstructive and constructive criticism. Pat, my review on your story I believe was constructive. I told you what I thought. It wasn't like I said: "WOW, THIS STORY SUCKS, GTFO OF HEAR BECAUSE THIS SUCKS SH*T LIKE YOU." I just told you that I thought your story lacked strength in the major areas of plot, conflict, and characterization. I just said you need to work on it.

It's obvious that it might be a little hurtful on the first time you receive it, but after you learn the true meaning of "Don't dish if you can't take."

Just take the criticism and use it to make the story better. That's all.

The problem is that you didn't added anything that I could use, man, those three things are basicly the whole story. Besides, I was already told that. My point is, your comment was useless, butI overeacted a bit. What I think you should think as reviwers is this: it's not for you (mainly), is for them. It's not their job, they make it for fun. Sometimes people take things way to seriously, like if posting a bad story was something really bad. Worst of all is, that they lock it. People can learn from their mistakes, and can edit the story, and even make a good story. You shouldn't underestimate the power of the bad writter.
There's no use for "If you can't take, then don't dish" if you're doing it just for fun.
Giving negative review is fine, but only if try to help. Calling someone's story stupid or that lacks of effort is plainly stupid. Do you really know how much effort did they put in? Maybe it was a 6 year old kid that was writting just for writting.
Again, calling art stupid doesn't prove you smart, it proves that YOU are stupid.

EDIT: Sorry a hell for that superMIC. I didn't realize you meant study, I read stupid. Stupid reading techniques!

No, calling art stupid is calling it stupid.

It's up to the artist to take those words into consideration. If you're going to deny it and say "Dude, nothing is wrong with this, stop trolling, ♥♥♥♥♥" then that's just you. If you're going to go "Hey, can you elaborate more?" that's just you. If you're going to say "Damn, I really suck. Maybe I should practice a little before I publish something on the internet again..." again, that's you.

If it's a 6-year old writing a story, we don't care. The 'story' forum should be filled with stories that look AT LEAST middle-school level. The 6 year old can go google stuff.


Yes, a bad writer can improve, but the ones from the past have shown little to no improvement. One even got the nerve to whine and complain, saying stuff like "Why does everyone hate me? over a few bad reviews. That should've been wake-up call to start learning how to write correctly, but instead, he took it as the site ganging up on his ♥♥♥. Eventually, we got fed up with it and we DID gang up on his ♥♥♥.




If you need to improve on plot, characters, conflict, then look at your story again and see if you like it. When I work on a piece of artwork, I look at it and point out all the flaws I see myself until I think it's perfect. Then I go get some others to give their input. If you did this and didn't see anything wrong, damn, you need to swallow some of your confidence.

Read some of the posts. Not all of them are things that could help the writter. You cannot say Ridder's comment would help the writter to imporve the story. But yes, of course I agree with you. I'm not saying that the reviewr should have responsability of the story, but my point is that sometimes this comments can be harsh. As everybody said that my story sucked, I decided to improve it. And that's what I'm doing. I'm organizating myself. That's the writter's descision. But it's hard to go on and improve if you get all the times comment like:
"This story sucks. Never write like this."
"This story is compleatly stupid."
etc.

What was the main purpose of this topic (not very demostrated though) is that a good review should be able to step on the artist's shoes, and try to be as comprehensvie as possible. When someone gives me a review, I'm expecting to see good things that are fine and bad things that should be changed, which doesn't always happen. Many times in my levels I see reviewrs that give me a 8/10 and only tell me good things about the level, which sucks.

Going on is hard if someone insults you, and that's what I think many comments, even if they didn't wanted that, do. I repeat, a good reviewr sees good, bad and never tries to hurt someone.

Listen, I'm reading those reviews, and I'm starting to understand what you're getting at, but those reviews seem fine to me.

When someone says "Put more effort" That means you should proofread more, maybe a get a friend to proofread for you as well. That's how professionals do it; they get an editor to give them advice before the world gives them their reviews, harsh or not. They know what makes a good story, and you should find someone who has a good knowledge of writing. Someone you can listen to with complete seriousness that you can trust.

More effort into a story. Done.


And not a single post quoted in your first post is "This sucks", except for Ridder's, and that's just Ridder being Ridder. No, serious. Are there some littering the story forum? Yes. But, keep in mind that some of these are months, maybe even a year, old.

The problen Nin is that they don't write it to be profesionals, they write it to have fun. My opinion, don't ruin their fun, give a negative review, but don't let it be destructive.

Yeah, about Ridder... don't even bother calling Ridder out. Ridder's real... frank. I have never ever ever ever met someone who gave less of a ♥♥♥♥ about what others thought of them as much as Ridder doesn't.