This site is not what I thought it would be.

Victoria Duck · Post by **Victoria Duck** » 04 Dec 2024, 14:04

I am beginning to think this site is not what it's cracked up to be. My first review was erroneously rejected for "no rating", when it's literally a required field to even submit a review, which I did. Not only that, hut I have been unable to find any books that I am even interested in reviewing after the first. I tried one, but was forced to reject it after only 4 chapters (and they were short), due to the utterly generic characters and ridiculous amount of detail in the descriptions. I had to quit reading it, and cannot find another that interests me. Further, since my initial review was rejected, I have yet to even see any return on my time and effort. I'm so frustrated that I'm about ready to just leave the site. Anyone else have this issue?

Post by **Diana Lowery** » 04 Dec 2024, 15:38

Victoria Duck wrote: ↑04 Dec 2024, 14:04 I am beginning to think this site is not what it's cracked up to be. My first review was erroneously rejected for "no rating", when it's literally a required field to even submit a review, which I did. Not only that, hut I have been unable to find any books that I am even interested in reviewing after the first. I tried one, but was forced to reject it after only 4 chapters (and they were short), due to the utterly generic characters and ridiculous amount of detail in the descriptions. I had to quit reading it, and cannot find another that interests me. Further, since my initial review was rejected, I have yet to even see any return on my time and effort. I'm so frustrated that I'm about ready to just leave the site. Anyone else have this issue?

Hi Victoria, I took a look at your well-written review of The Magician's Secret and it appears that you failed to adhere to some of the guidelines. You must include the five out of five star rating in a sentence in the text of the review, and you must justifiy the rating that you gave if you deducted any points. You must discuss the negatives or lack of negatives, also. If you did not find any errors in the review you must mention that as well. It does take a while to get the hang of things, but I hope you won't get discouraged. The variety of books you can select to review will increase as your score increases. Good Luck!

Victoria Duck · Post by **Victoria Duck** » 06 Dec 2024, 18:10

I DID include it, in fact, it's a required field to even submit. You literally can't submit a review without it. I even went back to check, and sure enough, it was there, it was 3 and 4, respectively. I resubmitted it just for certainty's sake, and it will not let you submit without it. So, yes, I absolutely did. This site seems to have an issue with not showing it, if they thought I didn't, because I literally stated that I checked three times before I originally submitted the review. I saw no rule stating that it must be "written" in the review, since that is literally the point of including a star rating! The review itself is the reasoning! If that is a requirement, it's idiotic, as star ratings are self-explanatory. Writing a review IS your reason for giving a certain rating, and I did indeed include all my likes and dislikes, right there in the review. So I must waste an entire sentence to repeat what is obvious by looking at the stars? Ridiculous.

I also had an issue with a book that was supposedly free to review, but was actually lusted as 2.99 to download when I tried to do so. I rejected it. The latest book I started was so bad I couldn't even get through 5 chapters before rejecting it, as well, and I have found nothing else I wish to review, even in my preferred genres. Honestly, if the site wants to nit-pick over a hyphen and a sentence that was unnecessary, that's not something I want to waste time with. I've got better things to do.

AmySmiles · Post by **AmySmiles** » 10 Dec 2024, 07:43

It is a requirement that the rating is in the review itself. It used to be required to be bold but not anymore. I personally prefer it to be.

Valeri Kendall · Post by **Valeri Kendall** » 01 Jan 2025, 10:49

Victoria Duck wrote: ↑06 Dec 2024, 18:10 I saw no rule stating that it must be "written" in the review, since that is literally the point of including a star rating! The review itself is the reasoning!

I'm newer to this than you, and I only started doing reviews a few days ago, so maybe the rules were different at the time you looked, but as of this moment, the fifth rule of the guideline for writing reviews explicitly states that our 1-5 ratings have to be included in the writing of the review itself, too.

Victoria Duck wrote: ↑06 Dec 2024, 18:10 If that is a requirement, it's idiotic, as star ratings are self-explanatory. Writing a review IS your reason for giving a certain rating, and I did indeed include all my likes and dislikes, right there in the review. So I must waste an entire sentence to repeat what is obvious by looking at the stars? Ridiculous.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, and I certainly don't DISagree with what you're saying, but the fact of the matter is that this isn't a matter of opinion. There's a system in place, there are established rules, and to be a part of it means following the guidelines. It's your right of choice to not comply with the required format, but you should also accept that that means choosing to do what the moderators already said would get you rejected

And what's the big deal about writing one extra sentence anyway? You were willing to come to the forum and type up multiple paragraphs about it, so. . . . What's actually the waste here?