In-Line Review versus Regular Review

Yikes! That is terrible!

But I guess I'm not that surprised. I have gotten a lot of very rude reviews and responses to reviews over the couple of years I have been on this site. Some incredibly arrogant and condescending!

My suggestions:

Don't review this persons writing anymore. If they can't find any use in a review you spent so much time on then they are not worth your time and effort.

And:

Don't take it personally. Some people never learned to be kind and play nice. That is on them, not you.

There are plenty of nice, helpful people of this site who would appreciate a detailed review.

While you might think, Huh... I would have said...well never mind what I would have said. I hope you get better responses from now on.
I like in-line reviews, to give and receive. It's so much easier than getting at the end and trying to remember what you were going to mention.

I'm with you, Janet!

Having to click on every highlight to see the comments is tedious.

If they appeared on the side it would be a lot easier and faster to see what needed fixing.

Just a thought, but I love the inline.  I don't have to hunt for the place I forgot a period or parenthesis.  If I have an overall critique, I use the comments at the end.  I usually use the regular reviews to nit content and concepts.  The inline is better for revisions.  I flip between the two depending on what I want to comment on.

As to using Word, that is a programmers nightmare for compatability.  The side-boxes are nice and helpful for a printout, but that means slogging through the bog of Word's monstrous errors. 

What I do agree with is that there be a check mark that excludes inline reviews if the author doesn't like them.  It would also be helpful for TNBW Free if they can't view the inlines because it isn't an option. That way, no one wastes their time.  Don't know if it is possible, but it would be handy. As it is, one person I review has a big disclaimer at the top of his introduction asking reviewers to avoid in-lines.  I saw it, so I know about the restriction.  If you want, just do the same thing.

A

I just want to know about the thumbs up voting...what are the votes for where do the go and who gets them and can we redeem them for money...AND did you know that an reviewer can vote for himself, giving himself a thumbs up...is that legal?

If this is not important let me know and the money thing was a joke reviewer voting for himself no joke....:)

I agree it would be nice to have a way to print out all the comments in an inline review and I also agree it would be nice to have higher limits on the content per box in an inline review, but call me crazy, I don't understand it being too difficullt, tedious, time consuming, whatever to look for the individual comments either the original by the reviewer or the response to the review. Seriously, you're not talking humongous amounts of time here, maybe a few minutes max.

When I get an inline review, I look at each box and generally will leave a comment in most. After giving an inline review, I go back to check to see what if any comments are left by the author in each and every one of those boxes and may leave additional comments. Others can comment also, though I'm not sure most are aware of that function since I haven't seen it utilized to date.

To the point, if receiving comments on our work is not important enough to spend a few minutes to check them out and/or respond, then we're not really that hyped on getting feedback imho. That's the way I see it. Take care. Vern

I, too appreciate the in-line review, simply because it does make it easier to keep track of nits found.  I reply to every comment, and have wondered if anyone ever checked to see what response they got to their review.  I agree it would be nice to have a format that allows me to see all comments at once, for purposes of rewrite.  I don't think it takes any more time to use the new system than hunting all over the place so you can point out a nit, as we did on the old site.  Fine tune, okay.  Remove, nyet.  JP

I do like the in-line review. As a reader/reviewer, it allows me to highlight parts I particularly want to comment about. In the old version, I had to copy and paste that part so the author would know what I was talking about. Now it's easier.

There's a space at the bottom of the in-line review screen to add general comments, like a "regular" review. With this space, the in-line review turns into a cool combination  of both types of reviews. I would suggest to have a button where writers could indicate if they are not fond of in-line reviews or not. By checking that button writers can block the feature for their books, so readers would not have the option of delivering in-line reviews.  To be very honest, as a writer I appreciate all the feedback I receive. Being too picky could result in scaring readers/reviewers away from my novel, so checking the button I suggest on the author's risk.

I agree with JP Lundstorm that it'd be cool to have a feature allowing the author to see all the in-line comments together, for re-writing purposes, on top of being able to view them one by one as it is now.

Kiss,

Gacela.

All I can say is I've found your reviews useful, PByrd. Actually with every review I've gotten there has been at least one golden nugget in them that made my story better by incorporating the feedback. I understand we will not agree with all points of a review, but it's hard to imagine not finding any of it useful unless it's one of those drive by reviews where they just want the points and say something very general to make the quota.

For the in line review - I've noticed sometimes I just simply run out of character space. I get this is the system telling me to learn to say more with less, but sometimes I just can't cram the elephant into the cracker jack box (did the elephant eat the contents first?). Well, the later versions will probably address this.