Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

Kdot wrote:

Yep... we'd very quickly reach a state where the extra credit was expected.

We did reach that stage in an earlier iteration of the site (back when you could rate reviews). People got their feathers ruffled if you didn't give them 5-stars. It came to be you lost reviewers if you didn't reward them. It ended up you kept only reviewers who said good things about your work.

Any potential problem with free points is entirely "localized". If I give you free points and you grow to expect them every time, then I haven't managed your expectations. No one besides you and me is affected. People who can't or don't want to give extra credit, aren't affected by what I do with my points.

It's like telling me I can't give my son a $20 allowance for chores because other kids in his class get nothing for doing chores.

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

Imagine I leave you a glowing (yet detailed) review detailing a flaw I found in the story. Impressed, you hand me an extra point.

I review members A, B, C. None of them like that I'm exposing these flaws. They don't give me extra points. Guess who I'll review next? Whoever is awarding me extra points.

A, B, C, if they want my reviews will have to pony up the extra points - or their work will sit there unreviewed.  They will be forced to reward points they don't want to. Otherwise, reviewers will flock to people who award points.

People like you & me who have amassed ridiculous amounts of points to give away will soon start harvesting the point-starved reviewers. We will create literary fiefdoms based on the gold standard of who has more points to spend to buy reviews.

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

Kdot's logic makes sense to me. What about a reviewer ranking though? Anyone object to that?

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

I've got 87 points and was feeling like a rich girl. Ha!

Evidently, the secret is to review, to review, and, in case of doubt, to review even more. There's no other way to get points. Of course, people who publish spend them, meaning the millionaires review more than they post, which is not a problem at all. There's people who enjoy reviewing more than posting. Fine.

Just for fun, I'll go with publishing a list of top reviewers. I don't think such a list may spawn bad feelings, as previous lists in the former site did.

Kiss,

Gacela

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

graymartin wrote:

Kdot's logic makes sense to me. What about a reviewer ranking though? Anyone object to that?

A reviewer ranking will create a competitive market where creating reviews gets prestige. Beware: This will coax people to create reviews they might not otherwise do because they were satisfied with their point tallies.

A: Yes, I have a bazillion points, but if I could squeeze in 5 extra reviews by the weekend, I'll clip 35th place in the rankings.
B: Oh Shoot! I just dropped to 36. I need 4 more reviews to regain my rank. *starts reviewing*

31 (edited by Seabrass 2017-09-04 20:42:04)

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

If this is all about having enough credits to post, rather than accumulating a worthless pile of a few thousand credits, why not consider my earlier suggestion: the author gets one-tenth of the posting cost back with each review. That way, if a post gets ten reviews, the author recoups the cost to post. In return, the author reviews the work of ten other authors (reciprocation for those who reviewed). So the author is still following the spirit of the site and reviewing, while obtaining valuable feedback. Eleven authors sticking together and reviewing each others' works can ultimately post their own for free.

Of course, this will mean massive accumulations of credits (after ten reviews, how many would YOU have? And if all the credits it costs you to post are recouped, that adds up, too). But if people posting here have trouble accumulating credits, instead of directly rewarding the reviewers, reward the author with return credits for each review. In theory this forces authors to post clean, legible posts (with proper punctuation). Posts replete with typos and punctuation errors (which could have been caught with a simple proofread before publishing) would lose reviewers if there are cleaner options available. I think this would form healthy groups of authors and reviewers and reduce the stress of binge reviewing to earn the credits to post (of which I am guilty of).

Just throwing it out there.

32 (edited by Karen van Kriedt 2017-09-04 20:48:59)

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

The issue of having the option of giving someone else one or more of your own points has come up before not too long ago. I'm on Scribophile as well where you can do this. Someone reviewed a piece of mine and blew it wide open for me. Like I hadn't understood what I was really writing about until I got their feedback. To show appreciation, I gave them one of my points (as well as reviewed something of theirs). Simple as that. The computer programming necessary may not be as simple.

As far as a reviewer ranking: What are we going to rank? How many reviews someone has done? What if a reviewer does the minimum and other people spend a lot more time going above and beyond? What if one person's feedback, no matter how many observations they make, is more valuable than someone else's to any given writer? How will we measure that? Who cares? If you don't review, you can't post. Clear as day. I'm here to improve my writing skills. But if some of you want the competition, I have no objections personally, I'll simply ignore the whole thing.

As far as accruing points: I have .77 at the moment. I'm relatively new here. Joined Feb 2017.
I've done a total of 77 (3 are drafts still) reviews and received 82. I'm aware of owing 4 at the moment (which is why I got on the site just now and what I should be doing).
I post my work. Sometimes I delete something I've worked on for awhile and repost it so that people who read it before can read it again, giving me the benefit of their familiarity with the piece.
Generally, I spend at least an hour per review. I'm always surprised how the time has flown by, except for the ache in my shoulders. Sometimes I just stop because I have my own work to do, though I learn A LOT from doing reviews.

As far as reviewing goes: I would like to see how others develop their pieces following my review, and the reviews of others. I'd like to see the development.
Ideally, I'd like to be on a path with a small group of writers -- some simpatico souls -- and actually follow each other to the completion of our respective pieces. Contact me via personal messaging if you're interested in this. Please look at my work and make sure it appeals to you before you do this.

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

The main point of the site is read, review and publish. The more you read and review the more points you get to publish. I don't see this changing any time soon.
smile

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

graymartin wrote:

Kdot's logic makes sense to me. What about a reviewer ranking though? Anyone object to that?

I don't object. I worked hard to get on the top ten list as did a lot of others. I think it would encourage people to review more, if earning points is not enough of an inducement to read and review.
smile

Re: Nah, Nah! I've got more points than you do!

Not to spend Sol's money (;)), but I was thinking a Top Reviewers list could be coupled with some discount off the site membership fee. Doesn't have to be a big reward. Even $10 off would be a nice gesture to those who take the extra time to be generous reviewers.