UnReviewed Forum Don't see a place for this to ..

A couple of suggestions.....lol, can we have a suggestion area?  That was a joke, take it in kind, in the world of type expression doesn't always come through.  It means I probably posted this in the wrong spot, but my organization patterns are different.  We all get we want to be reviewed.  BUT, always the but word.  We want decent reviews.  I do not hold degrees in reviewing, and I frankly do not think most of us do. However we all write, and in that the reviews should have some meaning.   I am really new here, so maybe I am not entitled to an opinion, but you know what they say about them...........lol.  Reviewing is new to me.  But last week and this week, I notice something I would rather not.  I get you are being fair and posting in the order it comes in.  But there is something lost in the reviewing process in this.  If you can write, I get a sense of you in what you are writing.  Personally I really don't want to review every new piece you have written all at once, because I am not doing the piece justice. At that point I am doing you justice.  It becomes about you at that point.  It becomes an extension of the piece before it, in most cases, not all.  It is an opinion, that is it, but I would like to hear others.   If you are going to have us review 9 new pieces of writing, can they be 9 different artists?  Is the point of review to say anything, anything at all, or can we really look at that piece.  Just one opinion.

I know it is not an ideal situation. What I have to work with is not ideal either. It's like this: I have to accept or reject all writing to come through the page from the bottom (first submitted) to the top (last submitted). If I were to skip over a piece in one batch, and approve it for the next, it would not show up on the homepage. It would be added to the pool of writing within the group, but it would bypass the showcase. So while I understand your frustration/annoyance, I am not sure what to do about it. I suppose I could restrict writing, to have no more than a couple pieces by any one artist on display at a time, but they then lose out on their other work being reviewed in that process. I'm not sure what the solution is. I value all suggestions and forward thinking opinions, new or not, and if you have further input I would like to hear it.

You do a wonderful job.  And I am sure it is a thankless task.  So Thank you for doing it.  It was just a thought.  But as you pointed out, not one easily overcome.

Well, you're welcome, but really it's you, the members, that make this group work. So thank you; for being here, caring, and wanting to improve yourself as well as others.


The point of this group is to be constructive, not flattering. And though any feedback is often accepted, that is not the goal. So what I think I may start doing is this; if a piece has more than 5 reviews already, and is by a repetitive author, I will skip over it and approve it to the group afterwards. That way it still appears in the group but maintains variety on the homepage. I can earmark the skipped pieces to be featured at a later time, still giving them a chance to be seen.
I think I will start doing this. We will see how it goes.


Thank you for brining this to my attention. I had noticed it, but had not done anything thus far to try to counteract it. As you may have noticed, I am a bit soft in that I don't want to tell anyone "no" when it comes to this group. Writers can add whatever and however much writing they want, though I do wish they would choose to not do it all at once!

I agree, have introduced a few chapters, and  some poems. Maybe if I
or you wrote five chapters, in story. But have sent them in the same day.
I read the article that is there. Than I poke my nose into the writin

Agreed DL, and we as writers, all of us, are probably the most outspoken people in the world.  I have spent some thought on this matter, as I said I was new, and have come up with a few things to further muddy the issue, lol.  First of all, I do not think the responsibility should rest on you.  I think it should rest on the people submitting the work. I want to be reviewed like everyone else does, but I find a want a decent review.  If all someone says is they love it, I think its great, that may not be the case.  If it is great, and there is nothing to say about it, it is the case.  You said reviews should not neccessarily be flattering, and I find I love the ones that offer constructive advice, whether I take it or not.  I can say one thing and someone else can say another.  But we all have to understand and third person could say something else entirely.  I do not need my ego stroked, I want to write, at a professional level, and I value those reviews that will get me there.  So I am not sure the number of reviews a piece has is the answer, but maybe the content of them, which is subjective at best.  You talk about back logs, I think the inclination, especially with a long wait time, is to post everything you have.  And I think that creates more of a back log.  Rather I would suggest perhaps a time frame and limit the number of pieces that can be submitted in it.  I do not know your work flow, so I cannot suggest a number.  Having said that, there is another problem.  I find when I am reviewing work I do not like to review books.  In this week's I get chapters 2 and 4,  I am not really sure you can do an adequate review stepping into the middle of a book, or a broken book at best.  Its best read in it's entirety.  I realize this isn't really done any where on here, so maybe in saying this I am out of whack.  I would offer a suggestion, for reviewing purposes, just an opinion, of which we all have one.  Maybe the book writers should submit their whole book.  And when it becomes their turn, that week all the chapters are submitted.  If we are only doing 9, and the book is more than nine chapters, the next week the overflow is added.  Just a suggestion, but I will say, and I have never written a book, I feel the book writer is undervalued on the writerscafe.org web site.  It takes probably more than a short story to write one chapter.

I hope I have addressed most of your concerns in the last couple memo's. I have been having frustrations myself. These groups are not designed to give such great control for the moderator to set them up such as I have.
And while I do agree that quality - constructive criticism, valuable insight, actual helpfulness - is more important than the number of reviews, I think people want to see a variety of opinions on their work. And so they should. Because out of 4 reviews, even if only 1 is really helpful, there are still 3 more that show a reflection of how the piece has made others feel.

I don't know. I don't have the answers. I merely a woman working against a world of problems.