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In definite agreement here. If I couldn't tell from a summary what the story
was about or who the characters were, I might look at the top review on the
pile, if it had more than one, for a clue, but usually I would just click into
the first chapter instead. And I avoided reading reviews on a story I planned
to review until I was finished writing mine and saved it as "tentative". Then I
might peek at the already-posted reviews just to make sure I wasn't being
repetitive and saying the exact same thing someone else had said. (Didn't want
people to think I'd just copied someone else's review. Silly, eh?) Sounds
compulsive, maybe. Story of my life.

Lin

In a message dated 11/7/2005 7:20:05 PM Pacific Standard Time,
MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com writes:

> Perhaps this is just me not understanding how people did this,
> but did you actually read all the reviews on a story you were
> interested in, and then decide whether or not to read it?

No, more often than not I avoided the review until I was ready to write my
review, unless, see above. Mostly I would read one or maybe two reviews but
not all, just to get a feeling whether other people saw the same in a story
or not.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Lin,

> In definite agreement here. If I couldn't tell from a summary what the
> story
> was about or who the characters were, I might look at the top review
> on the
> pile, if it had more than one, for a clue, but usually I would just
> click into
> the first chapter instead. And I avoided reading reviews on a story I
> planned
> to review until I was finished writing mine and saved it as
> "tentative". Then I
> might peek at the already-posted reviews just to make sure I wasn't
> being
> repetitive and saying the exact same thing someone else had said.
> (Didn't want
> people to think I'd just copied someone else's review. Silly, eh?)
> Sounds
> compulsive, maybe. Story of my life.
>

Not silly at all - but much more effort than I put into it. Here was my
strategy:

1. Go into the "browse nominations" page, sorted by category and
filtered by "have not yet reviewed".

2. Look at the summary and author of the first entry. Decide whether I
wanted to try it.
2a. If I *didn't* want to try the story I would open the page to submit
a vote in a new window and enter a draft review with no characters.
Submit it, and close that window.
2b. If I *did* want to try the story I would open the story in a new
window, read it, and come back and review it. I'd basically write what
I liked about the piece until I had written as much as I wanted to,
then submit it as "final" or "tentative" based on the season and how
clear I was thinking at the time. In voting season I used tentative and
then re-read them the next day to make sure I hadn't clicked on the
wrong link or something.

3. Go back to the window showing the nominations and go to the last
page of the nominations. Do (2) for the last nomination on this page.

4. Go back to the window showing the nominations and go to the first
page of the nominations. Do (2) for the first nomination on this page.

5. Repeat (3) and (4) until I want to stop reviewing.

The length of my reviews didn't really depend on other pieces in the
subcategory; I tried to decide how much to write based solely on how
much I liked that piece. Of course it may be that after reading 3-4
pieces I didn't really like, one good piece might get a different
review from me than it would in different "company". I also didn't go
looking for reviews, but that's not to say that I didn't read a review
and store it away in my subconscious somewhere, so when I came to that
story I was more likely to read it.

Interesting comparison, Lin. Like I said, I don't think you were silly
or anything - it's just not the way i did it.

Cheers,
Marta

*****
"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our greatest fear is
that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness
that most frightens us. [...] As we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

(Nelson Mandela)