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>

Hi Thundera,

> Message: 15
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:00:02 GMT
> From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> Subject: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> "Marta Layton" <melayton@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> First, I think some people find it hard to write long reviews and
>>> so feel that even stories they really like they can't give them the
>>> points they're worth. I suggest that we have each review cap off at
>>> a lower level (say, five points instead of ten). This effectively
>>> means that those 1- and 2-point reviews have more weight. One such
>>> spread would be:
>>>
>>> 1-50 1 point
>>> 51-250 2 point
>>> 251-500 3 point
>>> 501-1000 4 point
>>> 1001+ 5 point
>>>
>>> I know that I tend to be pretty long-winded in my reviews, so I'm
>>> very interested in hearing frm people who struggled to write longer
>>> ones.
>>> Would this point spread work better?
>
> *chiming in once more as the voice of dissent*
>
> I'm honestly not trying to play devil's advocate. Really, I'm not! And
> I think we've had some excellent ideas out of the post-mortem.

Don't worry about it. If we always agreed, there wouldn't be any point
to discussing.

> But I have to weigh in as _strongly_ opposed to a change in the point
> levels. At least, a change like the one proposed.
>
> Granted, I'm probably among the long-winded reviewers, but be that as
> it may, if I rambled off a review and hit as many aspects of the story
> as I could, I only got up to about 5 points on average. On rare
> occasions, I could hit 6. But that was if I rambled, and I caught most
> of those when I went back through and edited the reviews. That being
> said, I know I gave out several 10-point reviews, quite a few 9-point
> reviews, and even more 8-pointers and 7-pointers. For all of them, I
> went back and put in enough effort to get the story that high because
> I felt that strongly about it. I think there should be a difference
> between a 2-point story and a 10-point story, and I think the margin
> between points should reflect that. Furthermore, if I go to the effort
> to get a 1001-character review, I want it to count. I want the author
> to get those ten points.
>
> Granted again that one of the big appeals of these awards are the
> reviews rather than the points garnered by the reviews. But if the
> point cap is 5 and the difference between a 250-character review and a
> 1001-character review is 3 points, there's really not much of an
> incentive to go the extra mile and give the story you're reviewing
> those extra 3. Competition-wise, it doesn't make that much of a
> difference. But as far as the quality of the reviews is concerned, I
> think there is a difference. happen to think that the 1000+ reviews
> are good ego boosters. I like receiving them, and I like giving them.
> And I think there's more incentive to give them if it actually makes a
> difference in the competition.
>
> In the end, I suppose it comes down to what our priorities are. In my
> opinion, a higher point cap (eg: the current 10 points) encourages
> longer reviews and rewards stories that deserve said reviews. A lower
> point cap (eg: the proposed 5 points) might encourage more reviews,
> but on average, they would be shorter as the competitive advantage
> gained by long reviews would be lost. I think someone once mentioned
> reviews that were quick blips. With a lower cap, I think we'd see a
> lot more of those. So do we want our focus on quality or on quantity?
> I vote for quality. I think it does more for writing. Personally, I
> would much rather have one in-depth 6- or 7-point review than five
> quick blips of "Thanks, that was great." I'm grateful for both, don't
> get me wrong. But I learn more from the former than I do for the
> latter.
>

I have to admit, I hadn't thought of it that way. I know no one had to
encourage me to write longer reviews, but that I didn't feel nearly as
inclined to write shorter reviews in the 2-3 pt range because it didn't
feel like they mattered much.

To be honest, this is why I'm so in favor of using something based
purely on character counts. Point counts won't discourage or encourage
anyone in particular.

>>> 5-6 entries 0 Honourable Mentions
>>> 7-8 entries 1 Honourable Mention + 3 places = 4 awards = >50%
>>> 9-10 entries 2 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 5 award = >50%
>>> 11-12 entries 3 Honourable Mentions + 3 places = 6 awards =>50%
>
> For what it's worth, I like this formula for Honorable Mentions.
>

Thanks for weighing in on this.

Marta

> Message: 18
> Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:13:40 GMT
> From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
>
> -- "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than
>>> quantity. But are short reviews necessarily of lesser quality than
>>> long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
>>> shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
>>> something substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3-
>>> and 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.
>
> Dreamflower made the same point, and I agree with you. You can fit a
> lot into 3- and 4 point reviews. Quality does not necessarily imply
> length.
>
> However...
>
> You can fit MORE into a 10-point review. More to the point, you can
> fit in specifics. I think part of this might be coming from how people
> went about making reviews bigger. For what I felt was a good story, I
> would comment on overall feel, some characterization points, and
> things like that. For what I felt was a GREAT story, I went through
> and found specifics. I'd comment on the overall feel and then point to
> why the feel was there, how it was achieved, and why it was such an
> effective use of style, tone, characterization, or whatever it was the
> author did so well. It's the specifics that I find most valuable when
> getting reviews. I have no idea what other people think of them, but I
> can point to several reviews I received where the reviewer listed out
> specifics they liked, specifics they didn't like, what worked, what
> didn't work, etc. And to me, that was the most valuable kind of
> review.
>
> Anyway, the need to get a story up to 10 points was often what drove
> me to find those specifics. Otherwise, pressed for time, I would leave
> it at an overall impression, maybe point out a few instances, and then
> move on. But for stories that I thought really deserved a closer look,
> I tried to get them up to 7, 8, 9, or 10 points by picking out the
> why. I'm NOT saying my reviews are examples of quality. I'm known for
> being long-winded and I do tend to ramble. What I'm saying, though, is
> that the stories that inspired me to go back through and figure out
> just why they impacted me the way they did deserve more recognition
> than what a 3-point margin can give.
>
> At least, that's my opinion.
>
> So were some of the 10-point reviews inflated? Artificially padded?
> Sure. Some of them probably were. But if the reviewer felt strongly
> enough to go through and pad the review, I think that story needs to
> receive a bit more recognition than the proposed five points.
>
> Again, just my opinion.
>
>

Thank you for pointing this out - I was going to make a post much to
this same point.

It seems that a lot of people think that a longer review has to be
rambly and inflated somehow; that's the feeling I'm getting, at least.
But a longer review doesn't have to be less focused, it could just have
more meat to it, like you said. To give some reference I just took two
professional book reviews from the New York Times; one is 3,276
characthers and the other is 6,897.

Now, I'm not saying that longer reviews are necessarily better -- I
don't think one length will always be better than the other. And
there's the rub. Unfortunately, there's not a nice neat way to gauge
the quality of a review. I think the best we can do is stick with what
we have to give the most points to the longest rweviews, and encourage
people to write good-quality reviews whatever other ways we can.

Cheers,
Marta

My philosophy on reviews and maybe points will come into it:

I like any review I get. Well, not the bad ones. But I diligently keep
them. Anyway, I like an "I loved it!" But I LOVE a big, juicy 3-paragraph
long e-mail telling me WHY you loved it. I CHERISH the 3-pagers. Or even
just the one paragraph that said how the reader learned something about the
Holocaust by reading my Star Trek story. That's juicy.

Meaty, or juicy does not necessarily equal length, but you're more likely to
find juice in a long review. Conversely, you're more likely to find
pointless padding in a long review, too. Not much room for it in a short
one.

I used to write long reviews. I noticed a trend in 2004 and more in 2005
(when I found the time to write a review or heck, even read a story) that my
reviews were shortening. This was also when I was having bouts of aphasia
and growing a year older, so maybe that's part of it.

Anyway, any review counts! Longer ones are savored more by the author. And
yes, they gain more points. Remember that we're not just giving the author
a banner, we're giving him/her the reviews that earned them that banner.

The way I review (ideally) is to write more for stories I like better. To
write at least something, even if just one sentence for stories I liked at
all. And to keep my pen silent when I didn't have anything nice to say. In
the MEFA's anyway. And that's, I think, the main way stories should be
reviewed. I know it's hard sometimes to come up with 500 characters of why
you liked a story. I experienced that this year. Just putting things into
words was sometimes hard, but the philosophy is still there. Maybe my
longest vote only garnered 5 points. But it was more than the 1 I gave
stories I could only think of one thing to say for. Or the 3's I liked but
didn't LOVE.

Now, on the math of voting. Not every 10-point getter wins. 5 3-point
reviews beat out 1 10-point review. So, yes, Fredita could beat Fred, even
in the same category. But if Fred got 3 10-pointers, and Fredita only got
10 3-pointers, even a 1 point vote would break that tie. So even a short
vote can decide a winner. Like Rhode Island may some day have the deciding
vote in the Electoral College. (It COULD happen, I suppose.)

Why points instead of straight character count? I don't know right off. Is
there some mathmetician or statistician out there who can give us the pros
and cons? At first glance, I'm saying "why not?" but I wonder if there's
not a deeper issue I'm not seeing.

--Ainae

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marta Layton
> Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 6:09 PM
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [MEFAwards] Re: Re: points and various voting
> matters (Thundera Tiger)
>
> > Message: 18
> > Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 09:13:40 GMT
> > From: "Laura" <thunderalaura@juno.com>
> > Subject: Re: Re: points and various voting matters
> >
> > -- "Kathy" <inkling-tcbs@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >>> I heartily agree that review quality is more important than
> >>> quantity. But are short reviews necessarily of lesser
> quality than
> >>> long ones? While I'll admit that my reviews got progressively
> >>> shorter as the voting deadline approached, I tried to say
> something
> >>> substantive in each of them, and don't believe that my 3- and
> >>> 4-pointers were inferior to my longer ones.
> >
> > Dreamflower made the same point, and I agree with you. You
> can fit a
> > lot into 3- and 4 point reviews. Quality does not necessarily imply
> > length.
> >
> > However...
> >
> > You can fit MORE into a 10-point review. More to the point, you can
> > fit in specifics. I think part of this might be coming from
> how people
> > went about making reviews bigger. For what I felt was a
> good story, I
> > would comment on overall feel, some characterization points, and
> > things like that. For what I felt was a GREAT story, I went through
> > and found specifics. I'd comment on the overall feel and
> then point to
> > why the feel was there, how it was achieved, and why it was such an
> > effective use of style, tone, characterization, or whatever
> it was the
> > author did so well. It's the specifics that I find most
> valuable when
> > getting reviews. I have no idea what other people think of
> them, but I
> > can point to several reviews I received where the reviewer
> listed out
> > specifics they liked, specifics they didn't like, what worked, what
> > didn't work, etc. And to me, that was the most valuable kind of
> > review.
> >
> > Anyway, the need to get a story up to 10 points was often
> what drove
> > me to find those specifics. Otherwise, pressed for time, I
> would leave
> > it at an overall impression, maybe point out a few
> instances, and then
> > move on. But for stories that I thought really deserved a
> closer look,
> > I tried to get them up to 7, 8, 9, or 10 points by picking out the
> > why. I'm NOT saying my reviews are examples of quality. I'm
> known for
> > being long-winded and I do tend to ramble. What I'm saying,
> though, is
> > that the stories that inspired me to go back through and figure out
> > just why they impacted me the way they did deserve more recognition
> > than what a 3-point margin can give.
> >
> > At least, that's my opinion.
> >
> > So were some of the 10-point reviews inflated? Artificially padded?
> > Sure. Some of them probably were. But if the reviewer felt strongly
> > enough to go through and pad the review, I think that story
> needs to
> > receive a bit more recognition than the proposed five points.
> >
> > Again, just my opinion.
> >
> >
> Thank you for pointing this out - I was going to make a post
> much to this same point.
>
> It seems that a lot of people think that a longer review has
> to be rambly and inflated somehow; that's the feeling I'm
> getting, at least.
> But a longer review doesn't have to be less focused, it could
> just have more meat to it, like you said. To give some
> reference I just took two professional book reviews from the
> New York Times; one is 3,276 characthers and the other is 6,897.
>
> Now, I'm not saying that longer reviews are necessarily
> better -- I don't think one length will always be better than
> the other. And there's the rub. Unfortunately, there's not a
> nice neat way to gauge the quality of a review. I think the
> best we can do is stick with what we have to give the most
> points to the longest rweviews, and encourage people to write
> good-quality reviews whatever other ways we can.
>
> Cheers,
> Marta
>
>
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