Hey guys,
Now that several reviews have been made public, it seemed like a good
idea to review some reviewing issues. Some of this may seem basic, but
bear with me. :-)
First: how reviews are scored. The length of your review works out to
a point value between one and ten. The longer you write, the more
points your review is worth. This means that you want to try to give
your longest reviews to the stories you liked the most.
There is no such thing as a negative review. If you don't like a
story, you should just not review it. Even if you write something very
short, that's giving the story points.
On the topic of negative reviews.... the MEFAs do allow constructive
criticism, but reviews that are entirely or even mostly negative may
be inappropriate. This doesn't mean you can't talk about aspects of
the story that didn't quite work for you, but it's important to mix
these concerns with things you *did* like. Since you're reviewing the
story you must like it enough to want to give it a few points in a
competition. Be sure to talk about why you liked the story enough to
review it.
The difference between constructive criticism and negative reviews is
discussed more fully at
www.mefawards.net/MEFA2007/index.php?page=FAQvoting#vot_4
There may be a few reviews that really are too negative for the
author's tastes. If you think a review is too negative, you can email
the admins to discuss it. If we agree with you that the review needs
to be removed we'll contact the author and ask if they'd like the
review taken down. (If a review's removed the author does lose the
points from that review, but it's also no longer visible at our
website.) For more information on how this works, see
www.mefawards.net/MEFA2007/index.php?page=FAQvoting#vot_8
Occasionally someone will submit a review for a wrong story. They'll
just click on the wrong link, or copy the wrong paragraph from the
word processor where they compose their reviews, or whatever. If you
see something where it looks like this has happened, please email
mefasupport(at)gmail(dot)com so we can look into the problem.
One other issue that's come up once or twice is quotes. Quotes from a
fanfic story, from Tolkien, or some other source don't count toward
the length of the review used when determining how many points a
review is worth. So our website counts things correctly, please
include any direct quotes in square brackets. For example:
[In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.]
HOWEVER. Other things that appear inside quotes-marks – like the title
of a story or chapter – don't need to be marked off in
square-brackets. You're free to do so if you like, but it isn't
necessary. The only thing that *needs* to be in square-brackets is
when you're quoting a passage from either the fanfic story or some
other source (like one of Tolkien's books).
If you need to change a final review to mark off quotes-marks, email
mefasupport@gmail.com and I'll change it for you.
And really, these are things that are easy to get wrong. I've been
reviewing for four years now, and I can't tell you how often I've
forgotten to mark off a quote, or pasted a review into the wrong form.
These are easy mistakes to make, and not too hard to correct if
they're noticed before the end of voting on December 30. So if you see
anything fishy, please just send up a flare.
I think that's it. :-)
Marta
(MEFA Admin.)