Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

Here is your weekly admin post (a bit belated, sorry about that!). This
week we're focusing on the technical aspects of how to leave reviews and
how to edit them.

***

Entering a new review
---------------------

If you've found a story competing in this year's MEFAs that you want to
review

1. Log in to www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/
2. Click the "Stories" link at the top of the page.
3. Use either the "Search" or "Filters" to find the story again
If you know the Story ID followed by the "#" sign into the search bar,
and click the "Search" button
If you don't know the Story ID, click on the "Show Filter" link, click
the "Clear All Filters" button if you've used the filter before this
session, select the author name from the Authors list, click the
"Display selected nominations" button to show all the stories by that
author competing in this year's awards.
4. Click on the "Enter New Review" link in the story information box.
This will open a NEW window where you can enter the review. You can
return to the list of stories you just brought up by closing or
minimizing this new window
5. Check the story details are for the story you want to review  if
you're entering several reviews, you can sometimes accidentally click on
the wrong story to review! If you do that, just close the window and
pick the right story - before entering the text of your review in the
"Story Review" area.
You can enter any character but only certain characters are counted for
the purposes of awarding points to stories. These are
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789.,;"'!?-().
You must enter any quotes (whether from the story being reviewed or
other sources) in square brackets [] so they will not be counted as part
of the review. MEFA Volunteers may edit your review to add these if they
are not included.
You cannot add formatting to you review e.g. by using HTML. If you want
to emphasise words, you can surround text with asterisks (usually used
to indicate bold)) or underscores or slashes (usually used to indicate
italics).
6. Check the "Spoilers" box if your review contains information (such as
plot points) that other reviewers may not want to see before reviewing
the story. This will mark your review with a Spoiler warning
7. Click on the "Preview This Review".
8. On the next page, you will be able to see how you review will look
when saved, how many characters it contains, and how many points it will
score. If you want to change your review at this stage, scroll down the
page and you will find an editable copy of your review where you can
make changes. If you make changes, you *must* click on "Preview This
Review" again to have them recorded by the system.
9. Once you are happy with the review, you must select a status of
Draft, Hidden or Final by clicking on the appropriate radio button.
Draft status is for reviews you are working on. Draft reviews will not
be counted. You must save as 'hidden' or 'final' for a review to be counted.
Hidden status is for reviews you may still want to edit, but which you
want to be revealed and counted at the end of voting season (November 30
2008), even if you never go back and edit them. Hidden reviews will be
displayed at the end of voting season.
Final reviews will be revealed immediately now we're in voting season
and cannot be edited
10. Once you have selected a review status, click on "Save Validated
Review". You must do this to save your review, otherwise it will be lost
completely. You will be returned to the site Home page and shown a
message telling you your review has been successfully saved.

Sessions at the MEFA voting site last two hours. To avoid being timed
out and losing reviews, take a note of the "countdown timer" at the
bottom right of the review screen. Also consider writing your reviews in
a wordprocessor and copying and pasting them into the MEFA review form.

***

Editing an existing draft or hidden review
------------------------------------------

If you saved your review with the status "Draft" or "Hidden", you can
edit it up until the end of voting season (November 30 2008).

1. Log in to www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/
2. Click the "Read Reviews by Reviewers" link on the home page. This
will take you to a page that defaults to showing the reviews you've
already written.
3. Click on the "Edit Draft Review" or "Edit Hidden Review" link under
the story for which you want to edit the review
4.You will be taken to a page where you can see see how you review will
look when saved, how many characters it contains, how many points it
will score, and what status you've given it.
5. If you just want to change the text of your review or add a spoiler
warning, scroll down the page and you will find an editable copy of your
review where you can make changes. If you make changes, you *must* click
on "Preview This Review" again to have them recorded by the system. Then
click on "Save Validated Review". You must do this to save your edited
review, otherwise the edits will be lost. You will be returned to the
site Home page and shown a message telling you your review has been
successfully saved.
5. If you just want to change the status, select the appropriate radio
button and click on "Save Validated Review". You must do this to save
your review, otherwise the new status will not be set. You will be
returned to the site Home page and shown a message telling you your
review has been successfully saved.
6. If you want to change the text of the review/add a spoiler warning
and change the status, you must scroll down and change the text or add
the spoiler warning and click on "Preview This Review" first, and then
select the appropriate status and click on "Save Validated Review".

***

More information on entering and editing reviews can be found in the
"FAQs for voters" at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQnewvoters and in the
Voting FAQs at http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQvoting

Advice from "experienced" reviews on how to find stories to review and
how to write the content of reviews can be found in the FAQ at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQreviewing

Happy reading!

Tanaqui
(MEFA Tech Support)