Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

Here is your weekly admin post. With a couple of months of voting season
to go, we already have more than 2750 reviews written for the 660
stories competing in this year's MEFAs, and 14 reviewers who have met
their "MEFA Junkie" target. That's pretty darn impressive  and I'm sure
all the authors have appreciated the hard work of everyone who's reviewed.

But do we want more? Of course we do!

This post offers some tips for writing reviews that we hope will inspire
those of you yet to review to reward a favourite story with a vote, and
help those of you who have already reviewed but are still often daunted
by the "blank page" when starting a new review.

Firstly, please don't be intimidated by the fact some reviewers seem to
find it easy to produce long reviews discussing the merits of the piece
in depth. Authors appreciate short reviews as well as long ones, and
enjoy reviews that simply tell them you enjoyed the story and what
caught your attention as much as a detailed dissection of technical
aspects such as characterization, language, pacing or plot.

Secondly, don't stress if you can't write long, 10-point reviews. What
matters more is that you're consistent in how you award points around
the average length of review that comes naturally to you. For example,
if you normally write 4-point reviews for stories you enjoy, strive to
write a review worth 5 or 6 points for one you think is exceptionally
good. Don't forget to block off any quotes  from the story you're
reviewing or other sources  by placing them inside matching pairs of
square brackets - [ ] - so that it will not be counted, and please don't
"pad" your reviews with a lot of irrelevant content simply to bump up
the point count.

Thirdly, remember that the voting scheme and the site cannot tell the
difference between a positive and negative review, but simply counts the
number of characters you write. There's not much point "rewarding"
stories you didn't really like with lots of points by writing negative
reviews or even constructive criticism. Of course, you may have
constructive criticism for a story you still really liked and can use
that constructive criticism to boost the number of points a review can
receive. However, if you have significant criticism for a story, it may
be better to leave a comment at the site where the story is hosted instead.

Reviewers are also reminded that while they may be critical in reviews
within reason, purely negative reviews are not welcome at the MEFAs.
Reviews that are entirely or overwhelmingly negative may be removed at
the request of the author. See the FAQs on "Can I be critical in my
reviews?" at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQvoting#vot_4 and
"Can an offensive review be removed?" at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQvoting#vot_8.

Finally, remember that you're under no obligation to review a story by a
particular author just because that author has reviewed one of your
stories. Review the stories you've enjoyed to let the author know that
you've appreciated them and that you think they deserve to compete for
an award.

You'll find practical information about how to enter reviews and how
they are scored in our Voting FAQ at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQvoting. There's also
lots of great advice about how to tackle reviewing in the "Strategies
from Veteran Reviewers" in our FAQ at
http://www.mefawards.net/MEFA2008/index.php?page=FAQreviewing.

Happy reviewing - and a big thanks to all our reviewers for their
wonderful contributions to the awards, both from our authors and the
MEFA admins.

Tanaqui
(MEFA Tech Support)