Add Interaction with Reviews

[Funatic]

Hello,

I'd like to suggest that the ability to comment on a Review would be added. This is primarily because of an issue I've come across multiple times in the past, albeit not yet on this site. That issue being annoyed readers quitting the story and then slandering it in every way that comes to their mind, regardless of accuracy.

At the point that such a Review is written, there are, under the current system, only two ways of recourse. One, I can write a PM to the writer of the Review and ask for inaccuracies to be ammended. From multiple experiences, I can tell you that this leads to the Review in question becoming simply more mocking in tone and, if its not already the lowest rating possible, it being lowered to that. This usually leads to action two having to be taken, which is to report the Review and wait for the removal.

Of course, there is also option three "ignore it" but that is, as a writer, absolutely against my interests. The mathematics of one bad Review dragging down the average aside, which I personally don't care about too much but is still an insentive to seek removal, it also means that future readers checking the Review section could be misinformed and decide not to read my story because of it.

I'm not a fan of deleting Reviews, even the extremely low rating and purely bitter ones. For one, because I just dislike deleting other people's words in general. More pragmatic to the situation, it gives ammunition to a resenting crowd, given that their opinion is now being suppressed. I also think there are still some valid criticism to be extracted from a lot of those bad Reviews. Having to decide between having something misinforming written on the very page of my story or becoming (at least a minor) censor because the road of debate is not available irks me to no end.

Having gone over all the negatively motivated reasons why I want this, I also want to say that, aside from corrections, praising thorough rewords through something more than a tiny like button is a better insentive for readers to write them. It would allow Reviewers to ask questions in their Reviews and for me to answer them if they were in the story (Of course with marked spoilers and all that).

So far my rationale.

As for implementation, there are three models I would suggest. I will list them from most to least favourite.

Free for All Review Comment Section - The Review acting as the start of a discussion will simple be able to be commented on like a chapter. I do get that this could lead to shouting matches, it is the internet after all, but I also think that free conversation is the best way to address most things.

Reviewer-Author Comment Section - Only give the Author and the writer of the Review to comment on the Reviews. This would basically make it a public PM exchange, which I don't expect to go much different than my aforementioned experiences. The advantage, however, is that Reviewer being unreasonable (or the Author, also totally possible) is available for people to see. It would eliminate the need to delete negative Reviews.

Author "Super" Like/Dislike - The Author has a special extra button for Reviews on his story that marks a Review as "Helpful" or "Inaccurate" or some other dichotomy of words. Doesn't even need to be limited to two. I personally find this to be a measure short of an actual solution, but its better than the status quo.

None of these systems would influence rating in any fashion. I've come to accept that some people just leave 0,5 Stars on anything that did half a thing they didn't like and even if the Reviews are deleted, they just slap it on as a regular Rating. If the story keeps updating and is good, it will average out somewhere, that's just how it is. It's also not like there aren't people who rate everything that they like five stars. Basically, I'm saying I don't care about the Rating aspect of Reviews (That is not to say I want them removed from them, they're still a part of the opinion, after all). Feel free to disagree.

I'm going to attach a poll just for people make their thoughts on this easily quantifiable in numbers.

Have a nice day,

Funatic

 

[Rellawing]

Nya, we need ways to engage reviewers and raters.

Also, I'll say being able to hide profiles enables a scary brand of terrorism unique to Scribbles. Having a safe-space they can hide in, unable to be debated with in any way or shape... fighting that way is someone who isn't looking for a fair fight.

Kids play games like that. I'm rubber, you're glue. And they try to be as impenetrable and rubber as possible, so shutting themselves in their cave is the same concept.

 

[AliceShiki]

Nya, we need ways to engage reviewers and raters.

Also, I'll say being able to hide profiles enables a scary brand of terrorism unique to Scribbles. Having a safe-space they can hide in, unable to be debated with in any way or shape... fighting that way is someone who isn't looking for a fair fight.

Kids play games like that. I'm rubber, you're glue. And they try to be as impenetrable and rubber as possible, so shutting themselves in their cave is the same concept.

Hiding your profile is usually to avoid harassment.

If you want to reply to what someone said, you can just reply wherever they said it. There is no reason to go to their profile to do that.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Hiding your profile is usually to avoid harassment.

If you want to reply to what someone said, you can just reply wherever they said it. There is no reason to go to their profile to do that.

That is exactly the point though. Reviews have no direct reply function so you can't reply yn no other means. Do you see the issue, Alice-chan?

 

[AliceShiki]

That is exactly the point though. Reviews have no direct reply function so you can't reply yn no other means. Do you see the issue, Alice-chan?

You can always send a PM to the person in question.

If they also have privacy settings to stop PMs, you can always poke them in your own profile and tell them you wanna PM them, so you'd appreciate it if they could follow you.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

You can always send a PM to the person in question.

If they also have privacy settings to stop PMs, you can always poke them in your own profile and tell them you wanna PM them, so you'd appreciate it if they could follow you.

And if the person in question has disabled the profile? What then, Alice?

 

[TowerGuy]

What a bizarre talk about tracking people down for their reviews!

If someone doesn't want to be contacted, it's their right.

Getting bad reviews is part of being an author. Deal with it.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

Also, I'll say being able to hide profiles enables a scary brand of terrorism unique to Scribbles. Having a safe-space they can hide in, unable to be debated with in any way or shape... fighting that way is someone who isn't looking for a fair fight.

Terrorism? You're seriously comparing the lack of ability to reply to reviewers/raters to terrorism? That's scary?

And if the person in question has disabled the profile? What then, Alice?

Then you could stop trying to harass the person. They clearly don't want to be bothered. It's a review on the internet. You don't have to reply to them. If your ego is so fragile that you can't handle a negative review, or if you're so obsessed with your rating that you think one negative review from some random person is going to make or break your story, then you have bigger issues to deal with than hunting somebody down so that you can force your response onto them. If you can't handle getting reviews or ratings, don't post a story where people have the option to have subjective opinions of it.

You both realize that there's a reason why, in 99% of cases where product owners are able to reply to reviews (Steam, Amazon, etc), they don't do it, right? Because it's bad optics. No, it's horrible optics to reply to negative reviews. All this does is make people think you're a child who can't handle criticism. Just like wanting to hunt people down does so that you can make sure you're heard like the big grown adults you are, because god forbid somebody leaves a review that you think is wrong.

But seriously, if you can't handle it, go work on yourself and your ego and then try again. And you have to be seriously lacking in social skills to not see the problem with wanting to track somebody down to make sure they hear your retort because they left a review on your story. It's what people do when they play/read/buy things. You know what people don't do? They don't try tracking somebody down to harass them. That's not a healthy thing. Like, seriously. It's really not healthy to be that obsessed. And you know what anybody with basic common sense and understanding of how marketing works does? They don't reply to negative reviews. Please, go onto Amazon and find me a list of successful authors who reply to all their negative reviews if you want to prove me wrong. Or you know what? Find me any popular product where people reply to the negative reviews. Or any game on Steam. Even the top authors on WN don't do that where they do have the ability to reply. Why? Because they know that it's a waste of time that accomplishes nothing other than padding your ego and making you look like a dramatic twat with an inflated ego.

And the fact that people are willing to go so far to track somebody down to make sure that they're heard completely kills any belief that this is being done for the good of the platform/community rather than for your egos. The original OP had some legitimate points. I disagree with them, but at least the OP of the idea wasn't making this all about their need to reply.

What a bizarre talk about tracking people down for their reviews!

If someone doesn't want to be contacted, it's their right.

Getting bad reviews is part of being an author. Deal with it.

smh we have a guy here promoting terrorism /s

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

What a bizarre talk about tracking people down for their reviews!

If someone doesn't want to be contacted, it's their right.

Getting bad reviews is part of being an author. Deal with it.

The right of fair hearing as well though. Audiatur et altera pars.

Your own rights end where another's begin. Anonymity is not only a right, you still carry obligations.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Terrorism? You're seriously comparing the lack of ability to reply to reviewers/raters to terrorism? That's scary?


Then you could stop trying to harass the person. They clearly don't want to be bothered. It's a review on the internet. You don't have to reply to them. If your ego is so fragile that you can't handle a negative review, or if you're so obsessed with your rating that you think one negative review from some random person is going to make or break your story, then you have bigger issues to deal with than hunting somebody down so that you can force your response onto them. If you can't handle getting reviews or ratings, don't post a story where people have the option to have subjective opinions of it.

You both realize that there's a reason why, in 99% of cases where product owners are able to reply to reviews (Steam, Amazon, etc), they don't do it, right? Because it's bad optics. No, it's horrible optics to reply to negative reviews. All this does is make people think you're a child who can't handle criticism. Just like wanting to hunt people down does so that you can make sure you're heard like the big grown adults you are, because god forbid somebody leaves a review that you think is wrong.

But seriously, if you can't handle it, go work on yourself and your ego and then try again. And you have to be seriously lacking in social skills to not see the problem with wanting to track somebody down to make sure they hear your retort because they left a review on your story. It's what people do when they play/read/buy things. You know what people don't do? They don't try tracking somebody down to harass them. That's not a healthy thing. Like, seriously. It's really not healthy to be that obsessed. And you know what anybody with basic common sense and understanding of how marketing works does? They don't reply to negative reviews. Please, go onto Amazon and find me a list of successful authors who reply to all their negative reviews if you want to prove me wrong. Or you know what? Find me any popular product where people reply to the negative reviews. Or any game on Steam. Even the top authors on WN don't do that where they do have the ability to reply. Why? Because they know that it's a waste of time that accomplishes nothing other than padding your ego and making you look like a dramatic twat with an inflated ego.

And the fact that people are willing to go so far to track somebody down to make sure that they're heard completely kills any belief that this is being done for the good of the platform/community rather than for your egos. The original OP had some legitimate points. I disagree with them, but at least the OP of the idea wasn't making this all about their need to reply.


smh we have a guy here promoting terrorism /s

I wonder why I didn't get a notification for being mentioned by the glory hound in person. Indeed, it is interesting that you presume malice where is none. Profound knowledge when you clearly have none. And try to hide uniformed conclusion jumping behind lengthy texts and eloquence. Your intellectual input is zero when you can't even master basic reading skills.

Where did I complain so bitterly about my unfair treatment to merit such a wonderful reply, Ace? Tell me what elicited your wrath? The act of merely seconding someone else's opinion?

My advice, work on yourself Ace, you and your bootlickers.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

I wonder why I didn't get a notification for being mentioned by the glory hound in person. Indeed, it is interesting that you presume malice where is none. Profound knowledge when you clearly have none. And try to hide uniformed conclusion jumping behind lengthy texts and eloquence. Your intellectual input is zero when you can't even master basic reading skills.

Where did I complain so bitterly about my unfair treatment to merit such a wonderful reply, Ace? Tell me what elicited your wrath? The act of merely seconding someone else's opinion?

My advice, work on yourself Ace, you and your bootlickers.

Cool, so you actually going to reply to anything I said or continue acting like a pretentious twat? I get it, you have an ego that you have to pad by trying to sound as smart as possible. But please, let's toss that aside and feel free to actually reply to the points I made rather than replying with your bruised ego. Go on. Actually reply to any of my points instead of disregarding them with a pseudo-intellectual "no u."

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Cool, so you actually going to reply to anything I said or continue acting like a pretentious twat? I get it, you have an ego that you have to pad by trying to sound as smart as possible. But please, let's toss that aside and feel free to actually reply to the points I made rather than replying with your bruised ego. Go on. Actually reply to any of my points instead of disregarding them with a pseudo-intellectual "no u."

We can both play the ad hominem game, my friend. You aren't the only one good at being a pretentious asshole. And, yes, points? Which points? Only because you write some sentence with sophistry, it doesn't mean there is some actual content. You are like Soviet propaganda, many words nothing behind. Playing the onus card doesn't make you look better in my eyes.

 

[Tiz]

We can both play the ad hominem game, my friend. You aren't the only one good at being a pretentious asshole. And, yes, points? Which points? Only because you write some sentence with sophistry, it doesn't mean there is some actual content. You are like Soviet propaganda, many words nothing behind. Playing the onus card doesn't make you look better in my eyes.

Please keep on topic, move useless garbage into DMs.

 

[Rellawing]

Said by @Ace_Arriande "They don't reply to negative reviews. Please, go onto Amazon and find me a list of successful authors who reply to all their negative reviews if you want to prove me wrong."

This is not incorrect. *smiles* I will take this advice to heart!

Said by @Assurbanipal_II "Your own rights end where another's begin. Anonymity is not only a right, you still carry obligations."

Also very right and deep. It's not untrue that Assu has an ego, however, it is well-merited. He thinks deeply and is intelligent. This might intimidate some people. He's not afraid to voice his opinions. It's his best quality.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

We can both play the ad hominem game, my friend. You aren't the only one good at being a pretentious asshole. And, yes, points? Which points? Only because you write some sentence with sophistry, it doesn't mean there is some actual content. You are like Soviet propaganda, many words nothing behind. Playing the onus card doesn't make you look better in my eyes.

You know, I wrote back a cheeky little insult on your reading comprehension, but I'll delete that and take you seriously to keep this on-topic anyways. If you actually reply to the points that I'm about to reiterate in good faith, then I'll happily continue engaging with you. I already got my fill of drama, so let's stay on the topic.

Here are the points I made. Feel free to reply to them now that I'm simplifying them for you.

1. It's an insult to actual victims of terrorism to compare Scribble Hub's system to terrorism.

2. Getting a negative review is not harassment. Trying to track somebody down to reply to them no matter what is harassment.

3. Look at any successful companies/authors on platforms that allow replying to reviews and prove to me that they're replying to negative reviews. They don't because it's bad optics - my main point. People are worried about not being able to defend themselves against negative reviews because they're worried about it hurting their success and new readers from checking out the story, if I'm to take these statements in good faith. The truth is that replying to a negative review is worse optics than the negative review itself.

Those were my three main points that were in my original post that I'm guessing you missed since you just asked which ones. And again, if you want to actually discuss this, I'm down for it. If you intend on continuing to pretend the points don't exist, then feel free to ignore me or get the last word in. I'll let you have it if you choose to go that route.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

You know, I wrote back a cheeky little insult on your reading comprehension, but I'll delete that and take you seriously to keep this on-topic anyways. If you actually reply to the points that I'm about to reiterate in good faith, then I'll happily continue engaging with you. I already got my fill of drama, so let's stay on the topic.

Here are the points I made. Feel free to reply to them now that I'm simplifying them for you.

1. It's an insult to actual victims of terrorism to compare Scribble Hub's system to terrorism.

2. Getting a negative review is not harassment. Trying to track somebody down to reply to them no matter what is harassment.

3. Look at any successful companies/authors on platforms that allow replying to reviews and prove to me that they're replying to negative reviews. They don't because it's bad optics - my main point. People are worried about not being able to defend themselves against negative reviews because they're worried about it hurting their success and new readers from checking out the story, if I'm to take these statements in good faith. The truth is that replying to a negative review is worse optics than the negative review itself.

Those were my three main points that were in my original post that I'm guessing you missed since you just asked which ones. And again, if you want to actually discuss this, I'm down for it. If you intend on continuing to pretend the points don't exist, then feel free to ignore me or get the last word in. I'll let you have it if you choose to go that route.

No problem, but please show me where I said

"It's an insult to actual victims of terrorism to compare Scribble Hub's system to terrorism."

Where did I claim that expressis verbis please? I only joined the debate recently and I can't remember calling them terrorists? So don't create strawmen Ace. You are well versed in debating and you know yourself best when you are bullshiting.

" Getting a negative review is not harassment. Trying to track somebody down to reply to them no matter what is harassment."

Ditto, where did I complain about getting bad reviews? For the second part you are right, I support the reply camp. But you defining it as harassment is an opinion not a statement of fact. Big difference Ace, big difference.

"Look at any successful companies/authors on platforms that allow replying to reviews and prove to me that they're replying to negative reviews. "

Correlation or causality? Have you any statistics to prove this fact, or is it just your feeling again? Is that considered viable evidence in your eyes,

 

[Ace_Arriande]

No problem, but please show me where I said

"It's an insult to actual victims of terrorism to compare Scribble Hub's system to terrorism."

Where did I claim that expressis verbis please? I only joined the debate recently and I can't remember calling them terrorists? So don't create strawmen Ace. You are well versed in debating and you know yourself best when you are bullshiting.

Now, this is just a misunderstanding. I should have been specific and said that was one of my main points in response to Rellawing. I listed all of the main points of my post, though, in case you wanted to reply to that one as well. I did not mean to imply that you're the one who said it. So, not bullshitting. You can easily look at the top reply of the page or my original response to see the exact quote. Just a misunderstanding. You're still welcome to reply to that if you'd like to, though, in case you agree with the comparison. But that aside, I will admit it was my own faulty phrasing there for not making it clear I didn't mean you.

Ditto, where did I complain about getting bad reviews? For the second part you are right, I support the reply camp. But you defining it as harassment is an opinion not a statement of fact. Big difference Ace, big difference.

Let's face it, 99% of this is about replying to negative reviews. Maybe it's not said anywhere explicitly, but we all know it. Especially when it comes to tracking somebody down to reply to them. But, let's disregard that to focus on what is being said. Disregarding whether a review is actually positive or negative, the reason that I say receiving a review (of any nature) is not harassment is to compare it to the fact that tracking somebody down to reply to them is harassment. But to really get into this, we'd have to define harassment, and that's something that could be seen as incredibly subjective. I do love opinions and subjectivity and could discuss how everything in the universe is subjective for hours on end, but I'm going to try and keep it simple here for all of our sakes.

Bringing up profiles to reply to reviews was brought up. You mentioned that there is a problem in replying to somebody's review if they have disabled their profile. Why is this a problem? The person clearly does not want to be contacted. Trying to circumnavigate that hypothetical situation by implementing the ability to reply to reviews is making it possible, in this case, to harass reviewers. Now, if the response to not being able to reply via somebody's profile or direct messaging was "oh well" rather than "Well how am I supposed to contact them then?" then it would look much less like harassment. But as it stands, this comes off as demanding some path of communication so that the author may be heard regardless of what the reviewer wants. When you are disregarding a person's privacy so that they have to hear a response, that's harassment.

Now, if people leave reviews knowing that they can be replied to, and an author replies to the review, that alone does not make it harassment. I'm still going to strongly advise against doing that, but that doesn't make it harassment. The only thing making it harassment here, in my subjective eyes, is the way this entire discussion is being phrased.

The following quotes are from both Rellawing and you since they are part of the whole other side of this discussion.

"Also, I'll say being able to hide profiles enables a scary brand of terrorism unique to Scribbles. Having a safe-space they can hide in, unable to be debated with in any way or shape... fighting that way is someone who isn't looking for a fair fight. "
"That is exactly the point though. Reviews have no direct reply function so you can't reply yn no other means. Do you see the issue, Alice-chan? "
"And if the person in question has disabled the profile? What then, Alice? "

Maybe you don't intend to come off this way, but this no longer sounds like "I want to reply to this review." It starts sounding like "I need to reply to this person's review and I do not want them to be able to 'hide' from me." Of course, that's just my own subjective, opinionated interpretation of what's being said here.

Correlation or causality? Have you any statistics to prove this fact, or is it just your feeling again? Is that considered viable evidence in your eyes,

This is one of the few things I'm actually knowledgeable about. Now, I'm not a very smart person. You've given me some compliments on my intellect that I really don't deserve. However, I do have a Bachelor's (yes, only 5 years of higher education) degree in Business Management. You're free to not believe me since I really don't feel like looking up sources, but it's generally universally agreed upon that replying to negative comments is horrible. Not only does it give you bad optics, but then you're proving that you're a target who can't resist. It's like the old saying, "Don't feed the trolls." Even if you are 100% justified in your response and somebody is outright slandering you, it's safer to ignore them. Replying to them not only makes you look bad in the consumers' eyes, but it gives actual trolls who want to harass you the go-ahead. You're proving that you're an easy target by replying to them. This is Internet 101. Also, while I do understand the whole "correlation or causality" thing, let's look at it from a greedy capitalist perspective. If it was better to be replying to reviews, don't you think companies would be doing that? We live in a world where marketing companies min-max every interaction with customers to the best of their ability. If it was really better for companies and individuals to be replying to the reviews they get, don't you think they would be doing that? Why aren't they then if it might be a good thing?

Now, of course, there are exceptions if I'm being perfectly fair here. Some companies who will go the whole "sassy customer service rep" route such as Wendy's where they'll publicly call people out on Twitter for being idiots. There's also the occasional random screenshot that goes viral of some small, local business calling out some spoiled Instagram influencer after not getting their way. Be sure, though, that these are the exceptions. They're also generally picking on very, very easy targets and they do it in a very mocking manner. This has the potential to backfire horribly very easily.

Also, just to be fair since I just Googled it and am genuinely interested in trying to approach this discussion as fairly as possible, here's an article both with evidence proving me wrong and right regarding some of the points. The tl;dr, though, is that replying to negative reviews can essentially scare other potential reviewers from reviewing because they are naturally averted to conflict and know that, if they see a hotel owner who replies to reviews, then the chance of conflict is higher. However, replying to too many reviews, or only replying to positive or negative reviews, hurts financial performance because it causes customers to be wary of the company's motives. Replying to too many reviews in general hurts, too, because it causes "information overload."

So if we're to take the studies linked in that article about hotel businesses and apply them here, then we could say that--potentially--it may be best for author's to reply to a very, very small percentage of their reviews to show that they're involved and willing to cause "conflict," but it would be negative to reply to all reviews or if they only reply to positive or negative reviews.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Now, this is just a misunderstanding. I should have been specific and said that was one of my main points in response to Rellawing. I listed all of the main points of my post, though, in case you wanted to reply to that one as well. I did not mean to imply that you're the one who said it. So, not bullshitting. You can easily look at the top reply of the page or my original response to see the exact quote. Just a misunderstanding. You're still welcome to reply to that if you'd like to, though, in case you agree with the comparison. But that aside, I will admit it was my own faulty phrasing there for not making it clear I didn't mean you.



Let's face it, 99% of this is about replying to negative reviews. Maybe it's not said anywhere explicitly, but we all know it. Especially when it comes to tracking somebody down to reply to them. But, let's disregard that to focus on what is being said. Disregarding whether a review is actually positive or negative, the reason that I say receiving a review (of any nature) is not harassment is to compare it to the fact that tracking somebody down to reply to them is harassment. But to really get into this, we'd have to define harassment, and that's something that could be seen as incredibly subjective. I do love opinions and subjectivity and could discuss how everything in the universe is subjective for hours on end, but I'm going to try and keep it simple here for all of our sakes.

Bringing up profiles to reply to reviews was brought up. You mentioned that there is a problem in replying to somebody's review if they have disabled their profile. Why is this a problem? The person clearly does not want to be contacted. Trying to circumnavigate that hypothetical situation by implementing the ability to reply to reviews is making it possible, in this case, to harass reviewers. Now, if the response to not being able to reply via somebody's profile or direct messaging was "oh well" rather than "Well how am I supposed to contact them then?" then it would look much less like harassment. But as it stands, this comes off as demanding some path of communication so that the author may be heard regardless of what the reviewer wants. When you are disregarding a person's privacy so that they have to hear a response, that's harassment.

Now, if people leave reviews knowing that they can be replied to, and an author replies to the review, that alone does not make it harassment. I'm still going to strongly advise against doing that, but that doesn't make it harassment. The only thing making it harassment here, in my subjective eyes, is the way this entire discussion is being phrased.

The following quotes are from both Rellawing and you since they are part of the whole other side of this discussion.

"Also, I'll say being able to hide profiles enables a scary brand of terrorism unique to Scribbles. Having a safe-space they can hide in, unable to be debated with in any way or shape... fighting that way is someone who isn't looking for a fair fight. "
"That is exactly the point though. Reviews have no direct reply function so you can't reply yn no other means. Do you see the issue, Alice-chan? "
"And if the person in question has disabled the profile? What then, Alice? "

Maybe you don't intend to come off this way, but this no longer sounds like "I want to reply to this review." It starts sounding like "I need to reply to this person's review and I do not want them to be able to 'hide' from me." Of course, that's just my own subjective, opinionated interpretation of what's being said here.



This is one of the few things I'm actually knowledgeable about. Now, I'm not a very smart person. You've given me some compliments on my intellect that I really don't deserve. However, I do have a Bachelor's (yes, only 5 years of higher education) degree in Business Management. You're free to not believe me since I really don't feel like looking up sources, but it's generally universally agreed upon that replying to negative comments is horrible. Not only does it give you bad optics, but then you're proving that you're a target who can't resist. It's like the old saying, "Don't feed the trolls." Even if you are 100% justified in your response and somebody is outright slandering you, it's safer to ignore them. Replying to them not only makes you look bad in the consumers' eyes, but it gives actual trolls who want to harass you the go-ahead. You're proving that you're an easy target by replying to them. This is Internet 101. Also, while I do understand the whole "correlation or causality" thing, let's look at it from a greedy capitalist perspective. If it was better to be replying to reviews, don't you think companies would be doing that? We live in a world where marketing companies min-max every interaction with customers to the best of their ability. If it was really better for companies and individuals to be replying to the reviews they get, don't you think they would be doing that? Why aren't they then if it might be a good thing?

Now, of course, there are exceptions if I'm being perfectly fair here. Some companies who will go the whole "sassy customer service rep" route such as Wendy's where they'll publicly call people out on Twitter for being idiots. There's also the occasional random screenshot that goes viral of some small, local business calling out some spoiled Instagram influencer after not getting their way. Be sure, though, that these are the exceptions. They're also generally picking on very, very easy targets and they do it in a very mocking manner. This has the potential to backfire horribly very easily.

Also, just to be fair since I just Googled it and am genuinely interested in trying to approach this discussion as fairly as possible, here's an article both with evidence proving me wrong and right regarding some of the points. The tl;dr, though, is that replying to negative reviews can essentially scare other potential reviewers from reviewing because they are naturally averted to conflict and know that, if they see a hotel owner who replies to reviews, then the chance of conflict is higher. However, replying to too many reviews, or only replying to positive or negative reviews, hurts financial performance because it causes customers to be wary of the company's motives. Replying to too many reviews in general hurts, too, because it causes "information overload."

So if we're to take the studies linked in that article about hotel businesses and apply them here, then we could say that--potentially--it may be best for author's to reply to a very, very small percentage of their reviews to show that they're involved and willing to cause "conflict," but it would be negative to reply to all reviews or if they only reply to positive or negative reviews.

Ah. a misunderstanding. That is how it is. It was all just a misunderstanding the same way when the Bush said the Iraq had weapons of mass destructions. No, you can't deceive me, you knew perfectly well what you were doing and were doing it deliberately, Ace.

Do you think I am stupid? You were intentionally mixing up our part with your little skirmish with Rellawing and using her as a straw man against me by indirectly implying I call them terrorists in the hope I would jump to her support. A now you were caught it is just a big misunderstanding. Yes, for sure. You are very poor liar, Ace, using the cheapest tricks of the rhetoric arsenal again and again.

The rest is just empty air like before. Unless, defined by law I care very little what you see as harassment or not.

Long text, no numbers. Everything can be right or wrong without data to back it up. You have done business management, so where are my Excel sheets?

"This is one of the few things I'm actually knowledgeable about. Now, I'm not a very smart person. You've given me some compliments on my intellect that I really don't deserve. However, I do have a Bachelor's (yes, only 5 years of higher education) degree in Business Management. You're free to not believe me since I really don't feel like looking up sources, but it's generally universally agreed upon that replying to negative comments is horrible. Not only does it give you bad optics, but then you're proving that you're a target who can't resist. It's like the old saying, "Don't feed the trolls." Even if you are 100% justified in your response and somebody is outright slandering you, it's safer to ignore them. Replying to them not only makes you look bad in the consumers' eyes, but it gives actual trolls who want to harass you the go-ahead. You're proving that you're an easy target by replying to them. This is Internet 101. Also, while I do understand the whole "correlation or causality" thing, let's look at it from a greedy capitalist perspective. If it was better to be replying to reviews, don't you think companies would be doing that? We live in a world where marketing companies min-max every interaction with customers to the best of their ability. If it was really better for companies and individuals to be replying to the reviews they get, don't you think they would be doing that? Why aren't they then if it might be a good thing?"

 

[Rellawing]

@Ace_Arriande Good point, but there's something you don't know or if you do, you are talking around the point.

If we're talking about my reviewer, which seems to be a subtle subject here, this person has not reviewed any other books aside from mine. Straight from a moderator. So why me when there are so many poorly-written books everywhere? *tilts head*

You assume innocence on this user's part and a wishing to not be attacked or stalked for their opinions.

My conclusion is that this reviewer is simply hiding. Were they flamed on the forums in the past to warrant the defensiveness? Were they a failed author? They're not a habitual reviewer unless they happened to have several accounts... so what to make of it, then?

 

[Ace_Arriande]

Ah. a misunderstanding. That is how it is. It was all just a misunderstanding the same way when the Bush said the Iraq had weapons of mass destructions. No, you can't deceive me, you knew perfectly well what you were doing and were doing it deliberately, Ace.

Man, I am really disappointed. You can see the exact quote in my original post when I quoted Rellawing on this. I even admitted to it being my fault for not making it clear because I was genuinely interested in this topic with you and didn't want to let that ruin it, and this is how you respond? I'm just... disappointed. I was genuinely interested in having this conversation with you. I really did want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you would reply to me in good faith. But, here we are. You've proven what I already figured but tried to push aside for the potential of an honest debate. I'm giving everybody a live example of why you shouldn't bother to reply to negative comments/reviews/trolls. So, thank you, I guess, for proving my point. It's nothing but a waste of time.

If anybody else wants to have this conversation with me, feel free to reply to me. I'm honestly interested in having this discussion now that I'm doing more research on it and am seeing new articles from the last couple of years disproving some long-standing beliefs that you should never reply to reviews / negative comments.

And Assur, if you feel like replying, go ahead. You've just given me all the reason to never take you seriously on the forums, so feel free to get the last word in. I gave you actual effort and even research that proved I might be wrong since I'm trying to approach the conversation as fairly as possible, and you decide to go for logical fallacies and painting me as some sort of horrible liar instead because of one tiny misunderstanding rather than reply to the entire rest of the post. I guess that me admitting there is evidence proving me wrong is also empty air? Thank god for my ego. I'm happy to know that me supplying evidence that contradicts my belief and admitting that I may be wrong is just empty air. That means I must be right, clearly.

The offer to have the last message between us is open once more, Assur. If anybody else is interested, feel free to pick up where I left off. I'm doing more research on the topic now that it's piqued my curiosity and would be happy to discuss in further detail whether this is a good suggestion or not.

@Ace_Arriande Good point, but there's something you don't know or if you do, you are talking around the point.

If we're talking about my reviewer, which seems to be a subtle subject here, this person has not reviewed any other books aside from mine. Straight from a moderator. So why me when there are so many poorly-written books everywhere? *tilts head*

You assume innocence on this user's part and a wishing to not be attacked or stalked for their opinions.

My conclusion is that this reviewer is simply hiding. Were they flamed on the forums in the past to warrant the defensiveness? Were they a failed author? They're not a habitual reviewer unless they happened to have several accounts... so what to make of it, then?

I can go to my Royal Road page right now and show you at least 10 examples of negative reviews on my stories from brand new accounts that were only created to review my story and then never log back on again. And reviews from people who are only ever negative and who never leave a single positive review on anything, but have 50 .5-star reviews. People are weird. Sometimes, you just might stand out to them for some reason and inspire them to leave a review or negative rating. Maybe you did one thing that they really dislike but other stories don't. I can't explain their thought process to you. All I can tell you is that this happens and that it's not necessarily vote manipulation nor trolling or just blind hate. Also, poorly-written is subjective and it doesn't have to have anything to do with the quality of your story. However, this is absolutely not an unheard of thing nor even a suspicious thing. What's suspicious is when you suddenly receive numerous negative ratings within a short time span. Just because somebody makes a new account to rate you doesn't mean that it's not a legitimate rating, and I really hope that the standards for removing ratings aren't that. Or, actually, maybe I should hope for that since it would mean removing a whole lot of negative ratings and reviews from my stories...

But seriously. I know how it is. It sucks. I also understand how suspicious it can feel since I used to be there myself, but it's legitimate the vast majority of the time. The healthiest thing to do is do what the rest of us do - leave it alone and shit-talk the person in private to people who you know are going to agree with you. That way you get to vent and let it out of your system without potentially harming your reputation for becoming that person who has to reply to all negative reviews.

 

[Moctemma]

I haven't read everything discussed here, but I can provide information on why would someone make an account just to write a low rating review, as I have done it.

• The first motivator is wasted potential. We love the story, it's a refreshing concept and most of it is excellent (characters, plot, world-building, etc.), but the author fucks up and throws everything to the trash (as we perceive it, not everyone agrees), ruining the story for us with an error so fatal and fundamental in our experience as people who enjoy stories, that we hate it, we are saddened by it. So we have the obligation to prevent others from such an experience, that's why we write the review. (You can see my review of Maou Shoujo in my profile for an example, where the author did the worst thing in my opinion, make the characters act out of character to serve the plot; I find such a thing disrespectful to the character, to the story and to the readers.)

• The second is plain hate to a ridiculous situation. What we saw is so disgusting we can't ignore it. You may think, why don't you move on? We can't because the story isn't something we recognized at first as "not for us", we were enjoying it and then it was brutally ruined. Most people don't understand it or ignore the event altogether, but we can't. (One example of this was a manga were the busty girlfriend was worried about the small sized one, so she bandaged herself to be plain, tolerating the pain and lack of proper breathing until she fainted, falling to the ground without putting her hands, and with the bandage she could have broken a rib or worse. The busty girlfriend was draw with purple skin around the bandages, and at the end there's no angry girlfriend lecturing her, just a "she loves me, that's why she did it." And we're supposed to see it as "comedy", which most of the readers did.)

• The third is due to a desire for the story to improve. We enjoy the story or concept, we see potential in it, so we point out the flaws in the story hoping for the author to consider and analyze them, making the author a better writer and improving that or the next stories. Why low rating then? Because we focus so much on the errors we spot a lot, reducing the rating more.

• The fourth is the one you're all familiar with, an obnoxious person who is angry with the world and hates everything.

• The fifth is a rating towards the author. There's no way to rate the author, so the story is the one to suffer, why do that? An infinite of reasons where the author disappointed the reader by his attitude, something he said, etc., it can be anything. The dislike (or hate) towards the author transfers to the story, making us see the story without the love we had for it, spotting the most insignificant of errors.

• The sixth is when the story isn't for us. In this point I do move on, but there's people who can't and want to let others know about the risk, using the low rating to tell like minded people to avoid the story.

That's all I can think of.