Suggestion Box
Thank you for participating in the beta release of ReviewFuse. We are excited to bring you the best writer-to-writer critique site; however we know we can’t do that without your help and feedback. The value of an honest and constructive review is immeasurable in helping a writer turn a lack-luster unimpressive story into a compelling drama. The value of your support and feedback is just as important to us in creating a community that can have such a profound impact on the work of its members.
Please post any suggestions or comments you have for improving this service. We will read and use these comments to guide the direction of this community.
ReviewFuse Team
December 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
It would be interesting if a podcast was eventually set up to feature particularly well enjoyed works or contest winners. However, this idea should probably remain as nothing more until well beyond Beta.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I think it would be nice if we were able to write in a forum or blog among our groups. I would like to ask a few questions to all of the members of “Young adult fantasy” or “Future bestseller’s”. It would be nice to discuss some of the issues we’re having with our writings and give advice for things that we have been successful at.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@Proper Noun
We have actually done one already. It turned out pretty well, however it also took up quite a bit of time. We do hope to do continue doing it later, but it will need to wait sometime before it is possible.
@Anonymous2
I definitely agree with that. The current thought is that each group will have a private forum area inside of the site forum. Unfortunately, I am not sure where this forum is going to be prioritized at. Groups is a relatively new feature we are trying to expand on. If you have anymore ideas on how to improve it, we would love to hear them as well.
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
My suggestion for groups is that we are able to submit our stories and anyone who wants too can review it. The whole point of the groups is to share your stories with people who are interested in that subject. I don’t think its neccessary to require three reviews there. I would review any story that is interesting, which would be all the stories in that particular group. If it was done this way it would make it a little more relaxed and we would be able to openly communicate our ideas of the stories (in a blog) or whatever.
January 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
All I can ask for is a forum where writers can communicate en masse
January 11th, 2009 at 5:46 am
A reading list would be a good addition. Sometimes I like to read about writing, as is the case with “The First Five Pages” by Noah Lukeman, “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White, and “On Writing” by Stephen King, but when I search for less common books such as “Bird to Bird” or “On Writing Well” that I am more hesitant to spend my money. The availability for the site’s members to suggest relevant books would help me out. Thanks.
January 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
What i hate is when people critique my work for say, chapters three and four and havent read chapters one yet. I think the automatic review system should be changed so they get part one first instead of parts 4-10. Because the critics will say i wish you would provide more backstory or what not, and i am like,”If you read parts 1 and two first you would know the backstory!” Is there anyway to change that?
I think it would be cool if we could send private messages to each other,not just the review comments.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
One thing I would like is a writing category for “books” and somehow a sub-category for it, named “chapters”. This way the author can publish as many chapters as he wants from his book and there won’t be the “provide more backstory” issue that luc also mentioned. Plus, “The Beginning” tab would have to be removed from the review pane for chapters other than the first.
And yes, some automatic checking that the reviewer doesn’t get chapter 2 for review before chapter 1 and so on, would be nice too
Thanks.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I wrote a response to the comment about book chapters, but it got so big I am going to make it Friday’s blog post.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 am
wait, you’ve done a podcast? is it online somewhere?
January 24th, 2009 at 1:57 am
@Nathan: We produced one podcast, but realized we weren’t quite ready to do it every week, or even every month. With our limited resources, we decided to focus on some other features that members were requesting more often. We didn’t want to put just one podcast up and leave people hanging, so we decided to hold off until we could produce more. However, I guess there’s no harm in sharing what we have so far. Since we haven’t set up an official feed for the podcast, I just uploaded it to YouTube in 3 parts. You can access it by visiting our YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/ReviewFuse. It’s still the rough cut, so please forgive the pacing, I need to remove some of the long pauses. Let me know what you think. Should we do more of these?
January 24th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Excellent! I was wondering if anything ever happened to that podcast. Thanks for the link!
February 9th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Wondering if you could do a feature that would let you request a review from someone who has been particularly helpful to you? They could accept or decline? Thanks.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@jomicn776 Sounds like a good idea. We’ll look into it. One thing you could try in the meantime is to start your own group and invite great reviewers to join. It would still be up to them whether or not to join, but within the confines of your own writing group, you can set your own rules and even write your own review frameworks if you want. Hope that helps. Thanks for the feedback!
February 17th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Like what was mentioed earlier, the choice to choose chapters in an assigned review would be more beneificial to the author, as it will fill the reviewer in on any backstory if they are new to the piece.
Also, perhaps the ability to track a favourite story, some stories are not public but if a reviewer enjoys the story and wishes to keep reading without obligation that would be a handy feature.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Just to add, I noticed that you can’t seem to add your story into the designated review are AND your own group simultanenously without having to reload the piece, thereby creating two seperate story pages so the scores don’t add up. Hopefully you know what I mean as I’m not sure how to phrase this.
February 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
What if you guys had a very simple contest here or there given a specific genre and guidelines and the winner, or winners, would get an extended subscription to reviewfuse? I like the idea of the gift cards for the bigger contests, but I don’t want my subscription to run out either.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Being able to add chapters to an existing story should be a priority, rather than having to seperate them.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I really like this website a lot. I am dyselxic so its sorta fun reading peoples stories, and knowing that what I write I could be taking my time and such.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:15 am
I remember, a while back some statistics of the site’s success were posted. Though it has been a few months since those statistics, it would be interesting to see how the community has grown, especially with the more frequent contests. Either way, thanks.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Any chance of a community forum?
March 16th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
@JD Kennedy
A forum is definitely in the works. A Site wide forum as well as a group forum. This falls under our current group redesign/reworking and is our current priority. A big goal of it however is to have a forum that is integrated well into the system. We are trying to make sure the forum we use is easily used and well integrated into the site. This is delaying the process some.
@Mac
We will post the statistics again in the beginning of next month. I can tell you that today we had ~30 new members join today.
March 20th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
[...] I recommend giving the full version a read. If you do, come back and tell us how you think Review Fuse is doing as a Critique Club. Would you say our community provides a productive and positive experience as described in the article? If not, how we can improve? Many of our current features are a direct result of customer feedback emails, blog comments, or things we’ve read in the suggestion box. [...]
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I’m glad to see that the community is growing so much. Also, as a suggestion, I recently picked up Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2009 and—though it hasn’t helped me publish anything yet—I would like to recommend it to the site and its users. Thanks.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Is there any way to ask reviewers to look for a specific problem when posting a story? Sometimes there are things I don’t like about a story I’ve written, but I can’t figure out how to fix it. It would be nice if I could tell reviewers what I’m specifically looking for, so they can critique towards that end. A comment box when uploading would be perfect.
April 6th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
@rosieblue
Yes, when you upload your work there is a section for short description. This is where you can put special information about the submission to be reviewed. You could also simply put it at the beginning of the submission.
Also, premium members are able to create their own groups and can make their own review frameworks allowing you to completely control the review process.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I think the way you’ve set up this website and how it all works with the reviews is very useful for emerging writers to get helpful feedback. The judging stipulations reward those who want to help other writers and provides us with outside perceptions from other writers, donating our time instead of costing more for a paid professional. Way to go, reviewfuse! You should be rewarded for the work you’re doing to improve the profession. Congrats!
May 26th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I have tried several times to sign in after having (I thought) joined your group, and after trying to submit a poem. You won’t let me and keep saying my username and/or password do not match. What goes???
May 28th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
@Ralph G. Smith
We have not seen this problem before, please use the contact us page at http://www.reviewfuse.com/contactus/ if you are still having problems and send us your username. You can always use the forgot your password link to have a new password sent to you as well.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
hi, guys–
would it be possible to institute an extended “logged in” status? it seems like every time i step away for a few minutes, i’m required to sign in again to my account. it’s a minor quibble, i admit–but it bugs me.
thanks,
laurie
August 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
So, I think this site is great- but one thing about it bothers me- and that is that people can browse through the public submissions without being logged in.
Now, I understand that they are “public” but when I joined the site I was under the impression that public meant registered members of the site, not anyone with an internet connection (For, in the latter case, first publication rights can get a bit hairy.)
I would love to see either a disclaimer that clearly states that public submissions are really public, or that in order to see the public submissions you need to be logged into the site.
Thanks! Keep up the great work!
~Dodge
August 6th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Reveiw System
The current reveiw template is great for formal critique but quite often during casual reading of public submissions there is a desire to post an affirmation or acknowledgment to the writer without a proper literary criticism taking place. If the writer responds to these encouragements they have to score(?) the review and this isn’t appropriate. Is it possible to create a simple “response card” where we can thank the writer and leave just a short comment?
Chris
August 13th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Way to go ReviewFuse! Excellent site! One suggestion would be for reviewer to be able to scroll down to story (not necessarily change in-line comments) from all sections of the review (mechanics, ending, form, etc). As of now i think its only in MyThoughts and In-Line Comments.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Can there anyway for reviewers to be able to see a more specific score for themselves as reviewers. As of now it’s 5 choices (Poor, Fair, Excellent, etc). Seeing a specific score out of say 100, would encourage me to strive even more for the next level.
August 30th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I love this website. Used it for 2 days, decided the Premium membership was worth it and did that.
I would love if the site were easier to read from my cell phone. I dont know how that happens, but i have to make the font size really tiny to see the reviews. (just a wishlist item)
also agree with the person that said can’t we do a longer log in time, or a “remember me” log in, so we don’t have to sign in each time….
Anyway, this website is great idea -and I am happy I found it!
August 30th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
On the profile page, choices include: write occasionally for fun, trying to get published for first time, write for a living, but not have published before, am looking for help revising.
The category that I inhabit– I do not write for a living, but I publish and have published– is not an option. Any chance you can fix that?
October 11th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Should a word limit be imposed on postings? I just opened an assigned review and found it exceeded 18,000 words. With the 24 hour limit for reviews, I can’t possibly provide a thorough, thoughtful review for a story this size. I also feel that it’s unfair to post something that’s approximately six times as long as the average.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I’m new to the site but incredibly pleased with it. It’s such a simple system but it works very well. I’ve spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on writing classes when I’ve always felt that the most useful tool in the classes was the critique process. So first just a big thank you for creating this.
My suggestion is to leave a section of our review anonymous where we can volunteer to review future works by the same author. Anon because you don’t want to offend, this is more just a matter of personal preference or enjoying a subject matter.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Great site. I’m enjoying it so far.
I have been trying to rate and give feedback to my reviewers, and I don’t know how to rate constructiveness. To me, “constructive” is exactly the same as “helpful.” But since this is a writing site, it may be that “constructive” means “polite and not offensive.” I would like it if that were clearer.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I think the premise of this site is fantastic it just needs some “tweaking”. Some of the first stories I was given to review were by teenagers and I’m far from being a teenager. I understand that everyone needs a critique but some of it is so juvenile it’s downright painful to read. The spelling is awful or the storyline is way above their maturity level. I have a hard time getting through it. Maybe there could be a way to “pass” on an item and go on to the next one. Or perhaps you could be matched more age appropriately with other writers.
Also, one of the items I was sent was offensive. You should have a way of reporting these postings so the administrators can take a look at it and remove it if they feel it necessary.
Thanks!
November 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
It would be nice if you could pick your intended audience to get critiques from the people who would me most interested in your work instead of 40-year-old men critiquing pieces intended to be read by teenage girls. Those kinds of critiques are less helpful because they don’t have a full understanding because of their age.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
I think the rating system on the “settings” section should be a little revised. If the setting was not described in detail but was not needed “did not add or take away from the story” then it shouldn’t make someone have a bad score just because they didn’t add what wasn’t needed.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
PLEASE LET US CHOOSE WHICH GENRE TO REVIEW.
I think I have both given and received bad reviews because the material was from a genre that would normally never be entertained. It was extremely difficult for me to review something that I had absolutely no interest in from the start…as the very reading of it was forced and unnatural.
I understand we are supposed to be reviewing the writing skill and as such it shouldn’t matter what the material is…but, I think realistically it DOES matter.
PLEASE LET US CHOOSE WHICH GENRE TO REVIEW.
Happy Holidays,
Zoletta
January 4th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
An amazing number of commenters here seem unaware that you can let a review assignment expire. (In other words, you can pick which genres you would like to review, and you can request that other people refrain from reviewing your own work unless they are familiar with the genre.) Maybe the expiration date should be made more explicit on the reviewing page.
Then again, I guess it’s possible everyone here knows they can let assignments expire, but they don’t have time to wait. In that case, maybe a reviewer should be able to instantly reject a review assignment.
Still a great site. Happy new year!
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Suggestion: Could you have someone moderate the discussion boards?
In my opinion it’s inappropriate to criticize another member’s reviews publicly, because we have the opportunity to give feedback to reviewers directly, and because we’re free to complain to Review Fuse if we’re entirely dissatisfied with a review.
I also think it’s inappropriate when people make personal attacks and belittle each other.
It’s especially unpleasant because the forums are public and some members’ accounts are connected to their real-life identities.
I know moderation is a lot of work, but if you could manage it, I would definitely be in favor of someone editing/deleting all inappropriate forum posts. Just my two cents.
July 20th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I was wondering why some of my favorite reviewers don’t come back so i wrote one. Review Fuse is wonderful because you can have privacy. THe whole world doesn’t see your work. There’s a direct result of “I wrote this many, so I can count on getting some back” which is reasuring. I really like this site much more than some others, so i’m making the following suggestion:
We need some categories open to general users, so people review what they are comfortable with…I don’t want young people to read my romance novel and I don’t want to read anything violent. If a person has to wait 3, 6, maybe even 9 days to get a review, it’s discouraging.
(I’m not complaining, this is a friend’s opinion: If a person is assigned something they don’t want to read, it stays their assignment for three days. I’ve come across several I didn’t want to read because of bad language, vulgarity, etc. so waited the 3 days, checked again, and discovered another manuscript with the same kind of content so I waited another three days until something came along I was willing to read. And the message boards are inactive, which gives a general feeling of ghost town.
I personally think this site is terrific and I hope it grows.