Re: Woot! First 0.5 Rating!
#21James Wrote:bokhi Wrote: Congratulations! You are now a Real Royal Road Writer ™!To be fair, a lot of people DO click 5 stars if they generally like the story, even if they know it's not all that amazing. I'm not sure if they're compensating for the people who give unreasonably low ratings, or if it's the other way around. Chicken and the egg?
I also concur with everyone: there should be an achievement for the first 0.5 stars. It really is an achievement because you need visibility before getting that one guy who likes to drop 0.5s, lol.
James Wrote: It just means they didn't like something and wanted to exert some influence (perhaps this is the only place in their life where they feel like they have power). Of course, none of those people wrote a review or fessed up in the comments with their reasoning (or if they did, they didn't admit they provided the low rating).
I remember someone posted on the forums last year about one of the really popular stories having a star rating he considered "too high." He said he gave it a 0.5 to make it "closer to what it should be." The rest of the post was a long rant about the RR rating system and how the people who rated that popular story were wrong to rate it so highly.
...Yeah. I suspect there are more people like this than we know, but most of them are silent raters and don't post rants on the forums or comments sections.
Both, I'm sure, lol.
My point was more that there are people who believe their own ratings are "objective", and the thousands and thousands of people who rated differently are just wrong. (This was a super-popular one on the front page.)
Quote:Quote:James Wrote: I've thought about intentionally writing something at the 0.5 star level just to see how the community would react to it, but the story wouldn't even make it through the initial submission filters that the RR staff use to accept stories...
If you wrote a bleh chapter 1, got it approved, then released a terrible chapter 2, the staff also might get mad at you.
This would be hilarious. Maybe we RR writers should get together and make a hilariously bad parody story to earn those 0.5s?
I'm not sure if the staff would get mad at you. I think the 1st chapter vetting isn't even really about quality, it's about content and making sure it's not a bot and/or plagiarism, though maybe I'm wrong about that.
The rules in the knowledge-base actually do address it to an extent. If the story is too bad they reserve the right to disapprove it, either at the beginning or whenever.
Ha, didn't know about that! The bar must be pretty low, then, since I've used "surprise me!" before and...boy, was I really surprised sometimes, lmao.
Quote:Quote:We're talking about how some people would rate it, not how they should rate it!Quote:The key must just be to insert a large number of controversial issues. Also, strongly take a side, while ridiculing the other side, each time. Then, completely contradict yourself when it comes to the next issue (like swing super right on one issue then super left on another). Eventually, you'll alienate everyone!
Honestly? Even that wouldn't be a 0.5 if written with mechanical competence. Good style and mechanics goes a long way, even if the content is hilariously bad.
I was referring to the bar for a "real" 0.5-story in reference to the previous suggestion--namely, I don't think that would be a "real" 0.5er. Obviously the bar would differ between writers, but my point is that the mechanics alone could place the quality too high. But yes, there are certainly people who would rate that a 0.5 and leave snarky comments, I'm sure. =)
I suppose if you just want the story "bad enough" to get 0.5s, sure. But it's more fun to give them what they want, I think--a real stinker, worthy of nothing but 0.5s!
