Many of you have pointed out the high credit balance required to receive Earned Reviews. The cause of this new problem is simple, so is the solution.

Before focused reviews were launched, there was only one way to receive reviews – earn credits by reviewing others. This provided for a nice and balanced economy. Then we launched Focused Reviews, which do not use the same logic – the writer creates a PRO item and defines his reviewer criteria, matching reviewers are notified, they review the item. The PRO item creator may receive 5 to 10 or more focused reviews without himself completing one review. This system has caused a credit inflation (the ironical comparison to the US economy is coincidental). I foresaw this somewhat, which is one of the reasons why I limited PRO items for basic members. However, the problem is greater than I expected. Especially with new members who create an item, go away, and don’t come back.

The solution? Force unlocking of reviews. Once a PRO item receives two reviews it will not receive any more (be removed from the queue) until those two reviews are unlocked. This way, the economy stays balanced – “they must give to receive.”

My initial thought is to only apply this rule to PRO items. However, it may do the economy justice to apply it site-wide. If a member has two locked reviews, anywhere, he cannot receive reviews of any kind until he unlocks them. This rule would be complimented with a new review interface, that allows members to easily spot locked reviews (this interface will happen either way).

Thoughts?

Would the user have the option of deleting the item? Would this take care of the locked review? (Yes, sorry, I meant locked.)

I’m glad you pointed out the problem as well as the solution.

I agree that unlocking reviews should be required before being returned to the queue. I also feel that this would be a good thing to implement site-wide. As you pointed out, new members who come and submit, get reviews only to never return and open them. Site-wide requirements would basically put an end to that. I find it very frustrating when I review a story only to see that it has 7 unlocked reviews before mine. I know that I have just wasted a good amount of time. I also now see that if there was a requirement, that would be 6 reviews that could have been given to someone who is anxiously awaiting them :)

Another plus about this rule would be that people who are more active on whichever days will receive more activity on those days. Like, some people may not come to the site on the weekends because they are young and have lives, are out of town, or whatever ;P If they received their two reviews and haven’t been back to unlock them, then someone else will get an opportunity at the queue, and when the member returns to the site on Monday, they can open their reviews and go right back into the queue when they themselves are back and contributing. Once they open those, they will go back into the queue when in a more ‘active’ mode. Also, others, who are more active at that time, and unlocking their reviews and giving reviews will get a more balanced and fair chance at being reviewed (being in the queue more, because all of the inactive pieces are on ‘hold’).

Anyway, that’s my take on it :) I’m all for it. If I take a three day weekend, I wouldn’t have to spend the next 3 days doing reviews to be able to open all of the ones that I may have acquired, but I would still be able to anticipate coming back to a couple; that would be nice (to not have to turn off reviews just to take a few days away.)

I think this is a good solution – but only if it is site wide.
Also, remember that PROlific accounts can still have 50 items, thats 100 reviews each before they have to open any.

“Would the user have the option of deleting the item? Would this take care of the unlocked review?”

Yes, deleting the item would still discount the locked review (I think you meant locked, not unlocked, right?).

-Steve

I agree site-wide is the best way to go. The only drawback is – some people choose to not unlock a review because they don’t like the reviewer stats, etc. They will also be forced.

Big deal. If they don’t like the review, there’s always the option to refund it. I’ve never had a problem with getting a refund. The RG’s are really on top of it.

Go site-wide, Steve. :D

I agree with tnd: go site-wide and let ‘em ask for a refund if a review is lame. Who doesn’t open reviews anyway? I feel compelled to do so.

I trust you and your crew Steve to do whatever you think will work. The gritty detail of this system is much more complex than I have the time or inclination to understand. Clearly, you already see the critical need to restore the balance, and I appreciate your openness about the problem. I imagine I was among the first to pay for using the ‘premium’ site, and I have no problem dealing with some growing pains given the benefit I received from using the site for free for so long.

Well said particoromulus.

I also agree that if they don’t like the review they should request a refund. I always check the stats, but I open the review anyway. It was my understanding that the credits on a locked review counted against you anyway? So that shouldn’t be a big deal.

“It was my understanding that the credits on a locked review counted against you anyway? So that shouldn’t be a big deal.”

Indeed. And it is much easier to force people to unlock reviews than attempt to explain that concept to new users.

It seems the site-wide preference is unanimous. Any naysayers at all?

How would this work with PRO items? Would an Email/request be sent to only 2 reviewers on the top of the list, then when their reviews are in and unlocked to the other 2 and so on?
Other than that and possible technical issues there’s no reason not to implement this. We all love opening reviews (and sending a refund requests for them, heehee) so we wouldn’t feel forced to do so.

I’m guessing that PRO users would be allowed to have 2 unopened reviews per “PRO’d” item. So technically they could have 100 in all. If this is the case, I see nothing wrong with it.

But I think overall this would be a great improvement.

jebozid,

We would probably remove review request e-mail notifications altogether – there would be too many empty requests (by the time I respond to the notification, the item has two locked reviews and is not there). Not a biggie, as many are annoyed by them anyway.

Curt,

If we go site-wide, we could probably double the number of allowed locked reviews for PRO member (to 4).

Steve-

I can certainly live without the notifications. So then, if a standard user PRO’ed an item, s/he would be in the ‘focused’ queue until two reviews were complete, drop from the queue until at least one was opened, go back in again (and so on) until 25 focused reviewers either reviewed or skipped? That seems like a perfectly reasonable chain of events to me. Four unopened reviews for PRO members seems reasonable as well.

Yes, particoromulus, that would be the exact chain of events. Add to that, if an item is skipped or stays in a reviewer’s queue for x days, it will be removed from that queue a placed in another matching reviewer’s queue.

So much for my guesstimation skills… :)

I am ok with this as well.

I’m not. Frankly, the logic here escapes me. So, members are required to open every review. If that’s the case, why not make it really simple and just have every review open automatically on submission, up to the number of credits the member receiving the reviews has? That way, any unopened reviews are unopened for the obvious reason: no credits to open them with.
But that isn’t my real concern. Folks have indicated that members should be forced to open reviews because who wouldn’t want to anyway, or they shouldn’t judge a review by the reviewer stats, or they can always ask for a refund. The problem with this reasoning is that there are very good reasons for not wishing to unlock a review. You might get a review from someone who has a history of giving poor or useless reviews, so you choose not to open their critiques because you feel your credits can be used more effectively elsewhere. You may choose not to unlock a review because the reviewer apparently read only 7% of your submission. What could they possibly say of merit after having read only the first few words? From experience, after having been forced by this new rule to go ahead and open those crits, I found they tend to say “wonderful work, I can’t wait to read more”. Though they had only read a small percentage of the piece. But, you can always ask for a refund. Don’t real, breathing humans manage the refund process? Is it sensible to dramatically increase the number of refunds they must deal with? When that rule came to my attention, I had to submit something like ten reviews for refund in a single morning. I expect to submit many times more refund requests now than I ever did. That creates a lot of extra work for the refund processor, but it also creates a bunch of extra work for me. On that day, actually a morning, I sat down at my computer in order to do a bunch of reviews. Instead, I spent all the time I had available opening reviews I would never have opened otherwise and then submitting them for refunds. I got nothing positive done.
I’m confused when reviewers get upset that their reviews have not been unlocked. They got paid for them, didn’t they? Well, except in the case of a friend, and you can always get on their case to open that review; you know where they live and they know you know where they live, and all that.
I’m also confused about things being out of balance. A person who submits a piece for critique but does no critique himself isn’t getting away with anything. They can’t open the critiques they get until they do some critiques, or have I been a sucker all this time? If you don’t do critiques for a while, doesn’t the work you have submitted flow less and less into the queue anyway? After all, not much point in your stuff being in the queue if you aren’t earning the points to do anything with the crits you might get, and no point in same if you simply aren’t around to notice. Now that’s fair.
This is what it looks like to me. Right now, I’m trying to do a lot of critiques. I’m building my credits up to maybe ten thousand before I submit my next piece for review. Once I achieve that goal and submit my next work, three things will happen. One, I’ll get a lot of critiques. Two, Steve’s Sister will get a lot of refund requests. Three, it’ll be a while before I get many more critiques done because I’ll be busy submitting refund requests.
I see this rule not as balancing the system, but as jamming it up even more.

stephanloy:

You are missing what this is all about. Credit inflation.

“That way, any unopened reviews are unopened for the obvious reason: no credits to open them with.”
No, it may because authors either don’t log in, want to wait until they have a lot, like you leave some because they don’t think they will be any good, etc – yet still have a lot of credits, still head the queue.

Some, like you and like squarehopper are willing to acrue 10,000 + credits before submitting an item, good for you, your choice.
This does not mean that everyone else should be forced to – and that is what was happening.
10000 credits to get a 1000 word item on the queue – not acceptable.

Some, like squarehopper for definite and probably like you, spend a lot of time acruing those credits and give thoughtful, valid reviews.
However, and as you have remarked from your own experience, a lot are giving quick, thoughtless, rubbish reviews to gain those 100000 credits to open their own reviews. That is not good for anyone.

I suspect that by reducing the credit inflation, there will eventually be less of this.

You might get a review from someone who has a history of giving poor or useless reviews

Open it, refund it. Don’t let them keep their fraudulent points. Teach them a lesson.

You may choose not to unlock a review because the reviewer apparently read only 7% of your submission.

Write in your reviewers notes that you want comments only from those who read it all. Then refund the rest.

Get used to it, it’s just like life. My average is less than 20% reviews NOT refunded, and of those I would say about 40% useful.
And BTW, RGs are not human. They are azure dragons. And can take as many refunds as you puny mortals can throw at them :)

Anyway, me being economy-wise retarded can only nod my head and trust these guys know what they’re talking about. Inflation-schminflation…

I have twice now had someone want to review my work and couldn’t because they received a message that I had reviews to unlock. When I went to my page I only had one review to unlock both times.

Also I make it a practice to open reviews as soon as I am notified. Overall I think it’s a good idea to require people to open their review before they can get more reviews. However, I don’t think avid members who are here everyday several times a day should be penalized. I think it might work better if the number is increased to four reviews and/or there is a time limit. Maybe give members twenty-four hours to open reviews before their work is pulled from the queue.

Swordmistress,

Hey :) There is another thread where this discussion is also being held, I believe in troubleshooting and bug reports, where they are covering all of the kinks for this new rule. Specifically, what you mentioned happening to you is something that is a very hot topic ATM. I have all faith that they will make things ‘right’.

Stephenloy,
You may as well open those reviews, because they count against you anyway (even though it doesn’t reflect on your visible balance). The only way to truly keep those credits as your own, is to open the reviews and have them refunded to you. Also, those people who only read 7%, it is not a bad idea to open them. It can easily be refunded, and about 90% of the time, the person actually read 100% of the item, but screwed themselves. In this case, it is alwas nice to offer them a great review in return (or report it to Urbis, that the person deserves 100% worth of credits). I’ve actualy only ever opened one partial review that wasn’t a full review. I see ‘Read 33% of item”, roll my eyes, click away my credits, and the review clearly covers the entire story. So, anyhow, that’s been my experience with those. Point being, it’s pointless (and harmful only to yourself) to not open your locked reviews. Bad reviews get refunded and cost the reviewer; locked reviews cost you credits (and nag at your subconscience).

How does an unlocked review cost me credits? Someone please answer. I have never had a credit taken away because a review was left unopened.
What on earth is credit inflation? I suspect it’s a figment of someone’s imagination. I have only ever gotten credits I earned from reviews. I pay credits to open them. I imagine everyone else does the same. Are you saying that opening reviews steadily costs more if reviews are left unopened? That would be a traditional definition of inflation. If that is the case, then rework the algorithm. There is no reason on earth that should happen. The only possible physical effect of unopened reviews that I can see is that the servers get crammed with unopened reviews. Of course, the reviews would be there anyway if they were opened, so that only counts psychologically. And if the psychological problem of locked reviews taking up server space is too much to bear, simply set it up so that locked reviews are deleted after a certain amount of time. I just don’t get this whole discussion. It seems too much like a bunch of specialists worrying over minutiae that doesn’t matter, making work that doesn’t have to be made.

No one should be forced to amass 10000 credits to open anything, or 1000, or 100, or 50. You should only have to amass enough credits to open your review. And that’s the way it is right now. Not an issue.
As for being able to review an entire submission after seeing only 7% of it, well, that’s beyond me. Friends can do that, because they see the entire piece off the bat. They can cut it and paste it, work on it at their leisure, and plug in their critique on the first screen later. But you know your friends. In my case, every single critique in which it was indicated that the person had read only a small portion of the piece obviously hadn’t read the work, and every one had to be submitted for refund. That’s work for me, unnecessary work.
But all that’s side issues. The real concern here is who is hurt or who gets advantage when a review is left unopened. I see no one, in both cases. You do your review, you get paid, whether or not it is ever opened. You don’t open the review, you lose out on the information within it. How does it get more complicated than that? Or rather, WHY is it considered more complicated than that?

stephanloy:

You have missed the point entirely.
This has been covered on several threads, and in Urbis-Steve’s first post in this thread, but a quick summation.

You need credits to open a review, fine and that has not been the problem.
You also need credits to have your work appear on the review queue.
The amount required has always varied a bit, but in the last few months it went insane – items irrespective of length would not appear on the queue with less than 1000, usually a lot more. That was the credit inflation – and it was not a figment of anyone’s imagination, it happened.

The inflation was not the cost of opening reviews, it was the credits required to appear on the queue.
From all comments since the change Steve suggested, the credit requirement to get on the queue has returned to a more sane level.