Hi Steve,
I just did a review on a short-short story and when I saved it, it said I was `ineligible to review’ – and I did not get credits. As far as I know review was not saved. Could you explain why I was ineligible, or how I’m supposed to know as item was in queue?

Thanks Brian.

Sometimes a person turns off a review whilst you are reviewing it. It’s happened to me, too. It blows, but I actually don’t think there’s a way around it. You can copy a review before you post it, and sometimes see how it fits w/a new version – assuming there is a new version.

Though I’m not Steve.

We believe this may be happening even if reviews are turned on. However we cannot repeat the problem (and we can only fix things when we can repeat the problem). If anyone notices a pattern that leads to the solution, we’ll give you 1000 free credits.

I have had this same problem more then once. It seems when I take a long time reading and writing the review the system times out. I am not disconnected it basically says you have been ideal to long. You are not aware of this so when you summit your critique you lose your review. However, the system believes you have read the story so it makes you eligible.

I get around this problem by refreshing the page two or three times while reading if it is a long story. Then refresh before I summit the review. Make sure you copy your review before refreshing or you will lose it.

Happened only once to me.
Opened the review page (couple of poems, each in its own tab in my browser).
Went to lunch.
Came back and wrote a review.
Urbis said I’m not allowed to review it.
I think the time that passed caused the queue to change (for me), and that item wasn’t on my queue anymore, although I had it in my browser.
I went to the review queue, and that item wasn’t there anymore.
That was the time Urbis servers weren’t the fastest thing around, so I just blamed it on some random crash.

Well, when you wait awhile to save the review it is likely the reviews were turned off by the creator, which is valid.

Yeah, I tried to rview a poem and it said I was in eligible to review it!!!
what is with that?
Im not even joking!

How long did you wait before you saved the review?

Once it happened and, yes, the author had switched off reviews in the meantime.
(Would it be possible to have a message if you have the item open?)

The other two times, I had copied my review before pasting (as I always do – though you can page back in Mozilla and retrieve it) – I simply searched for the item, selected review, then pasted it in and posted it OK.

This is the second time this week where I’ve reviewed a poem and got the damn pink ‘ineligible to review’ notice. Poems come up in the queue and you choose one, write, and when you try to post it hangs for awhile and then the queue returns with that message on top. It’s infuriating. When I’ve tried pasting reviews in the past without typing them in it doesn’t take, it appears as a blank message so what gives? I post the review right after I write them, no waiting on my part, they’re in the damn queue.

OK, why isn’t this issue being addressed? Ineligible to review. What the hell is this all about? One spends time thinking and writing then trying to post to gain the damn credits to open one’s own reviews then the pink banner appears and says “No No!” Why won’t someone address this? Where are you Steve?

Willow

I believe we have fixed this problem, but we’re not entirely sure (when we are unable to repeat a bug, it’s difficult to fix). Please let me know if you are still seeing this bug.

I just got it an hour ago.
The item had been closed by the author while I was completing the review.
Can we not get a warning, either as author or as reviewer, that someone has it open for review or that the author is closing it?

Are you sure the error was caused by the author closing it?

I am assuming so, it was no longer on the review list and I did not find it by title search. I looked, I didn’t want to waste all that writing.

One workaround could be to always copy your review with the rightclick button before you press save. At least then you can paste it again (and again) until it is successfully saved.

DC, I do this.
The problem I am talking about is when, having spent a lot of time writing a review, I go to save and find it has been closed or deleted. Advance warning might save me some of that wasted writing time.

Oh, I see. That’s frustrating. So far I’ve only had the problem of the “ineligible” message/glitch. When I wrote to the writer, he said it should have worked and asked me just to review it again. I had spent about 30 minutes reviewing/proofreading the text and wasn’t that wild about doing it again. Oh well.

Hm. This happened to me today. Lame. I dunno if it was a review turned off or an Urbis hates me and my effort glitch. Anyway, just sticking my oar in the “Oh noes! Lost credits!” lake.

It just happened to me again. And it was a long short story. It took me almost an hour to read it. Now it is gone from my queue and I can’t even remember what the name of it was. Swept? Very frustrating.

DC, I just reviewed your article on celiac disease (at least I think it’s your article), and it told me I’m not eligible to review it. Anyway, if it’s yours, thanks for posting it. My daughter will hate me for it, but I’m going to research it and probably put her on the celiac diet. Both her doctor and I have ignored her complaints of stomach pain for years thinking there was nothing to it, but maybe there is.

I believe we have narrowed down the issue, and have subsequently released an update that addresses this concern. If anyone experiences this from here on out, we’d greatly appreciate it if you would post the message you receive—as we’ve changed the ineligibility messages to be more descriptive.

Thanks in advance.

Sometimes if your reviewing and surfing urbis at the same time, you know (back clicking) this will through it into the ineligible mode. Also there is a double click virus out there that interfers with normal use of the mouse.

Thanks for the post frogking. That is actually by design. This is so you can’t be influenced by other writings when doing a review.

“This is so you can’t be influenced by other writings when doing a review.”
This is an amazing concept – I’d really like it explained to me.
I could understand “This is so you can’t be influenced by other reviews of the same item when doing a review.” – yet even then I could see some positive aspects of being able to do so.
Review cheats would love it, I know, but honest people might avoid repetition, see something that makes them think a bit more, reconsider etc. I know after I posted a review, I have read others and thought “Uh oh, dumb dumb, how did I miss that!”