Hmm…

How about instead of the “no” option for reviewer voting, we have the “refund” function where two or three votes sends it off for an automatic refund?

Is this a techno-formatting nightmare, Urbis boffins?

I suggest this since in a stream of seven reviews, about four or five of them will be refundable, consisting of three-word critiques from one-week users of the site. This would help speed up the process at getting a review which is evidently bad sent back.

It would also get refunds for those who never think to send back reviews and tolerate a great load of rubbish. If you are worried about processing refunds, get a few more of those wonderful Review Guardians, or up their rewards slightly.

Yes, I know… I’m dreaming.

Get Bill Gates on the phone. You know that rich swine can pull this off.

“I suggest this since in a stream of seven reviews, about four or five of them will be refundable”

This probably depends of what category the item is in – I have noticed that some categories attract either bad writers (at least in the sense of ‘unwilling to accept any criticism and inclined to throw tantrums’) or bad reviewers (of the ‘three-word review’ sort). The worst I have personally experienced (so far) was about 1 in 5 reviews requiring refunds.

I think whether or not to ask for a refund should be entirely the writer’s choice, and whether they get it should be left in the hands of the review guardians. If you ever thought that “grudge reviews” were a problem, think of how much worse it would be if people could also use refunds as a way of causing trouble. If the process needs to be sped up, why not have more review guardians (unless, of course, there aren’t enough Urbis members who qualify for the job)?

I don’t know, Claire. It seems to me that this could lead to mobbing, if I understand you correctly. Three votes from reviewers? It could lead to the situation of groups (of teenagers basically) ganging up against other writers, regardless of the review’s validity.

I would be more in favor of sending random reviews to the Review Guardians (i.e. not just refund requests). There are lots of Urbis users out there who just don’t know that the reviews they’re getting are crap. This would actually be a fairer way (or at least a supplemental way) of supervising the review system.

Ah… I forgot about the dreaded “grudge vote” argument. Damn those little blighters.

In that case, I’m in favour of dividing Urbis into adult and under 18 contingents. We could have an ‘Urbis Minor’ website for youngsters so we don’t have to pretend we like reading their work.

Ouch. But you get the idea. Also, the ‘mature’ function seems to be up the creek, so maybe it’s time we got it implemented.

Yep, it seems that any 14-year-old on Urbis can read my items marked MATURE. Not pleased about this.

No way to traffic age anyhow. We are on the honor system here.

People lie about their age. Also, since when are all under-18 people immature and all over-18 ones willing and able to behave like grown-ups? Or even that the adults can all write worth a damn? None of the Urbis members I’ve had a real problem with were minors, just people who supposedly know better. The “divide Urbis according to age” issue has been debated elsewhere, and I’m still against it.

It’s not about that. I just don’t want someone who SAYS they are under 18 reading my stuff. I think it’s a legal issue.

No, no legal issue – that has been brought up before as well.

I also oppose division by age. I have reviewed many U18 who write better than I and I am jealous. And I have read some really awful stuff here – but not ALL are from U18 and I suspect the majority is not.

“I have reviewed many U18 who write better than I and I am jealous.” That happens sometimes. I want to tell ‘em “Remember us when you win your first Hugo, kid.” :)

Unfortunately, there is no easy meter for maturity/wisdom/experience.
So, to try to protect those lacking it, a form of ‘average’ is used when setting age limits. Many fall foul of that ‘average’.
Personally, I have differing ‘rules’ when it comes to ‘children’ seeing certain subjects – one rule for when parents are with them, another for when they aren’t.
If parents are with them, they can see the influences and, hopefully, discuss them. That is a form of more rounded education. Once again, of course, a problem still exists in terms of the quality/maturity etc of the parents.

I could start up on a “Why can under xx years not see sex or nudity but can watch both abuse and violence”, but that would be hijacking this thread.

On Urbis, the problem material ranges from Crap that is certainly not ‘educational’ to stuff that does require maturity/experience to understand and deal with. I can’t see any means other than that ‘average’ age limit criteria.
Of course, that would still rely on the author’s judgment when setting such a ‘tag’.

In terms of how to respond to reviews, I go by the review contents rather than any age information.
If the review seems sufficiently mature, I do not hold back. If it seems pretty immature, I go gently.

Imagine my surprise today when I opened a 257 point review to find that it consisted of a three-word sentence fragment. More than auto-refunds or partitioning the system, I think we need more basic controls. I don’t know what they would be, but I do wonder whatever happened to the 50-word minimum for reviews. Or was that somewhere else?
An auto-refund has one obvious problem. What happens when someone just doesn’t like what you have to say about their stuff? Let’s say you are very polite, but you felt it necessary to point out what you see as serious problems in logic, grammar, plot organization, characterization or what have you. Some writers aren’t capable of reading that their work was seen pretty much as a failure. Could they not push a button to make the review, and all the reviewer’s hard work, go by-by into oblivion?

Urbis used to have a 50-word minimum for reviews at one point, but I’m not sure what happened to it. But, you have to think, when it comes to things like ‘quotes’ and such, do you really need 50 words?

As far as auto-refund, I agree that it’s probably not the best of ideas. You’ve got people that are going to hit ‘refund’ as soon as they see something they don’t like (as stephan pointed out).

When it comes to the age, I doubt that it will have any effect. People will lie about their age, thinking that they’re missing out on something. All they’re missing is someone saying the f-word a couple of times. It’s not Urbis’ responsibility to monitor who comes to the site, as far as age. First, I think it’s the writer’s responsibility to mark the piece mature. Then, it’s the parent’s responsibility to monitor what their children are looking at online. Chances are, if these kids have a computer hooked up to the internet in their room (without supervision), they’re finding worse stuff online then a story on Urbis.

Just my $0.02.