Do bad reviews get deleted on NUF?

Hi there. I just wanted to ask this.

While searching for some reviews of mine to be updated, I did notice that some of my reviews were missing, or deleted.

Granted that I don't really remember the details, except for some novels that's I really pointed out, why are some reviews deleted?

I remember especially one novel which I won't mention here, but I definitely left a 1 star over the fact that the translation quality was piss poor. I stated it how , what, why etc on the reviews, but as I wanted to update it I noticed that my review for that novel, to which I admit I gave them a scathing, bad review got deleted or went missing.

Does it actually happen?

 

maybe they were reported for something?

 

Well, if you read the guidelines, you're reviewing the novels, not the quality of translation. But I don't know if that'd make your review being deleted because I've seen some people who do that but still have their review up.

 

IIRC reviews have to be approved to show up on the NU page.

 

There have been occasions where mods went back and wiped reviews due to a myriad of circumstances. One such case was with King of Gods (I believe), where the translator said "Leave me good reviews on NU, and I'll give you more chapters." The mods later went back and wiped all the reviews from that novel.
Or, if the review has certain issues with it, they may also be taken down.
Personally, I believe it would be one of those two, (which is funny since that covers most possibilities).

 

There is the possibility of your review simply not being approved I suppose, all reviews are checked before they become visible after all, if yours hasn't, it's probably not there.

Or it was deleted for the reasons Skoll028 said.

 

The thing with "not being approved" is that you can still see it yourself, no? Like it's still there just that nobody else besides you can see it.

 

Yes reviews have been deleted. There is a reason a report button exists in reviews. Most of the time reviews get deleted if they are very biased or the review is total different from what is actually in the story.

 

many thanks for shedding light into this.

While it does upset me to a certain extent (since I believe i try to write proper reviews to actually portray the story) but I guess for some whatever reason(s) it may have been interpret-ed as 'malicious'.

Perhaps to better word the criticisms eh? (make it softer tone or something?)

Still, many thanks.

(because the ones i gave 3 stars and above were there, and they stayed, but those i gave 1-2 stars, which i really honestly felt were really bad quality of writing etc got removed, although i made sure to remain spoiler free).

 

There is no real need to be softer on the review I believe, if the novel has bad points, pointing it out on the review would just be saying what is truth.

Perhaps what you did was talk about the translation quality of the novel, or maybe you used too many scowling words on it, it's hard to be sure of it without looking at the review in question, but simply pointing out the bad points of a novel should not be a reason for it to be deleted.

 

yes, i did criticize very harshly on the quality of translation (because to me, it was very unreadable). I forgot about the novel for some time, and was genuinely surprised that another group / original translator actually bothered to clean up the translations, which i intended to change my review to reflect those changes as well as to update what i felt about the story, but then I realized that my review was deleted. I believed that my criticism was fair play, and so when things change I should also change. However, I was surprised, really surprised to see my review deleted.

Probably I should do another review, but for that particular novel, i'm hesitant. After all, deletion in the first place meant somebody, if not the translators, have contacted the moderators about it. But i'm sure, with my records on reviews, i'm not a "troll" reviewer who downvote translations for the sake of downvoting.

 

That might be the cause of it.

As the reviews are supposed to talk only about the quality of the novel itself, not of the translation of it

It is a specially important point, because translators can change, so what was once said about it, may no longer be true in the future.

Only staff would be able to give you the proper answer however, I am only speculating here.

 

Not sure why your reviews were deleted but if you wanted to leave reviews pertaining the translation quality, it's better if you leave your comment in the translator's site instead.

Tell them how to improve , give constructive critics instead of a word 'You suck' (like what some A-hole would do, not you because I don't know what you wrote)

 

naw, i didn't say "you suck" in the reviews, though i did point to very spesific examples why the translation is really bad, like the "ahba" "ama" (dad! mom!) thing, among other examples.

When I re-read from chapter 1, apparently they changed a few things, including some things in my earlier criticism. But then only I found out by then, that my review was deleted, so there was no point for me to change it.

 

@badiyee
The issue with commenting on translations in reviews is how you go about it. If you are specifically bashing, that is an absolute no.

However, if you make a small point that suggests that the state of translations make it harder to read; while still putting most of the emphasis on the review of the novel's elements itself, then it can be somewhat acceptable. At best, keep it to a minor point in your review. A good example is if a series is translated by multiple groups and commenting on translation of the novel is more akin to explaining that terms and style changes make it difficult to keep track.

So If you comment about translation quality and translator habits, keep in mind to keep it tasteful and only if it directly impacts the novel, and why it does so. Also, don't expound on it too far, if at all possible.

 

I'm pretty much aware of it. You can check my other reviews, and see that I don't bash translators. That's why i'm surprised my review got deleted. But again, like I said, since it happened, it happened, so there's no point for me to update anything (even for slightly more positive review, since the original one was already deleted).

 

These people reporting reviews that mentioned about the quality of the translation, I mean, at some point is acceptable but yet also contradicting because the review itself functions to help readers pick what they are going to read. Although I myself am not pickle about the quality as long as it is readable, some people do and only this review can help filtering the novels.

On another perspective, how about those reviews made when it was only at chapter 1-3 of the novel telling how bad the novels, characters etc.? I feel like asking, ' How can you tell?' 'Did you read the raw?' Maybe it should have been included in the guidelines.

 

NU's policy is for reviews to be about the novel, not about translation, users are just doing what NU asks them to.

Translation quality is also a problematic thing since the translator might improve over time or the novel might change translators, so the review might stop making sense once it happens.

 

Talking about translation quality is fine. I don't even understand why we don't allow it as all of us (almost all) read the translated version. Some people rate novel bad because they think the novel is bad but not realizing that it's translation which is actually making the novel bad.

So telling people about the quality of transition in reviews isn't anything wrong. Just my two cents. MangaUpdates also allows that.