I got no time

Damn, I bet they haven't even been properly introduced to parents at the time! How low are their morals?

 

It really depends on what said opinion is supposed to represent. If the opinion of the start of a book represents the quality of that portion of the story, then it has some validity, but if it's supposed to represent the qualities of the book overall, then it's pretty much worthless. Generally, I wouldn't even pay attention to positive reviews unless the reviewer has read the whole book; just like I wouldn't bother with movie reviews if the reviewer only watched half a film.

 

Yeah, you can just ignore that, there are better uses for your time than reading 200 chapters of a bad novel.

If a novel is bad enough to make me drop it after 1 chapter, I don't see why I wouldn't make a review over how terrible chapter 1 is.

 

Of course, someone is permitted to write a review and give their opinion, regardless of how many chapters they have read. Free speech, my dude. But the real question is: How much weight should their opinion carry?

If the review is about the writing quality, translation quality, or other aspects that stay consistent throughout their novel, their review carries weight, even if they haven't finished the novel. If you're reading a novel chock full of grammar errors, confusing dialogue or horrible characterization, you don't need to read 1000 chapters to realize that the novel is a pile of hot garbage.

If the review is about plot or other aspects that require development, that review should not carry that much weight (unless they've finished the novel). For plot, I don't think anyone can fully evaluate it if they haven't read the whole novel. Take the romantic subplot in Harry Potter. If you asked me when I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the series would have been a dandy 5 stars. But when Harry and Ginny got together somewhere around book 6 or 7, that just dropped the romantic subplot to a 1 and the overall series to a 4.

If someone does write a review on plot or similar in-development aspects, people should just know that their review is applicable to only the portion that they have read.

In the end though, I appreciate most reviews. I'd rather read someone's opinion of the novel at ch 200 than have no reviews to read. Though I must admit, the reviews made at the 1-chapter mark irk me. Like, why? And....... that's why I sort by Date rather than Likes.

 

the thing is that these web novels are written by hobbyist or amateurs

you cannot compare them to professional works

one of the main problems that these amateur work have often is pacing and it is more evident at the start, which is why you should read more before you make your opinion of a work public.

just think about it in RL, if you see an intern doing bad work, do you go and tell everyone in the industry that s/he is bad after his/her first day at work? because this is what you are doing when you read 10 chapters of a 1000 chapter novel written by an amateur.

do you give a movie a bad review after watching 2 minutes of it?

while aliceshiki point in saying that "the first few chapters are bad" holds water, but majority of the reviews are not just about the chapters they have read, but is in reference to the entire novel

and since there is a general consesus that reviews are speaking about the entire novel and not the several chapters that the reviewer has read, the statement in question that the OP is talking about is true.

you shouldn't make a review if you've only read the first few chapters of a novel.

as for OP, nobody is saying that you need to read 200 chapters before determining if you like it or not, what we're saying is that you shouldn't write a review or tell everyone it sucks because you didnt like the 2 chapters you read...

like what cream said, your review shouldn't matter if you've only read 2 chapters, but yet your 2 chapter review is the same as the review of someone who had read 300 chapters right now.

 

Going further helps obtaining a wider knowledge over the book or the series but it's not strictly required to give a judgement imo