I see it all the time, people wander and get lost into genres not suitable for them, judge them by their standards and ignorantly drop a low-star review. For example, if you are used to reading BL and female villainess stories, you shouldn't judge a male protagonist xianxia because he wasn't the way you wanted him to be. We all like to read different things, and should just accept that. If you by chance read a story you don't like, but realize that others might like it, consider just moving on with your life. If you genuinely have points that could objectively improve the story for the intended TARGET AUDIENCE, then sure, drop a review. I just had to get this out of my chest, because people don't understand the impact their 1-star-ratings have. These are the people who have never written a thing themselves, so they don't know respect when judging others' works
Unfortunately, there will always be people who give 5 stars to everything they like and 1 star to everything they don't. Both have a negative impact on the novel's overall rating. I've read reviews that say things like "extremely boring and slow... for a slice of life story..." What did they expect from a slice of life novel? Drama? There is no drama tag! Adventure? Again, no tag. Romance? If there is no tag, there won't be romance. If a person likes Slice of life + Drama or Slice of life + romance, it is fine. But they should not be so disappointed when they read a slice of life without Romance or Drama. Some people like stress-free chill reads. On the other hand, when I see a novel with close to 5 stars, my first thought is not, whatever would this be a great novel I will enjoy, but oh it probably full of fanservice and got easy 5 stars from people that only give 5 or 1 star. Great intrigue of political games, town management, and so on... sounds fun until you read it and it seems 80% are just MC interacting with one of the love interests. I have no problems with MC having harems/or romance, my problem is when the story promises me also something else but in the end, only hands me a harem/romance. This is why, no matter how great the story is, if the harem tag is there, I most likely won't read it, but if I do, I won't rate it just because it wasn't for me. Sadly, it is nearly impossible to avoid the romance tag.
I think the best example I can give for this is "Money Makes the (other) World Go Round" or it's nickname "Corporate Slave" which is just utter bull, even to the point where the server of the translator's that run it have an entire section dedicated to hating most of the main leads (excluding Sei, Sei mostly just get's criticized for his lack of self preservation ideals) in fact, I would personally advise for anyone who does actually see this to go read as far as you can stand and then (if possible) see what some of the original dialogue is to understand how much editing and rewriting is done and it's still utter bull. But the series itself has a (at time of writing) of 4.3, which is much higher than many other BL novels that have been far more fulfilling to read but get worse votes regardless
Not quite. If you wander into a genre you absolutely have no tolerance for, by all means, don't leave a rating. But what about a genre you aren't particularly fond of but which has produced some specimens that you did like? What then? Here things get a bit murky. It's not like the target audience can be perfectly (emphasis on perfect) narrowed down using cues like genres, tags or synopses. A work of writing is surely more than the sum of its tags... I think every reader who doesn't carry irrational (again a vague term, but that's all we have) hate for a genre has every right to rate any work of that genre he has taken pains to read, and without being obliged to leave behind an exhaustive review. All that can be hoped for is that it's not a troll rating.
XD Yes but it's hard to demarcate "preferred audience"....even in just harem types there's a whole lot of division in audience...same in non harem male protag cultivation.... Same in the rest. Cross genre reviews isn't the major problem....if a bl reader is rating a bg novel bad, it shows. In online novels authors got to accept that other than the "right" audience everyone else will have negative views. F no one is a prof critic only reviewing it on style or depth whatever....it's all just their happiness or frustration.
That is why I don't rate novel and just leave a review. Many novels I read are rated low but I enjoy them in their genre. You can't just expect wish fulfuling novel to be filled with wisdom and give you life lessons and add some value to you. Another issue is to be dissappionted when novel doesn't turn out to be their self-imagined version. Just be author yourself.
Actually as long as people read the story and know the plot I think it's okay to leave ratings and reviews, but sometimes people just read the tag and give 1 star because they don't like some particular tag like BL or Harem and that's the problem
Been there done that. Yep. 1star spree You just get used to them tbh. We are in the internet. You cant please everybody or follow what you want. Unless its the rules so you follow or get banned.
Some of the novels I've read and enjoyed the most were outside my typical genres. A great novel is good even if you don't like the genre, and a terrible novel is bad even if you like the genre. The ones that really get skewed ratings are the average novels in niche genre/tags, like mecha for instance - people who love mecha will usually rate a mecha novel super high just because there aren't a lot of options out there (unless it's extremely bad). Meanwhile, an average JP isekai harem novel will get hammered in the ratings because it's not rare, even if it's not unusually bad compared to others of the genre, because the people who love harems aren't desperate and have a lot to compare it to, and the people who hate harems will give it a 1 regardless. I tend to try to judge a novel based on its own merits. Plot, characterization, setting/mechanics, etc. Slice of Life is almost always going to lose a star or two because the genre lends itself to giving up on having a plot altogether, for example, and harem will almost always lose a star or two because the genre lends itself to weak characterization. "Game mechanics" worlds almost always lose a star or two because they lend themselves to weak settings. I've seen examples of all three that don't have the weak points I said, slice of life with good overarching plot and arcs, harem with great characterization, game mechanics that make sense and don't just serve as filler to make it look like the author wrote more than he really did. Anyway, I like fantasy novels. My dad prefers sci fi. My mom likes mystery. My brother likes horror. My sister likes romance. I've read some of the books they liked, and typically, they had books to recommend that I enjoyed, and I had books to recommend that they enjoyed. I think the viewpoint of people outside the typical genre is valuable because pretty much any great story transcends genre.
I have seen some reviews that looked like the "reviewer" skimmed just enough of the novel to have things to complain about, plus there are to many who feel like their chapter # listed for the review is also a lie (you read 100 chapters of something you are giving 1 star and complaining about non stop). Having genuinely read, and given the story a chance, is fine. But there seems to be those attempting to make it look like they read the story.
I agree for this when it comes to those ratings given just because the genre is one they don't like. For example, people giving 1* ratings to BL novels just because they are BL and nothing else makes me so angry, especially when I translated my first novel and published the first chapter... and then someone just randomly dropped a 1* rating within a couple minutes. I panicked so much >.<;;
Some people just love finding things to criticize. They love it so much, they do things they hate so they can complain about it
I think good stories transcend the “target audience” idea. People are free to rate stories however they like. I think one way to mitigate this problem is for the book summary to be clear about what sort of novel it is. Sometimes, especially with Chinese novels, the novel summary tells you absolutely nothing about the book itself. If the summary is clear, then it might deter people who aren’t even inclined to read that genre.
Giving 1 star should require already reading half of the novel or writing a review it’s too easy to spam 1 Star just because irrational hate for one genre I can easily go to any harem, say I dislike it because the ML is unfaithful/pervert, the novel treats women like objects. And say it’s tr/ash, 1 Star. But why should I be allowed to judge something if it wasn’t written for me? I can’t even appreciate the story for what it is because my hate for some of it clouds my judgement. I haven’t been consuming One Piece for a long while now since the timeskip (boobskip) happened. I can’t feel the girls having any personality anymore except to be damsels in distress or eye candy. But does it mean One Piece is not a great adventure shonen? Should I judge it on the one aspect that comes with its genre to say all of it is worthless?
Ratings are opinions and should be taking with a grain of salt. They probably picked up the novel thinking it was in there target audience zone due to tags. Its best to just read it your self or take a look at why the ratings are bad. I do agree some of the 1 stars are uncalled for but so are some of the 5 stars.
I have two major problems with this thread. The first is that it presumes that too many novels are rated overly low; but because the novels are largely written by amateurs and the people doing the rating have poor discipline, it's far more likely for them to be way too high instead. In fact, it's the over use of the 5s that inflate all the scores so readers end up thinking that anything below a 4 is a bad book. The other issue is that very few of us on NU are part of the target audience. For instance, books on Syosetu are only meant for Japanese otaku. If you rely on translations, these books literally aren't designed for you!