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Learn about Review Credits and the list of 100 Most Credited Reviewers |
| Issue #68 of the Writing.com Reviewing Newsletter. Your Guest Editor is NickiD89   [Table of Contents] 1. About this Newsletter 2. Letter from the Editor 3. Editor's Picks 4. Ask and Answer 5. Helpful Links [About this Newsletter] Writing.com uses an innovative system of rewarding reviewers for their efforts. The basic currency for this system is Review Credits, and any member who writes a qualifying public review can earn them. Through the Review Credits system, WDC recognizes and promotes its members who write helpful and encouraging reviews, reviews that help their peers improve in the craft of creative writing. [Letter from the Editor] I’m not a detail-oriented person by nature. When I joined WDC two years ago, I jumped right into building my portfolio and seeking out writing contests, learning only what was necessary to create an item and link it in a contest forum. I never clicked on FAQs or other pages offering site information, which is why I didn’t learn about Review Credits until months later when my sister, who is detail-oriented, told me about them. I had received Gift Points from other members when I reviewed their work. However, I hadn't paid much attention to where the gift points had be sent from. I realized the importance of thanking a member who reviewed one of my stories, so I always sent Gift Points attached to a return email when I received a review. It’s a wonderful way to thank a reviewer. But now I know there’s an even better way to do it. WDC has devised a clever system to recognize the effort that went into a helpful review. The site awards Review Credits to any member who has been sent Gift Points from another member from the Public Reviews Page. Each member’s Review Credits are stored in his or her virtual account for 31 days. There is no way for you to view your Review Credits, or to know exactly how many you have on any given day. But, there is a way to gauge how your current tally of Review Credits ranks against other members’ current tallies: The List of 100 Most Credited Reviewers. The 100 Most Credited Reviewers is a coveted list for many WDC members, because holding a spot on the list acknowledges the strength of a member’s review practice. When you land on this list, the public reviews you wrote during the past 60 days are accessible to anyone who clicks Given Reviews, to the right of your name. This makes it easy for others to award you more GPs/Review Credits. In addition, WDC staff sends out a Reviewing Merit Badge to every member who is on the 100 Most Credited Reviewers List on the last day of each month. But most importantly, ranking in the top 100 reviewers means you have been recognized as an influential member of the community. To view the 100 Most Credited Reviewers, you can follow one of two paths. Either go to the Public Reviews page and click Most Credited Reviewers from the menu at the top of the page; or, click Authors from the main site menu along the top of any WDC page, then click Most Credited Reviewers from the menu at the top of that page. How Are Review Credits Calculated? When you receive Gift Points from the Public Reviews Page, WDC assigns you between 3 and 25 Review Credits. The exact number is tabulated based on several things: the size of the Gift Point award, the length of the review you wrote, and the portfolio level and the level of influence of the member who sent the Gift Points. The first two criteria are pretty easy to understand, but some of you may be wondering what is meant by "portfolio level" and "level of influence." First, the portfolio level refers to the case color of the member who sent the GPs. Quite simply put, when figuring the amount of Review Credits, the opinion of a Preferred Author (reflected in his/her Gift Point award) is weighted more than that of a Registered Author, and a Moderator more than a Preferred Author, and so on. The weighting of case color is very slight and only affects the number of Review Credits assigned by a fraction of a percentage, but the site hierarchy does play a small role in its determination. The level of influence of a member is determined by the number of Review Credits he or she has accumulated. “Members who have received more Reviewing Credits than others are treated as having a higher influence within the system. In other words, members who have been awarded Gift Points for helpful reviews will have more influence than members who have not received an award…those members with more influence are considered our ‘experts’.”1 How Can I Send A Member Review Credits?  The next time you receive an insightful, helpful review, and you’d like the member to be rewarded Review Credits for his or her efforts, you can do one of the following two things: (My preferred method) When you have the review open in your email inbox, click the portfolio icon of the member who sent the review. When his or her port opens, click <Public Reviews> located just below the BioBlock. The list of that member’s most recent public reviews will open; scroll down to find the review of your work and send the member Gift Points from there. Some members have their preferences set to not show their public reviews from their portfolio. In this case, you can award Review Credits this way: From the Site Navigation menu at the left margin of any WDC page, click Things To Do, then click Public Reviews. Scroll through the list of public reviews until you find the review of your work and send the reviewer Gift Points from there. Sometimes, you can type or paste your item ID number into the search window on the Public Reviews Page in order to quickly locate the review, which is especially helpful if some time has passed since the review was sent. However, due to glitches in the system, the search engine does not always pull up the review on the Public Reviews Page. The next time you visit the Public Reviews Page and you read a review that you feel was helpful, insightful, and encouraging, or a review that piques your interest about the story or poem that it discussed, reward the reviewer with Review Credits. Just choose the number of Gift Points from the drop down menu to the right of the review, include a message when prompted or, if you like, check the box to remain anonymous, and click Send.Parting Words.... When you send Gift Points to a member from the Public Reviews Page, the system calculates a number of Review Credits and adds it to that member’s current tally. It is a wonderful way to thank members for their hard work that goes beyond simply sending GPs in a return email. The Review Credit system is just one more way that WDC works with its members, building a strong sense of community that is second to none on the Internet. If you have never awarded a member GPs/Review Credits before, why not try it today?  [Editor's Picks]
[Ask & Answer] Most people have a genre or two in which they are most comfortable writing. Perhaps you’re a literary fiction writer who doesn’t dabble much in sci-fi, or maybe you’re a horror writer who doesn’t write erotica. Do you find yourself shying away from reading or reviewing work in a genre you are not comfortable writing? When you do review outside your preferred genre, is your review style or feedback very different? If you are interested in receiving future issues of the Reviewing News and Views newsletter, click here "Reviewing News and Views"  or contact Storm Machine  Thanks for reading! Happy Holidays,  ~ Nicki~  [Helpful Links] "Feedback Central" "Reviewing Newsletters Archive" "How To Write an Encouraging Review" "Invalid Item" Footnotes |
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