If YWO should decide to can the Top Ten 'race', then it may succeed in preventing any unscrupulous reviews and serve to provide more honest reviews from dedicated writers. For starters it will rid the site of those whom appear to be fixated on the gathering of stars, and also prevent any contradiction of good reviews but low scores.

As it stands, a competition, which it has so become, is always going to attract cheats - of sorts. it's just how some people work. To create a site that allows for reviews with no competitive result will culminate in greater honesty because writers who care about writing will stick with it.

The publishers who are searching for potential writers will have to do more work in order to find the better writers but at least the site won't be choked with sub-standard lazy writers who think they can knock out shitty first drafts and then be expected to offer thoughtful, insightful and constructive critiques of others work.

I'm a tradesman builder - and a pretty good one I think, but one thing I won't waste my time doing is trying to to teach a wannabe builder how to build if they're looking to always take shortcuts and not use the right tools. I'm not interested in risking the integrity of the profession for personal gain. The house may get built quicker but ultimately the lack of care and professionalism just fucks it up for everyone; plumbers, electricians, painters and the client.

May be a genre specific site. Fantasy. Literary Fiction. Crime. Thriller? We can choose to review our specific genres and not get weighed down in substandard reviews of genres that are not attractive to us. Also, can the scoring system, which will quite possibly not be needed it the site is genre specific. Publishers would then be able to look for novels in the categories listed. With the pared down membership due to the unfortunate race into the Top Ten, it may well culminate in a better standard of stories.

Thoughts?

Maybe this place isn't what you're looking for.

Try Zoetrope, Scribophile, Writers' Cafe, The Write Idea, Writing.com, Critique Circle, Nothing Binding, Review Fuse, Hatrack River Writers' Group, Absolute Write, The Writer's Beat, Figment, Litopia, WriteWords, or start your own via Google Plus or Yahoo Groups or the myriad of other places online whether likeminded people gather.

Then come back and tell us if your critiques were any better.

It's not that I'm disappointed with my critiques. Sure there have been a few odd ones - but for the most I've found the site to be very helpful. I'm merely suggesting something of a remedy for the continuous problems many have experienced with reviews and scoring.

I think the likelihood of competitiveness overriding honesty has created a sense of angst among many. Maybe my suggestions are impractical. I'm wondering what others think could improve the site. Or is everyone happy with the way things are?

This is a suggestion that rears its head regularly. As LLL says, there are cartloads of sites that are non-competitive and the top ten is something that makes this site fun and unusual. It's unlikely that the administration will ever want to make it identical to all the others.

I do think, however, that the NBA competition was poorly thought through and attracted many members who weren't interested in learning how to improve through critiquing - they just wanted to push the competition out of the way by scoring low. What they didn't understand is that their own piece still has to be rated highly to get to the top. It's going to be a while before these members either understand and knuckle down or fall by the wayside.

Having a choice of six pieces a day to review means you largely can choose a genre that interests you. the long and the short of it

You can always opt out of the competition and just exchange FWs with members you know will give constructive and informed feedback. It certainly works well for me.

I think the idea of non-reveal on the charts is a good one for the reasons given, and it would add an extra frisson of excitement. Of course Top Tenners would need to know they were there in order to add the credits every seven days.

DC