Profiles and Reviews

[Talo Segura]

Often if I am interested in a story, I look at the author’s profile, or someone makes an interesting comment and I look at their profile. If they have an About Me, I read it, usually they don’t, or else they don’t say much, nothing more perhaps than, “Ask me!” Well I’m not really going to do that, am I? On the profile page it gives a number for Reviews, but no way to read them. Actually, and maybe I’m missing something, but I have found no way on the site to access book reviews. I often read a story because of a recommendation or review, it seems a shame not to be able to access the reviews people have written. If there is a way to bring up book reviews, please say how.

[Thorn Wilde]

6 hours ago, Talo Segura said:

Often if I am interested in a story, I look at the author’s profile, or someone makes an interesting comment and I look at their profile. If they have an About Me, I read it, usually they don’t, or else they don’t say much, nothing more perhaps than, “Ask me!” Well I’m not really going to do that, am I? On the profile page it gives a number for Reviews, but no way to read them. Actually, and maybe I’m missing something, but I have found no way on the site to access book reviews. I often read a story because of a recommendation or review, it seems a shame not to be able to access the reviews people have written. If there is a way to bring up book reviews, please say how.

The number of reviews thing isn't how many reviews the author has received but how many they've written. If you want to read the reviews for an author's works, the easiest way of doing that is to go to their story page and scroll through. Generally, any story with stars attached has reviews. Keep in mind that stories without reviews aren't necessarily not good, they just didn't have readers who bothered leaving reviews; not everyone feels comfortable doing that. As for what reviews people have written, it's actually pretty easy to find. Click on 'See their activity'. You'll get a sidebar where you can choose the type of activity, and there you can select 'Story Reviews'. You can also see all story comments a member has made, and any stories they have beta'd or edited. 

As for About Me sections, that's something all members have. You don't necessarily learn anything about an author's work from that. Honestly, as with books anywhere else, the best way to figure out whether you'll like an author's work is to read it. Find a blurb that intrigues you. Give it a chapter or so. If you don't like it, stop reading. And as opposed to other books, here you don't even have to buy it to find out. Personally, it takes about five minutes of my time to figure out if a story is for me or not.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Thorn Wilde
Huh... Promoted authors used to have a bit of information... is that not a thing anymore? Am I the only one? Weird...

[Thorn Wilde]

Another way to learn about various authors is to check out @Carlos Hazday's Ask an Author blog posts. They can be found in the Author News blog here.

[Marty]

I suppose I should think about filling in the About Me section on my own profile one of these days...

[Talo Segura]

6 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

The number of reviews thing isn't how many reviews the author has received but how many they've written.

I know it's the number of reviews a member has written. I'd like to be able to call up those reviews. I like to read stories by recommendation and a review is a good way to do this. The summaries on the front page of stories aren't long enough to know what the story is about. I dislike starting a story, junking it because I don't like it, picking up another, junking that, you can end up going through quite a few, I much prefer recommendations and reviews. I do look at the Ask An Author feature, but it features only the top authors on the site and not the new ones or all the others.

[Talo Segura]

1 hour ago, Marty said:

I suppose I should think about filling in the About Me section on my own profile one of these days...

I don't think it's a must do thing, but it helps promote your writing. Most people don't do it, or don't use it to any effect, at least most of the ones I've looked at.

[Brayon]

There is a way to read the reviews someone has written, in a two-step process from their Profile page.

See these Pics:

Now you can read all of my reviews, that has made me the person as of today, with the most reviews on the site.

Edited July 9, 2019 by Brayon

[Carlos Hazday]

50 minutes ago, Talo Segura said:

I do look at the Ask An Author feature, but it features only the top authors on the site and not the new ones or all the others.

Actually, ALL authors are featured.

Which ones make it to the blog in any particular month depends on which ones I get questions for. Some appear more frequently because more are sent in for them. If you have something you want to ask, send me the question. I forward them to the author anonymously to protect the guilty.

[Ron]

There is a way to get a glimpse of reviews for stories in the Activity tab at the of the screen. Scroll down to Latest Story Reviews, choose the Expanded tab for more than one line of a review. A person will see that some reviews, and I use that term loosely, will consist of just a couple of words, though that doesn't mean that one won't find more extensive reviews less recently written that are far more informative. Though one must click on the story title to find out if there is more written and that can be hit or miss. Also, and this is a huge plus, one will find a whole list of modifiers at the top to help narrow search requirements if an individual is looking for specific cues.

Personally, when looking at a physical book it isn't the remarks of adulation for the author's works that can be sometimes found on the back of the book jacket that convinces me that a book might be for me. It is the synopsis on either/or/and the inside portion of hardbook jackets and somtimes found on the backs of paperback books, that make all the difference to purchase or not. But, as you say @Talo Segura the story summary/synopsis on GA are not quite as informative, and so they can be less convincing. Unless things have changed since my last publication here, there is a reason for that: A limitation is placed on the number of words an author can supply for the purpose of story summation.

I hope some of this is helpful.

Edit to add: It looks like Cia posted why I was still writing. I didn’t see her post or I wouldn’t have repeated some of what she wrote.

2nd Edit: Why? Why was I writing?🙃I believe that was while I was writing. Somebody shut me up!🤨

Edited July 10, 2019 by Ron

[Cia]

@Talo Segura If you want to see all the latest story reviews that have been written, please click on the Activity tab in the menu bar. Then click on the option "Latest Story Reviews". You can even change some of the sort options to change what reviews show or from what dates.  

For other places to look for story recommendations or reviews: 

There are various blog features beyond Ask an Author as well. I feature the CSR with an author/story (varied between author, promising, signature, classic (if they're active) once a month for readers to read and then comment on the first/last Mondays of the month. They don't necessarily have to be 'popular' but I do try to ensure they are active to do the interview for the last Monday's blog post when readers comment. 1-2 times per month on Monday the site's Review Team does story reviews for a wide variety of story types/authors. I also feature an older story by a Classic Author since those are often posted before current readers would've been active on the site. All of these features can be found in the Gay Stories site blog. 

 

[Thorn Wilde]

8 hours ago, Talo Segura said:

I know it's the number of reviews a member has written. I'd like to be able to call up those reviews. I like to read stories by recommendation and a review is a good way to do this. The summaries on the front page of stories aren't long enough to know what the story is about. I dislike starting a story, junking it because I don't like it, picking up another, junking that, you can end up going through quite a few, I much prefer recommendations and reviews. I do look at the Ask An Author feature, but it features only the top authors on the site and not the new ones or all the others.

Well, I did actually tell you how to see the reviews as well, maybe you should have read my entire post? I guess you and I read books differently. I look at genre, tags, and description. Those things together can tell you a lot, imo. As for whether there are reviews or not, there's not really much anyone can do about that, other than review other people's stories.

[Talo Segura]

9 hours ago, Brayon said:

There is a way to read the reviews someone has written, in a two-step process from their Profile page.

See these Pics:

Now you can read all of my reviews, that has made me the person as of today, with the most reviews on the site.

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for taking the trouble and the screen shots. The other suggestions from @Cia and @Ron are good, but what @Brayon suggested is the best. Maybe the tech people could consider making that a clickable link on people's reviews.

You see what I was trying to say is: if I like a member's comments and points of view about anything then I want to read what they think about a story they have read, if they have done a review, I want to read it, because I sort of trust what they are saying, it's completely independent. That for me is the best recommendation to read a story. 

The story synopsis, as someone pointed out, are much too short. If you were buying a book on Amazon, for example, you find a longer summary of the story, by choice, by clicking, more. You find reviews and the look inside. With that info you can decide to buy or not. Although here you don't buy the book, I still need the same degree of info to choose.

And yes @Thorn Wilde each person goes about choosing books to read differently, although I (naturally, lol) think my method is the most logical, but I probably didn't explain myself very well, and what I was looking to do.

Thanks to everyone who responded, because all of you contributed to getting me the answer I was looking for and getting your replies makes this a really great interactive site, thanks ☺

[Thorn Wilde]

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Edited July 10, 2019 by Thorn Wilde
Deleted for lack of relevance.

[Cia]

@Talo Segura Remember, we have Stories custom-built for us, but the rest of the site (profiles, forums, blogs, clubs, etc...) the forum software comes from IP Board and we don't have control over that. We don't always get to make it all mesh 100%. You can't click on a person's reviews straight from their other reviews, but just click on the member's name or their avatar on the review and you can go to their profile to check out any other reviews they might have. There are so many other things that are filtered and searched in Stories, we can't always have everything, especially if it's possible in other ways/places on the site. 

And, if you decide you like/trust the reviewer's viewpoint and you want to follow any and all reviews they post for the future, set up a new Activity Stream. That will do exactly what you want, give you clickable links and all the reviews a person has posted in one place. On top of that, you can get notifications when they post a new one.

So their reviews come to you!  

There are a lot of features on the site that might not be exactly what you want but will let you do similar things to what you want. You just have to explore, or ask others, and be willing to try it out. To make a new Activity Stream, click on the Activity tab, then My Activity Streams, then go down to Custom Streams at the bottom and click on the blue button to "Create New Stream". Then you select through the options. Screenshot of an example, since you like those:

[Thorn Wilde]

Wow, I didn't know you could do that, @Cia, that's super useful! Thanks!  

[Cia]

2 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Wow, I didn't know you could do that, @Cia, that's super useful! Thanks!  

Yeah, you can create custom Activity Streams to track a LOT of things happening on the site to keep you updated and in the know. And, as you can see with the option of "since my last visit" that even takes care of story updates if there's been more than one chapter posted, for instance, if you're following a few stories and the individual updates are buried in your notifications.