Perhaps I'm slow to the party on this one, but I've been seeing a lot of threads up here lately that essentially amount to the poster asking people to review their story. I do understand that this group exists primarily to facilitate the review process, and I can certainly sympathize with those authors who feel that they have been overlooked in the sea of works that is this site.

However, correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that the entire purpose of this group was that if you want a review, you have to give someone else a review. It's a clever way of shifting the onus around, by making it the author's responsibility to get his/her own name out there, while at the same time enriching the community by giving others good advice.

I personally think that it's a positively marvelous system, since it gives you a way to be active in promoting your own work, and in a way that most other people will appreciate, as opposed to the shameless self-promotion espoused by so many others. In theory, if we all adopted this model to advertise our stories, it could result in a significant improvement in overall quality and remove the predicament of new authors getting buried in the commotion.

So given all of this, I don't see the point in posting a thread requesting reviews. If you want reviews, go out and get them, and enjoy reading some fanfic while you're doing it.

Thank you for this. It was starting to get a little old. Similarly, its better to Google your crossover idea instead of asking if it's been done.

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Seconding this. I offered to review another person's story (elsewhere), and on a whim gave them the link to my in-progress fic; I'd thought there was nothing left to learn and all I needed to do was edit what I had. Wrong. He ended up giving me some of my most solid advice, especially on a weak point in the middle, and then put the idea in my head that it could easily lead into a sequel.

Review things, folks. You never know what karma might bring if you do!

Thanks for bringing this up guys. The other admins and I are in the process of revising the rules of the group into a more clearly stated manner so the group isn't spammed by threads like what you've been describing.

if you want a review, you have to give someone else a review.

I was thinking about writing a butthurt rant on this subject, but now it's been said.

Thanks for saving me the work.

Thank you for stating it clearly. I was going to go to every single "give me feedback" thread and say "RTFM and give some feedback first." But you saved me the effort.

Thank you! Finally someone said it.

I help when people ask about applejack otherwise its a better idea if I stay quiet on most things (and trust A LOT of people ask about writing applejack I might just make a blog post Faust-nammit and explain it all.