Does the number of reviews reflect the quality of the fic?

[Sabaku no Ira]

Just wondering, because it seems that all the recommended fics are have something like at least 10+ reviews per chapter.

[Wrath]

No. But there is a certain degree of correlation.

[Vegeta]

Reviews that state why the fic is good, make the quality of the fic genuine. "Update soon" and "Your fic rocks" don't usually reflect quality.

In the instance of one of the ff_anbu, she wrote a fic with no real plot and AIM Speak throughout the whole fic, she got reviews saying that her fic was awesome. Of course she broke it too the world that it was a complete and utter piece of shit and people said "No it's good"

There are serious idiots who read Fan Fiction. And most of the Reviews come from them.

[ErikKoekkoek]

I think there is a slight relation, but it doesn't mean a fic is good or bad perse.

Like Ronin pointed out with the bad fanfic, I'll point out with a good one. A friend of mine, goes by the nick Question Immorality, he writes the fic A Daemon's Artefact. Now, when you look at the number of reviews, you might think: "Wow, low amount, guess it ain't good." But don't be fooled! I've read it (several times I might add), and he's a real wordsmith.

[Kunoichi_008]

It really depends. I remember a while back there was this guy who wrote a DBZ fic and the only thing it had written in it was "Vegeta is gay" or some other piece of b*llsh*t in there and he got over three hundred (more or less) reviews in one day - all flames.

If you post something on FF.net then you should realize that people there mostly read fics only because of the plot, a lot of the time they won't really care about grammar, wording and other such things.

Then there's the fact that an authour can also sign out of their account and post up anonymous (sp?) reviews to increase their count . . . . It's kinda sad when ya think about it.

[Vegeta]

Then there's the fact that an authour can also sign out of their account and post up anonymous (sp?) reviews to increase their count . . . . It's kinda sad when ya think about it.

That is just sad...

[IQSymphic]

Quality over Quantity for me anyday...

[Remy LeBeau]

Quality over Quantity for me anyday...


Yeah...I agree, but i think it helps just a little bit if you get many reviews :)

[cowabunga2k3]

there are plenty of good fics out there with no reviews, and plenty of bad fics out there with lots of reviews, there's no real correlation. i usually never bother looking @ how many reviews a fic has, instead i look at the chapter number / word count . if every chapter has 1000+ words i'll usually read it, mostly because most (not all) of the best authors on ff.net write over 1000 words per chapter, anything under that and chances are you've got a mess of bad grammar and no plot :D of course some stories still suck with over 1000 words/chapter :P i dunno i'm nitpicky, when i first started reading fanfic i didn't care and just reviewed everything as amazing, now that i'm older (i've been a member of ff.net for a long time) i've started lookin for qualities in fics that i'd look for in novels, good grammar, good plot, etc. you'll find that most ppl on ff.net don't really look for that kinda stuff and just read whatever, if you really want to read some good stuff, click on an author that u like, and go to his favorite stories or authors. a good author will enjoy good stories. i've found a lot of good fics like that, lookin through what my fav authors are reading

[crystal-kay]

Yeah...I agree, but i think it helps just a little bit if you get many reviews :)

Reviews are good, if they're constructive but it's difficult to get reviews when the readers don't bother to offer feedback at all. I can count how many hits one of my fanfic has and I get only a handful of reviews for it.

It doesn't bother me anyway, whether they reviewed or not. It's up to the readers.

Also, I find it positively weird that some fanfics which are utter crap can garner about 100 or so positive reviews. :huh

[Remy LeBeau]

People on ff.net can write the biggest shit, and still get over 100 reviews. I read a really great fanfic here the other day and it had only gotten 5 reviews, while some crappy fanfic i noticed had gotten 47. Thoses fanfics who gets reviews are the fics who all have the same plot, the fanfics with a different plot then the other ones rarely gets any reviews.... It's a shame really

[Super-Scoop]

I'd say 80 to 90% of my reviewers say one thing: Update! That's because I'm a slow updater. So i get lot's of reviews, but that's not really because my story is good or bad... it's just bored people with nothing to do wanting me to further the story. I get JUST enough reviews where they actually comment on the story, so I don't give up and lose all hope. I LOVE long reviews that have something to say. good or bad. But usually it's one liners like, good job! Update soon! Wow! etc etc etc.

I've seen some fics with close to a thousand reviews... and the story reads like something a second grader wrote out in crayon. Then again, some of the best stories I've ever read on fanfiction had a thousand and more reviews too. The only conclusion I can draw is this: Sometimes.

What I do when I want to hunt for a good new story, is I set the search option to include all ratings, with a minimum word count of about 10,000 or 20,000 words for a story. When the list appears, I click on the stories with both the most words and the most reviews first (if the description for the story is up my ally). I read the first part of those stories first chapter to see if I like the story. Takes anywhere from a third, to a half, of a chapter for me to tell if the story is any good. If I land on a good story, I check out what else the authors writes.

If the stories with a lot of reviews and words don't pan out, then i just systematically go down the list checking the rest of the stories regardless of reviews or word count (at least they will have a minimum of 10,000 or so words, so it's okay.). I've hit some real gems that way. :amuse

[Kopykat Kakashi]

Little correlation IMO, I've come across fics with hundreds of reviews that I can't read past the first chapter. Even with my own works, the one with the most reviews I consider the worst in terms of actual content and the stories that took the most effort to write gets the least reviews.
Stuff rated R or with sexual content always get more attention.

[Remy LeBeau]

Little correlation IMO, I've come across fics with hundreds of reviews that I can't read past the first chapter. Even with my own works, the one with the most reviews I consider the worst in terms of actual content and the stories that took the most effort to write gets the least reviews.
Stuff rated R or with sexual content always get more attention.

That only proves that people have dirty perverted little minds :smile-big

[Sabaku no Ira]

Um... does that mean that to get 1000 review I need to get Hinata or Sakura in their birthday suits? :P

OK, jokes aside. Thanks for the answers. It gives me a great relief that no. of reviews =/= quality of the fic (not always anyway) since I've cut, slice and dice my ass off to get my fic going, and no one seems to be reviewing it. :crying :crying :crying

[Remy LeBeau]

75 reviews it really not that bad, i think your story was great :)

[Kasumi 霞]

I found that some of the stories with tons of good reviews are pretty bad... I really don't get it though.

[Remy LeBeau]

People on ff.net doesn't seem to like good writing, there are a few that likes really good writing and some serious plots.

But most of the people on ff.net like the most stupid plots ever.

Kinda like this:

Tenten gets turned into a bird and Neji gets her pregnant while she is a bird.

If anyone on ff.net posted a story with that plot everyone would be reviewing.

[IQSymphic]

Great idea, mind if I steal it? :laugh

[TheVileOne]

I've noticed a lot of the best/better fanfics do tend to get a lot of reviews.

But I think it just depends really.

My favorite fanfics seem to get a lot of reviews.

[Remy LeBeau]

Great idea, mind if I steal it? :laugh


:smile-big Go ahead and take it, if you think it's a good idea:laugh

[Marysmary]

I don't think the number of reviews relate..most of the time..

Things that don't makes sense > Things that Do..

[Therahedwig]

I think the biggest problem is that the people who run ff.net and the fanbrats don't know the difference between a review and a comment:
A review is normally an well written lengthy opinion, targetted to the audience who whish to know if the subject is good.
A comment is normally a simple opinion targeted to the creator of the creation in question.

Two pretty different things, but ffnet and its readers keeps treating the review function as a comment function, else you could say: "I'll just check the review, then I'll know if this fic is any intresting."
But you can't! Because most reviews are targeted to the author, and half of the time, they spoil the story for you!

Conclusion: Many review doesn't mean good story, but it does mean the author has a slightly spine-less fanbase.(And with that, I mean that the readers themselves can't see if the fic in question is truly good, and why. I do NOT mean the author is bad.)

[Mikah]

Reviews that state why the fic is good, make the quality of the fic genuine. "Update soon" and "Your fic rocks" don't usually reflect quality.
What Ronin said.

1)Naruto - Fiction Rated: M - English - Romance/Humor - Chapters: 9 - Words: 22827 - Reviews: 664
http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/8099/beztytuu8sh.th.png (http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beztytuu8sh.png)

2)Naruto - Fiction Rated: M - English - General - Chapters: 3 - Words: 53866 - Reviews: 73
http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/7143/beztytuu16jo.th.png (http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beztytuu16jo.png)

3)Naruto - Fiction Rated: T - English - General - Chapters: 5 - Words: 4770 - Reviews: 21
http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/3692/beztytuu24pp.th.png (http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beztytuu24pp.png)


See the difference?

[Splintered]

There is a small correlation. If the story is great than it will more likely have greater amount of reviews. For example: Red Crow's work is fantastic and she has 33 chapters with 1137 reviews, or Geno Calamari's who's one shot had 53 reviews. But they are BNF (Big Name Fans) who's pretty much already been established as a great author.

But there are always the stories that are great that often get looked over. And the completely crap stories that get tons of reviews like "LOLZ UPDATE PLZ!!!"

For example:

I wrote a story called In A Name (http://www.fanfiction.net/secure/live_preview.php?storyid=2027440) which isn't big but it still is one of my more popular stories. I thought the idea was original and interesting when I wrote it, but the only problem is that it is 16847 of pure crap. What I was trying to convey was almost impossible to write and when I tried to emphasize the point the story became redunant and as a result it was a horrible written OOC fic that I dumped out of disgust. But people kept reviewing despite the fact.

My other fic Stale Morality (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2207519/1/) is a sort of a gen fic and much better writen but didn't get half the popularity that my other crap fic.

Why?

It's what you write about! The first fic was an Itachi/Sakura before Itachi/Sakura had decent amount of fics behind it. Thus people liked Itachi/Sakura and read it even though it was shit. If the couple is popular- people will read it.

Gen fics, unless FANTASTIC, don't get as many reviews as romance/fluff. It's the way the world works.

[IQSymphic]

AKA sell your soul to the devil (in this case to these mindless readers)