Here's my situation. I'm currently posting works on another young writers' site run by a big publishing company you've probably heard of (but I'm not going to name names). I joined a while back and thought it was great! The graphics were awesome, everything looked really professional, the people seemed nice (I had friend requests and messages minutes after joining), my projects moved up the ranks quickly, and the top five ranked projects every month could be reviewed by real editors from the publishing company! Sounds great, right?
Except, as time went on... and even right now... Me - and other users - are slowly getting a little fed up with it. The site focuses a lot on promotion, and it's gradually mutated from a site where people can review and rank each other to help each other improve into a monster. I have a friend who was on the same site for a while, but they recently quit it and actually said, word for word, 'It's the most selfish website I've ever seen.' And I tend to agree with her. Most users won't review something unless you do a swap, and promise to give a review back. Except a lot of people don't bother to return swaps, and no one wants to give something for nothing, so everyone wants each other to go first. Most of the comments you do get are one-liners. 'This was great.' 'Post more.' 'This was really good.' Etc. Also, there's a problem with honesty. I've seen projects riddled with errors, with an over-done, not well thought out plot, with fifty comments telling the author how 'great' it was.
The forums are tense, too, because everyone's getting ticked off to a certain extent, and most of the threads consist of either people asking for swaps, people promoting their books but NOT wanting to return reviews, people complaining about some aspect of the site or the people on the site that ticks them off, or character chats (essentially roleplay. I think I actually participated in the first one, which was fine, but they've taken off so fast it's ridiculous, and a lot of people are sick of seeing them, and there isn't even a specific section of the forums for them). Also, debates run rampant. That's usually not neccesarily a bad thing, but in the words of my friend from before, "The people participating aren't mature enough to handle it calmly, with understanding." And I agree with her there, too. I tried to join in one of those debates once, and almost immediately I felt attacked. They essentially called me a close-minded prude who's missing out on life just because I don't neccesarily want to read graphic sex scenes in young adult books.
*sigh*
So here's where you come in:
I'm getting more and more fed up with it, but I've been reluctant to quit because I still want feedback on my projects (even though that's getting harder and harder to get on that site...). Then I had the brilliant thought: "Duh! There are other writing websites out there!" So I searched young writers' websites, and on a list of the top forty, right alongside the NaNoWriMo young writers program, I found this site. Looks good, looks friendly, I looked at some projects and some reviews, both of which looked great, and I've already seen some measures that make me think this site will be better (word minimum on critiques! Yes!).
But I guess I'm still a little hesitant, so I'd like some input from the users already on here.
What's this site like? What's your favorite/least favorite thing about it? How's the atmosphere in the forums, and how helpful have the reviews been for you and your writing?
Hoping to find a friendlier, monster-free young writer's website,
Silent Pages.
Gender:
Points: 12987
Reviews: 162