Why I Hate Writing.com
Back in 2001, a friend of mine over at the Young Writers Club told me about Writing.com (back then called Stories.com). At the time, I thought the site was great. There were a ton of people both young and old, reviews were fast and easy to come by, and there was a lot to do on the site. I found forums to participate in, and I just really enjoyed the site in general.
Then they moved to a fee based system; setting up two different classes of users. I was okay with that; paying a fee just meant you got your name in bold and you got a few extras. The way it was set up didn’t even make it feel like a fee; instead it made you feel like you were donating to the site. Just as when you donate to charity you sometimes get a t-shirt, when you donated to Writing.com, you got a better search system and didn’t have to view any ads. You didn’t feel forced to pay the fee, and you could still enjoy the site without paying anything.
But from there on, it just got worse. A two class system turned into a three class, then a four class, and now I think it’s five classes. Unless you pay a fee, you’re severely restricted on what you can do on the site. Some of it doesn’t even make sense. For instance, to have a blog on Writing.com, you gotta pay $50 a year! Excuse me? Why would I pay $50 a year to have a blog that I can’t even customize, especially since I can get a much better blog for free from any number of sites (including YWS).
Over the past year, Writing.com has pulled back some. The annoying pop-up and animated ads are gone, you can upload ten static items for free instead of five, and there are indeed some nice features on the site. But I’ve long since stopped using it. The community is terrible, the administration is far more interested in making money than anything else, and I really do not like the star rating system.
And that is why I hate Writing.com.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Exactly the same reason I detest the site: the only good thing that only came out of it was a certain member called Nate commenting on one of my stories and messaging me, with a link to a certain young writers society in his signature =)
May 11th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I’ve joined there. I never got far enough to see the cracks, I got so confused with how to use the site I’d leave the same day I signed up.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Been there, done that. Left that site because it really is of no use unless you pay A LOT. Even then, their services are suspect. The critiquers there were useless. I remember I got one guy that actually seemed to know what he was talking about to comment about one of my stories and he gave it like two and a half stars and I was so mad because everyone else at that site gave me fours and fives for everything! Phew… thank God I moved on beyond that phase quickly enough.
May 12th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Apparently three stars is average. Everyone who visits the site knows this is rubbish - the vast majority of stories are four stars (yes, even the bad ones). Polls have shown that most people consider recieving a rating of below four to be bad.
I posted up a piece of poetry and recieved 21 reviews - pretty good, eh? Apart from EVERY SINGLE ONE of them is a ‘this was good’ message.
Also, the whole ‘rate but not review’ option is just plain stupid. Especially when someone gives you a low rating, but never say why.
Being able to leave reviews anon. is also annoying, you cos you can’t reply to the reviewer in any way. When they say something strange (I had one telling me the story wasn’t written in an origional way, and so was rated low) you can’t ask for them to explain what they mean.
So yeah, although at first glance the rating system seems really cool, to the point of me once requesting for YWS to have one like it, once you scratch below the surface it’s shallow and stupid.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I despite writing.com now because of the control freak nature of the judges on the site. There is one judge in particular called Arakun who is a real control freak maniac and will ban you for the slightest little thing, like making a simple request or asking a question. She’s also very biased and unfair. Most of the judges are the same way. The problem is that they are all wannabe hacks who are bitter and twisted because of their lack of success as real authors. They hang out on writing.com pretending to be experts. Self-publishing doesn’t make you an expert or a professional author. I’m sick of the place. I’ve been banned more than three times because I asked a question or made a polite request. Their knee-jerk reaction to everything is almost funny. I’ve become a professional writer. Maybe that’s why the judges on writing.com hate me. Well the feeling is mutual.