I wasn't making a point initially, notleyab, I was hinting at one and offering same for discussion/expansion.

I agree with you: the system does tend to encourage a sort of microcosm of the capitalist model, mauvaise foi/bad faith/insincerity or no.

The problem of delayed reviews bothered me for some time, especially when I first joined. I was trying to enumerate the explanations I've found for this problem in an attempt to help. They might all be wrong, but in my case they worked. I noticed that whenever I modified a piece of work in a way that earned it better reviews, it also received more reviews in a shorter period of time. I also noticed that writing a more enticing synopsis and feed reed brought more reviews. It is normal for people to prefer reading a piece that sounds more enjoyable and skip the ones that don't look so promising. That's why it was wise to give us six choices. People are more motivated to review if they have the chance to enjoy doing it by being able to skip the dull pieces. In a way, this filtering process is sort of an evaluation method in itself. Maybe it is why top ten books almost always receive many reviews in a relatively short period of time.

As for the conspiracy theory explanations, like the one suggested by notleyab, they seem technically impossible to me - at least in a mathematical sense. It is reasonable to assume there is no less than 50-60 stories present at anytime in the review pool (based on the number of stories in the charts which keep receiving reviews). A reviewer who wants to target one specific story and skips all others to get it will have a 1/10 chance to catch it (you have six choices per day).This means an average of one review every 10 days. For a story to receive the minimum of 8 reviews needed to reach the top ten, it would take an average of 80 days! This is very different from what Perry noticed in the top ten works, which seem to receive 2 to 4 reviews per week.
The 80 days period can sure be reduced if the author has five or six friends working simultaneously, each of whom is willing to waste ten days to assist his friend with one review. For this to explain the quick reviews got by most of the top ten success stories in any month, it would have to mean the presence of 7 or 8 of such gangs, each composed of at least five or six writers. Furthermore -since there are different top ten authors each month- using this method to explain the quick reviews received by top tenners every month would mean you will have to multiply those 7 or 8 gangs by twelve! That's a minimum of 6X8X12 people each year! Soon, the whole world will be fighting for a TT place.
Or it is possible that most top tenners are qualified computer experts who hack into the site and give themselves whatever scores they please. Then you get 10 different qualified hackers the next month.
I'd rather apply Occam's razor and assume that when my story doesn't get quick reviews it is because it is not a very interesting read and people tend to skip it.

Still, it is easy for me to make that assumption because my writing isn't very good and needs lots of work until it becomes so. Other much better writers who just can't imagine that someone would skip their work would have to seek other explanations, including elaborate conspiracy schemes. Which is why posting something on the MB might be a foolish move and the trigger of endless futile discussions that lead to nowhere at all. So, why bother?
I'm sure the hundreds of members who never participate in the MB have reached that conclusion long ago. My mistake.

C'est le bad faith n'est ce pas?
Now you say, it was the guest. Who was that?
Some young Cockney chav if I remember right, but who played him?

Ah, lostamy, you discount the existence of multiple accounts in your grand reckoning.

Anyway I did specify neglected gems, not pieces which were deserving of their station. It just seems that the quicker it racks up reviews, the more likely a quality piece will reach the dizzy heights.
Presumably following advice from reviews, polishing the piece taking it down and resubmitting it to build up again would be advantageous, but I like to move on to the next story and genre, try to cut down on the mistakes.

Sometimes I have to be told again and again of a flaw before it sinks in to the literary autonomic system.

I do have a major problem with conspiracy theories, and I do favor simple explanations. Maybe it is because the former tends to vanish whenever logic is applied while the latter is usually discarded when one makes emotional judgments. I will try to use logic, hoping it would steer this thread into a helpful direction that wouldn't waste more of my –or the reader's- time.





I am not sure I understand.
Sir, are you suggesting that readers might skip the books they are offered to review until they get one from the top 20? But the top 20 list is not just 20 books. There are currently 85 books there. 75 of them fall between the 11th and the 20th positions. I don’t think the human mind can remember all their names and I don't believe readers would keep a list of the 85 books by their side and check to see if each of the books they are offered to review belonged there. The top 20 are not really a small group of high fliers; they represent a large list of books.
That is why I find it hard to imagine the thought process you are suggesting or accept it as a possible explanation of the frequent reviews top books receive.
But let's assume you are right. The question will then be: and how did those 75 books get to the top 20 in the first place? How unless if they were, in some way, more interesting than others?
I think it is easier to assume that books get quicker reviews because they seem attractive to read, not because they belong to the very long list of the top 20.




Thank you for confirming my doubts.





But I did mention hackers! Maybe I needed to be more detailed. Here is the long version :

Someone needs to be a hacker to safely break the law by posting a review on a book using multiple accounts. Else how can he avoid the site's monitoring of his internet address? This is not like creating a sock puppet on the MB. Using multiple accounts to manipulate the results of an online competition is fraud, and whoever commits it can be sued by the website and by the members who suffered damage because of it - not to mention members suing the website for damage. Which is why websites like this one are obliged to monitor internet addresses of reviewers, as Ted explained several times.
As far as I know, monitoring the addresses of anyone who logs in or out of a website is a very easy process that happens automatically and doesn't require any fancy software or major expenses .It protects the website's owners from a lot of legal troubles.
But let's think conspiracy: this entire headache can be easily avoided if someone is using internet accounts with different addresses (and not just multiple PCs on the same network at one's home or work; those will have the same address when they enter the website). This would either be someone who is rich enough to make several contracts with several service providers, or someone who has access to different internet addresses (i.e. one account on his home computer, another on his work computer, a third on his aunt's PC, and so on). I don't think each month's top ten authors are rich guys who have chosen to spend their money on acquiring several internet accounts instead of vanity publishing or self publishing. I also don't think a person can mess with his scores using an account on his aunt's computer, not just because of the inconvenience involved, but due to the impossibility of determining precisely when his book would enter the review pool, so he could try to hunt it using the six choices offered to one account, and once he exhausts them, he would hurry to the his aunt to try to hunt it again. How could he be sure that someone else would not pick his book before he does? It doesn't only take multiple accounts of separate internet addresses, it also requires precise knowledge of the exact moment when his book enters the pool so he could snatch it at the right time before someone else does.

But let us keep thinking conspiracy. All this trouble can be avoided if the author is a qualified hacker. But, as I mentioned in my previous post, I find it hard to believe that the TT gets populated by 10 new hackers each month! It is easier to assume that people get there because they are good. It also easier to assume that books receive more frequent reviews because they seem more interesting to read.

As for neglected gems that never get into the TT. It could be due to one of two reasons:
- The author was unlucky on a certain month. If his book is really a gem then all he has to do is try again the next month. No one can be lucky or unlucky all the time. If that doesn't fix it then…
- Maybe the book is not really a gem? At least that might be the opinion of the readers on this site, who might not be well equipped to handle gems? If it is so, the author will have to modify his book in a way that makes it more readable and interesting; else it might not be reviewed very frequently. It might also help if he makes a review on the same day he allocates a credit to his book so that it enters the review pool as quickly as possible.

I hope that helped.