Review Guidelines
As requested, here are some guidelines/rules for reviews. (Long, 'cause I'm a teal deer, but hopefully I covered everything. Which I probably didn't, so feel free to ask questions.)
Multiple reviews of the same book
Okay, the poll indicates pretty strongly that in general, people would prefer not to see multiple reviews of the same book posted to books1001, for a variety of reasons: it obscures the point of the challenge; it's a disincentive to the person actually assigned that book; it will add more posts to everyone's flist; there are already plenty of review comms and places where you can find other reviews of every book on the list.
So, books1001 will stick to its original mission: each book gets assigned to one person, and that person posts a review.
That said, I see no objection at all to people posting links to their own reviews in the comments of the review of the book in question. I myself have reviewed a number of other books on the list on my own LJ; I will limit myself to posting links as appropriate.
I may, at the end of the challenge, compile a master list of reviews by community members for all the books on the list. But it will be a links list, not a bunch of extra review posts.
And that being said: with apologies to admnaismith, I've removed all the links, tags, etc., to his Justine review. (I was going to delete it, but people have already commented and I hate deleting posts when there has already been discussion, erasing everyone's conversation.) Feel free to add a link in the comments when Justine gets its "official" review.
Please use lj-cuts
It's been pointed out that most LJ communities have rules about posting more than a couple of hundred words behind an lj-cut. I think that's a good policy to follow, so I'm going to make it a requirement. We are, after all, going to (hopefully) see 1001+ posts on this comm over the course of the year, which is a lot of scrolling without cuts. Familiarize yourself with lj-cuts if you're not sure how to use them. (It's not hard.) Put everything below your intro/cover image behind a cut.
Review guidelines
I balk at the idea of a prescribed format/template for reviews. So consider these guidelines, not requirements.
In general, I won't reject any review unless there is something wrong with the format (see below). But do keep a copy of your review on your hard drive, just in case I do have to reject it and ask you to fix it and resubmit. (As community maintainer, I cannot edit the text or settings of someone else's post. I can only delete them or edit their tags.
Technically, I can just accept every review and ask you to edit it once it's posted, but on a few small issues (noted below) I'm gonna be a hard-ass and click "reject" and ask you to fix & resubmit. That way you'll get in the habit of doing it right the first time and I can remain lazy. :)
Use an lj-cut
As mentioned above, put most or all of your review behind an lj-cut. If you forget to do this, I'll reject it and ask you to resubmit with a cut.
Make sure it's unlocked
No locked posts in this comm. All reviews should be publicly visible. If your own LJ is locked by default, you may need to double check before you post to books1001 that you haven't left the post locked.
If you accidentally post your review locked, I'll probably accept it and then ask you to change the settings, but if I'm in a cranky mood I might reject it and ask you to repost it with the settings correct.
Title
The review title should be basically: [Title], by [Author].
I won't be too picky about the precise format (like, "[Title], by [Author]" vs. "[Title] - [Author]", or whether or not you remember a comma after the title), but the most happy-making format for me is the above.
If you forget either [Title] or [Author] (or both), I'll reject and ask you to fix it.
I will probably reject more wordy titles like "Why I loved [Title] by [Author]" or "[Title], by [Author] Sent Me Plummeting Into a Downward Spiral of Existential Despair at the Thought That Trees Died So That These Words Could Be Inflicted on Others." Unless it's really funny. But seriously, save the funny for your lj-cut text.
Tags
Please add the following tags to your review: reviews, [nth] century books, author:[first letter of author's last name], [author name]. The last two tags may not exist yet for your author, in which case don't worry about it: I'll add them myself. If you forget your tags, don't worry, I'll add them myself, but you can save me a little bit of work by adding those you can.
The LiveJournal tag limit is 1200, so technically I think we'll have enough for every author. If it starts to make the tag cloud just too big and unusable, I may remove author-specific tags in the end.
What to say
Now that formatting is out of the way, what you say in your review is entirely up to you. I'm going to assume everyone will put some thought and effort into their reviews, but this ain't a lit crit class. You'll have to try really hard to make me reject a review for sucking too much.
Length: A review that's only one paragraph would be... a bit lacking, I think, but I'm not going to set a minimum word count.
Spelling and Grammar: I'm not going to correct (or reject) your spelling, grammar, and punctuation so long as it approximates good English. Don't stress over typos. Use common sense (spellcheckers), etc. I assume no one is goin 2 rite a reviw lik THIS!!!
Profanity: I'm rather free with the four-letter words myself. You can use 'em if you think they express what you want to say. If you're going to be really profane, make sure it's behind an lj-cut and maybe warn people before you drop a dozen f-bombs...
Ratings: Some people like ratings. Personally, I don't rate books in my reviews, so I won't require you to. If you want to give a 1-5 star rating or a 1-10 rating or use your own quirky rating system, go for it.
Page counts, publication dates, other data: This is good and useful information that some people have requested, so I'll encourage you to include it (and try to do so myself in the future). Other people like to mention exactly which edition they read, which translator, and even whether or not they bought the book or got it from a library, whether it was a print, ebook, or audiobook, etc. This is all fine, too -- I encourage it, but will not make it mandatory. (And keep in mind, you can always edit your post to add this information.)
Format
So, here is a sample template for a review. Feel free to use this if you find it useful. It is not required. (I have my own template I use for my book reviews, and I will probably continue to use it.)
[Title], by [Author]
Publication date:
Edition: (date/Translated by ...)
Publisher:
Format (if not print):
# of pages (or length, for an audiobook):
Source (Barnes & Noble, library, pirate book torrent):
Summary/Back of the book:
My review:
My rating:
I hope you are all enjoying the challenge. I look forward to reading everyone's reviews. Don't hesitate to ask questions or send me a PM.
Keep reading!
Multiple reviews of the same book
Okay, the poll indicates pretty strongly that in general, people would prefer not to see multiple reviews of the same book posted to books1001, for a variety of reasons: it obscures the point of the challenge; it's a disincentive to the person actually assigned that book; it will add more posts to everyone's flist; there are already plenty of review comms and places where you can find other reviews of every book on the list.
So, books1001 will stick to its original mission: each book gets assigned to one person, and that person posts a review.
That said, I see no objection at all to people posting links to their own reviews in the comments of the review of the book in question. I myself have reviewed a number of other books on the list on my own LJ; I will limit myself to posting links as appropriate.
I may, at the end of the challenge, compile a master list of reviews by community members for all the books on the list. But it will be a links list, not a bunch of extra review posts.
And that being said: with apologies to admnaismith, I've removed all the links, tags, etc., to his Justine review. (I was going to delete it, but people have already commented and I hate deleting posts when there has already been discussion, erasing everyone's conversation.) Feel free to add a link in the comments when Justine gets its "official" review.
Please use lj-cuts
It's been pointed out that most LJ communities have rules about posting more than a couple of hundred words behind an lj-cut. I think that's a good policy to follow, so I'm going to make it a requirement. We are, after all, going to (hopefully) see 1001+ posts on this comm over the course of the year, which is a lot of scrolling without cuts. Familiarize yourself with lj-cuts if you're not sure how to use them. (It's not hard.) Put everything below your intro/cover image behind a cut.
Review guidelines
I balk at the idea of a prescribed format/template for reviews. So consider these guidelines, not requirements.
In general, I won't reject any review unless there is something wrong with the format (see below). But do keep a copy of your review on your hard drive, just in case I do have to reject it and ask you to fix it and resubmit. (As community maintainer, I cannot edit the text or settings of someone else's post. I can only delete them or edit their tags.
Technically, I can just accept every review and ask you to edit it once it's posted, but on a few small issues (noted below) I'm gonna be a hard-ass and click "reject" and ask you to fix & resubmit. That way you'll get in the habit of doing it right the first time and I can remain lazy. :)
Use an lj-cut
As mentioned above, put most or all of your review behind an lj-cut. If you forget to do this, I'll reject it and ask you to resubmit with a cut.
Make sure it's unlocked
No locked posts in this comm. All reviews should be publicly visible. If your own LJ is locked by default, you may need to double check before you post to books1001 that you haven't left the post locked.
If you accidentally post your review locked, I'll probably accept it and then ask you to change the settings, but if I'm in a cranky mood I might reject it and ask you to repost it with the settings correct.
Title
The review title should be basically: [Title], by [Author].
I won't be too picky about the precise format (like, "[Title], by [Author]" vs. "[Title] - [Author]", or whether or not you remember a comma after the title), but the most happy-making format for me is the above.
If you forget either [Title] or [Author] (or both), I'll reject and ask you to fix it.
I will probably reject more wordy titles like "Why I loved [Title] by [Author]" or "[Title], by [Author] Sent Me Plummeting Into a Downward Spiral of Existential Despair at the Thought That Trees Died So That These Words Could Be Inflicted on Others." Unless it's really funny. But seriously, save the funny for your lj-cut text.
Tags
Please add the following tags to your review: reviews, [nth] century books, author:[first letter of author's last name], [author name]. The last two tags may not exist yet for your author, in which case don't worry about it: I'll add them myself. If you forget your tags, don't worry, I'll add them myself, but you can save me a little bit of work by adding those you can.
The LiveJournal tag limit is 1200, so technically I think we'll have enough for every author. If it starts to make the tag cloud just too big and unusable, I may remove author-specific tags in the end.
What to say
Now that formatting is out of the way, what you say in your review is entirely up to you. I'm going to assume everyone will put some thought and effort into their reviews, but this ain't a lit crit class. You'll have to try really hard to make me reject a review for sucking too much.
Length: A review that's only one paragraph would be... a bit lacking, I think, but I'm not going to set a minimum word count.
Spelling and Grammar: I'm not going to correct (or reject) your spelling, grammar, and punctuation so long as it approximates good English. Don't stress over typos. Use common sense (spellcheckers), etc. I assume no one is goin 2 rite a reviw lik THIS!!!
Profanity: I'm rather free with the four-letter words myself. You can use 'em if you think they express what you want to say. If you're going to be really profane, make sure it's behind an lj-cut and maybe warn people before you drop a dozen f-bombs...
Ratings: Some people like ratings. Personally, I don't rate books in my reviews, so I won't require you to. If you want to give a 1-5 star rating or a 1-10 rating or use your own quirky rating system, go for it.
Page counts, publication dates, other data: This is good and useful information that some people have requested, so I'll encourage you to include it (and try to do so myself in the future). Other people like to mention exactly which edition they read, which translator, and even whether or not they bought the book or got it from a library, whether it was a print, ebook, or audiobook, etc. This is all fine, too -- I encourage it, but will not make it mandatory. (And keep in mind, you can always edit your post to add this information.)
Format
So, here is a sample template for a review. Feel free to use this if you find it useful. It is not required. (I have my own template I use for my book reviews, and I will probably continue to use it.)
[Title], by [Author]
Publication date:
Edition: (date/Translated by ...)
Publisher:
Format (if not print):
# of pages (or length, for an audiobook):
Source (Barnes & Noble, library, pirate book torrent):
Summary/Back of the book:
My review:
My rating:
I hope you are all enjoying the challenge. I look forward to reading everyone's reviews. Don't hesitate to ask questions or send me a PM.
Keep reading!