BME Experience Reviewer's FAQ

From BMEzine Encyclopedia

On the subject of reviewing experiences

Experiences pass through a communal moderation for three main reasons:

To discard fake, fraudulent, or unfixable experiences.
To return problematic experiences to their writers with suggestions to be resubmitted.
To select the best experiences for featuring.

Your purpose in taking part in this process is to accomplish those goals. If you do not feel that you can contribute effectively to that process, please do not take part.

I'll talk about rejecting experiences last because it's the longest, so I'll start with featuring, as well as the mechanics of the experience engine.

What about features?

Experiences should be featured if they contribute something special for that section. One of the most common mistakes people make is featuring anything they find interesting -- the end result of that is that certain types/sections of experience get featured more often... Try and feature about one in ten experiences that you approve in any given sections.

What about comments?

Comments serve the purpose of allowing you to communicate with the writer of an experience. The end result of that communication should be productive... Which means that if you are rejecting the experience, any comment left should help the writer correct their errors. Remember that you are not just rejecting an experience, you are attempting to give the writer the information they need to correct the experience so they can resubmit it and become a member.

Positive comments are important as well -- they add a personal "thank you" to the writer and if they are new, it welcomes them into the IAM community as well. While negative comments are kept anonymous, positive comments (on approval or featuring of an experience) will include the IAM name of the person who left them. Outside of anything else, they're also a great way to get to know people.

What about all the CRAP?

I'll first go over the various reasons that an experience should be denied. When you reject an experience, you will have a list of common reasons that you can check off. Below is an explanation of each of them.

Fake Experience

Select this if the experience is unsuitable for posting on BME, even if problems are corrected. There are four main types of fake experiences:

Experiences made up of nothing but "asdf asdfkj lfjwel sdfdsf" or "blah blah blah". Often these people will start out writing a normal experience, but won't make the word count, and will then fill in the rest with this.
Experiences made up of pasted in text, often wholly unrelated to body modification. Sometimes this error is coupled with layout problems because of the way it was pasted in. Sometimes they'll do a search and replace -- for example, if it's an article about apple farming, they might replace every instance of the term "apple farming" with "body modification", so if you're just skimming the experience you'll miss it.
Stolen experiences. Some people paste in experiences from BME and change some of the data so it appears to be from them. These are difficult to catch, but many regular reviewers still do catch these quite consistently because they know BME so well, especially when it comes to recent experiences.
Doubled experiences. Some people, instead of making the word count by writing, just write a short experience and paste in some paragraphs/sentences more than once. Obviously, this is unacceptable.

Please note that for this type of error, I usually don't email them (since people caught on this error didn't "make a mistake" -- they intentionally tried to scam us), so the comment you leave the author is relatively unimportant.

Massive Spelling or Grammar Errors

Please note the word massive. The grammar and spelling in experiences is by no means required to be perfect. That said, experiences must be easy to read and understand. Deny an experience if grammar or spelling problems actually make it difficult to read.

There are however a couple cases where an experience can be denied for minor errors:

Essential words must be spelled correctly -- the names of the piercings involved (deny an experience that uses "tounge" or "naval"), as well as words like gauge, piercing, etc. Make sure you check the section at the top of the experience, and ensure that it matches the content of the experience. If an experience is filed in the wrong section, leave a comment for the moderator letting them know where it should go. Normally people do this by mistake, but sometimes people don't see where they're supposed to file something and seem to pick a section almost at random.

Layout problems

Experiences should be denied if there are problems in the layout that make the experience difficult to read or view. These problems include:

All one paragraph. This is the most common problem. If an experience is made up of all one paragaph (or paragraphs so large that it might as well be), it should be rejected. Same goes for an experience that has no paragaphs (ie. a paragraph break after every line).
Weird paragraph breaks. Watch for breaks in the middles of sentences and things like that.
HTML errors. If the person includes images, they must work. If the person includes links, they must work.
All caps. If a person types IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS all or most of the time, the experience should be rejected.
Punctuation errors. This applies both to improper punctuation usage that makes the experience hard to read (for example, putting exclamation points after every sentence), and to translation errors. Sometimes when a person copies an experience from some word processors, it includes odd characters instead of apostrophes and quotes.

Non-BodMod Filler

There are three scenarios in which experiences should be rejected in this category:

Sometimes people will write a short experience, and pad it with utterly unrelated junk -- talking about their family, their friends, the music they like, their school, whatever. If it relates to the experience (for example, past experiences that lead up to the experience, or reactions from people afterwards), that's fine, but don't accept unrelated filler that's just there to make the word count.
Quite regularly people will submit erotica to the fiction section of bme/HARD that has nothing to do with body modification. Stories in bme/HARD must still have body modification as a central point of the story; simply mentioning that some of the people have piercings doesn't cut it nor does briefly mentioning a modification scene. Keep in mind the word central. In addition, BME/HARD does not accept eunuch/castration fiction -- if people are interested in that they should be directed to www.eunuch.org.
Sometimes people will submit editorials and experiences that are more of a teenage-rant than an experience about an actual body modification event. If you feel the person is doing this, or is writing primarily to further a political goal, or promote a website, or any other non-BME goal, the experience should be rejected.

Fictional Experience

With the exception of the bodmod erotica fiction section of bme/HARD, BME does not accept fictional experiences (obviously). By fictional experiences, I mean where a person reads a bunch of stories on BME and then writes a fake one. These are difficult to catch, especially if you're not that experienced with body modification, but there are a couple things that tend to run common in fake experiences:

Details inside the experience may not match properly, and may not match with the "at a glance" box.
Specific details of the piercing and aftercare will probably be quite hazy.

In all honesty though, it's more of a "feeling" most of the time. Watch out for things that seem implausible as far as healing speed and other characteristics as well.

Misinformation

There are two categories where an experience should be denied in this section:

Sometimes a person has a bad experience at a studio (and not always the one the experience is about), and chooses to slander them in their experience. I don't mind when people talk about their experiences if they discuss them fairly and with a level head, but most of the time, it's not much better than insults. These experiences don't generally provide any valuable information, and open BME up to lawsuits.
More often, a person does stupid things, most often related to self-piercing, and encourages them and leaves out the "bad points" of an experience. If an experience is honestly written and anyone reading it can tell that it's a bad idea because of the described result, then it can be posted as is. However, if the experience ignores the pitfalls, and encourages readers to -- in effect -- harm themselves, then the experience should be denied along with a note that the write should add a disclaimer. Remember though, you're not supposed to stop people from telling their story. We're just trying to make sure the experiences aren't hurting people.

Multiple Subjects

If an experience is not actually one story, but a number of stories patched together to meet word length, it should be rejected. For example, if a person describes both their nipple and navel piercings in a single experience submission, they should be directed to submit it as separate stories. It should be noted that there are many exceptions to this rule, including:

Sometimes a person needs to include BRIEFLY prior experiences to put this one into context.
If the person got all the modifications in a single session, then it makes sense to discuss it in a single experience.
If the modifications are connected (for example, an ear piercing experience followed by stretching, or a series of tattoo experiences making up a sleeve, or a two separate nipple piercings, or a genital ladder) the person can legitimately choose to write them up in a single experience.

Quality of Writing

If an experience is so poorly written that it becomes difficult to read, or violates basic rules of writing, it should be denied. Experiences must be clearly written in the selected language, and not be written using Net/IRC or textmessaging slang.

For example:

Use of the lower case "i" to represent I (as in me). I don't mind if one or two slip through, but if they are the norm in an experience it should be rejected.
Excessive use of slang such as 'lol', 'neway', 'ppl', 'b4', 'cuz', 'b/f', 'j/k'. Don't deny for 1 or 2 but if the experience relies heavily on using slang, then the author should be asked (politely) to remove the slang and resubmit the experience.
Overly "teen" writing -- lots of unrelated interjections and tangents, lots of comments on friends, etc. Again, if the experience is mostly made up of this, it should be rejected, however if there is plenty about the actual experience itself along with this type of interjection or tangent, that usually means it's ok.

Other

There are of course many other reasons that an experience could be rejected, including:

Material that's offensive to BME. This includes anti-body mod articles, or including terms such as gay or retard and similar speech.
Experiences that promote (or link to) businesses opposed to BME.
People complaining about the word count. Writing things like "Well, I have to write 127 more words, so let me tell you about..." don't count and should be rejected.
People who append their experience with a copied FAQ section, "Tips" section, or a copy of the aftercare they were given. If they have personal insight they'd like to add, that's great, but simply repeating well-known information doesn't accomplish anything.
Experiences that have been published somewhere else, previously. If the author has already written and posted their experience for another site, BME does not accept the experience.

Commonly Asked Questions & Answers

Do we deny experiences that are all in pink font (or other crazy fonts)?

No. Just make a note in the comments to BME and that will be fixed in final moderation.

Do we deny experiences if there are mistakes/misspellings in the title?

No. Please just remark in your comments to BME that there are mistakes in the title and what they should be.

Do we deny experiences if they’re placed in the wrong section?

No. Just add a note in your comments to BME stating it’s in the wrong section and what section it should actually be in.

Does BME accept DIY experiences?

YES! BME's primary job is to document the life of the body modification community as a whole. While we clearly provide educational information in order to help the community grow in a positive direction, it would be detrimental to our purpose to attempt to silence a significant percentage of the community because we disagree with the way they did their procedures. http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20021103.html

When to deny DIY, as Shannon has said:

The line that we don't want people crossing is when they say "you SHOULD do this" (rather than "I did this"). If they are not just documenting what happened to them, but actively ecommending what they did (assuming it's fundamentally incorrect a la "an den i sterilized it wit my zippo") then you should feel totally free to deny it.

Do we deny for swearing?

No. Unless the experience is so chock full that it’s impossible to read, swear words are not a reason to deny.

Do we deny experiences that have broken images or links?

Yes. If an experience has a broken image or link, please deny it and ask the author to fix it. Do not deny an experience that contains a plain text link like this (http://bmezine.com), only deny it if the author has made the link “clickable” and when you click on it, it doesn’t work properly.

Do we deny experiences where the person is underage? Lied to their parents? Used a fake ID? Etc.

No! Our job as reviewers is not to pass judgment on what the person has done. As long as the experience is written in a way that can be easily read and understood and does not advocate any dangerous information, do not deny it! Also, remember that experiences come in from all over the globe. Just because the person may be underage for something where you live does not mean they are where they live.

What if the author is below the age of 13?

Any experiences submitted by someone 12 and under should be denied. If they are 13 or older, they’re fine. The only exception to this is for hard fiction/non-fiction. In this case, the author must be 18 years or older.

Self-injury experiences are an automatic deny, right?

Wrong! "You can NOT deny something for being "self-injury". These experiences are placed in the RITUAL section though, not the SCARIFICATION section." - Rachel

What if the experience was done with a piercing gun?

Deny it. Gun piercings are excluded not because of danger issues but because it's simply not inside BME's mandate (just like we don't cover hairstyling).

Can I ask other people to share their votes so I can get a better idea of when to approve and when to deny?

Yes, but only after the experience has passed through final moderation.

What do we do with negative experiences?

As long as the person is not stating unsubstantiated claims and merely sticking to their story, we accept it. Unfortunately, not all experiences are good ones and we want to allow people to tell their stories. As long as the person is writing in a calm and reasonable manner and not filling the experience with insults towards the artist, it should be accepted. If the experience contains a lot of insults towards the shop and/or artist, you can deny it and ask that the person resubmit the experience after removing those and just sticking to the facts. Again, it is OK for a person to submit an experience where things went badly so do not deny the experience just because it is a negative one.

Do we accept experiences written by a practitioner?

Yes!

What happens if an experience has been submitted multiple times?

Deny the first as a duplicate and vote accurately on the second (or last one in the queue if it's there three or more times). Often this is just an accident on the part of the submitter but sometimes they realize they left something out or a link didn't work, something like that, so they will submit it again right away with the correction which is why we always vote accurately on the last one (the one closest to the bottom).

This experience submitted in German (or other foreign language) isn't long enough, how did it get through?

In an effort to encourage more submissions in other languages, there is no word count minimum like there is with English language submissions. Along the same lines, we have relaxed the rules somewhat. Use your best judgement when reviewing these experiences and remember that BME wants more non-English submissions! So only deny for the worst spelling and grammar, the ones that are really unreadable, or contain html errors (ie. a clickable link that doesn't work), or, obviously, if it's a fake. If you're unsure, you can always ask Jen (savagerabbit) for further clarification.

How do I check my status?

http://www.molokosynthemesc.com/exp.exe?cmd=verify&username=your screen name

Replace the words your screen name with your actual screen name to view your status.

Forums

If you have more questions or just want to chat with other reviewers, visit the experience review forum here.

You can also visit the German experience review forum or the Japanese experience review forum.