The Review Writers Forum, opinion site

Reviewwritersforum.co.uk was created in 2005 for review writers from primarily Dooyoo and Ciao as a meeting place where members can talk about their use of both sites. The intention was to make a place that was accessible for members of these sites, other review writers and fans of the written word to come and chat, discuss, debate, enter competitions and above all have fun.

##THE MAIN PAGE##

When you first log onto the site you are faced with a kind of block effect front page. This shows you all the different areas you can access.

The first section is for "All site information" and this is for anything to do with the site itself. There are threads for photos, new members to introduce themselves and forum rules to name but a few. Underneath this is a section for competitions. Each month there are various competitions set by the site for the members to enter. They involve writing (obviously) and this month the subject is to write a review about Pets. There is a £10 Amazon voucher as a prize. There is also a short story competition running with a £10 prize.

The next section is headed "Review Site Talk" and there are separate headers for Dooyoo, Ciao, Other Review, reward and survey sites, Epinions and General Review Site Chatter.

Lastly you have a Members Fun Area section. There is allsorts on this bit, from Word Games to Current Affairs chatter. Other sections within this heading include Free Stuff Online where members post links to get freebies from other sites and a games thread to play against other members to arrive at an overall weekly winner!

##CIAO THREAD##

OK, as this is posted on Ciao I will tell you a little about the action and atmosphere within this area of the site.

When you click on the Ciao heading it will bring up all the threads that have been started under Ciao. Anyone can start a thread and anyone can read and respond to threads other members have created. They all have titles and most seem to be pretty self explanatory so you can get a good idea of what the topic will be about from the title.

I have personally used this forum to ask questions of all sorts about Ciao & Dooyoo practices and how to go about things. I have asked about what other members think should be included in a good review and other helpful (to me) topics about Ciao & Dooyoo. I have found that there are actually quite a few guides from Dooyoo knocking about on here and along with non-guide opinions you get some really good advice and help coming back from your topics. This also gets everyone talking because as I am sure you know, not everyone will agree with another member's opinion so this will often open up a really good debate, with passionate writings from a lot of people. Whilst some of it is just for fun, you will get some really good useful comments too.

I have found that after starting a thread for one question, once this has been answered the replies will actually take the original question of into a totally new direction and this is great as you can see where your initial question has taken the discussion.

In terms of helpfulness in regard to actually writing reviews and technical areas of Ciao such as proposing subjects or products I have not been let down with the answers I have received. They have been useful, informative, friendly and easily offered by other members.

In terms of friendliness and atmosphere on this site I have been made to feel very welcome and the other members have been really friendly. This has helped to settle me in and I have found myself returning to the site quite a few times every day to see if there are any new posts. This is easy to see as a little orange colour square appears before the title on the thread to show there has been a new post since you last looked.

I actually find the whole site very easy to navigate and get round. The set up process is extremely easy as well. To open an account, members are asked to use their Dooyoo or Ciao name, and this is so that everyone knows who everyone is. Simple but effective. Signing up and registering is relatively fast, although you do have to wait for a confirmation email before being able to post on the site. Logging in and logging off is simple as well and members can have the choice of whether they want to sign up for the fortnightly newsletters in the all site information section.

Once you have registered you can select an avatar, which in case you are none the wiser like I was when I joined - is a small picture that will appear next to all of your posts. This can either been chosen from the gallery on site and there are some lovely ones, or downloaded from your computer or another site. This means you can have a picture of yourself on there or any other photo/picture you chose. There is also a monthly avatar competition, this month the subject being "fluffy", so you can see there is always loads of things to enter and talk about.
I have a "fluffy" kitten at the moment - in line with the monthly avatar competetion but you chop and change whenever you like.

I have entered the competitions this month which is on Pets so fingers crossed. If I won a £15 Amazon voucher from writing a previously unpublished review on this site, it is the equivalent of getting 500 reads on Dooyoo or more on Ciao! Then you can always publish it after the competition closes! You might even get a crown! or a diamond! LOL

##MY OVERALL OPINION##

I have been a member on here now since the beginning of April and have already had lots of helpful and friendly advice. I didn't think it would be as addictive when I first joined but now I find every time I log onto to Dooyoo or Ciao, I follow it up with a log on to this site.

I am enjoying being part of this forum. The responses are usually quick to come in and this makes it interesting and a good pace for debate and discussion. I have been on other chat and discussion sites where some one answers once a day, so it just loses my interest as it takes so long for a discussion to happen, but on here the answers are thick and fast usually and you can have almost a full blown written conversation in the space of an hour on here.

I would love to see other members of Ciao & Dooyoo over there so I could chat to other members and if you fancy it this is the perfect place to find new friends and chat to people about their ideas, their reviews, their suggestions and maybe help them out with their questions. I know a lot of people love the guestbook's on ciao and anyone on Dooyoo who would like the opportunity to chat to others would do a lot worse than joining up here.

Thanks for reading.