WritingForums.Org Reviews 

Old, out-of-date and broken forum functions, moderators that have multiple issues towards the community, (see previous reviews,) and not a very populated site due to the reasons listed above. I only gave it a 2 because there are a few good eggs amongst the bad apples.

The vast majority of the members are lapsed and the mods play to a gallery that's no longer there. You can be arbitrarily hated and marked out for your attitudes to general industry issues (e.g. self-publishing or AI or censorship), and the moderation is strongly politically biased. Most often they dump people's threads into more obscure areas or bump up something else. But on their threads I also experienced more direct entrapment and then threats of bans to silence the side they didn't agree with. They will divert threads onto subjects you can't talk about, and then say that you said things you didn't - even though your post is still there right above. It's simply brazen, and I'm angry with myself for having gotten so used to it. Their workshop (the site's focal point) gets about 1 post a day, from a random visitor who won't return the favour. It's all Fantasy and it's all first attempts by new writers - not what you want to learn from. Up to a quarter of the couple of dozen regular commenters (apart from the mods) are resident trolls - posting on their single-issues like there's no tomorrow. I guess it's anything to keep the site looking active. Amongst this fountain of dubious written matter, the main moderator isn't bright enough to spot gross content like very thinly veiled "age-gap" and anorexia copypasta. Everything flies under his radar - except me, apparently. What's left of the community is as friendly as it can be in the circumstances, but they're amateurs, and they're vain. If you need beta-readers try a gig-economy website instead as you'd be waiting forever here. Last but not least, the site was hijacked recently and although they regained control it's worth being aware that if anything happens they can't easily contact the owner and main admin anymore.

The forum has functions that don't work, due to the site owner not having turned up for years. Very clunky website. Community so so.

This is a good forum for beginning and/or casual writers. The membership is helpful and friendly, but remember the critiques they give are not sugar-coated.

You get out of the forum what you put into it, so don't expect to join, post up your magnum opus fan-fiction novel in your first week, and have instant praise heaped upon you. It's important to make yourself known to the membership, just like in any group. Once people recognize you as a decent and helpful person, they'll be much more likely to spend their time giving you critique on your work.

Some of the other reviews here mention a problem with cliques. I haven't found this to be the case in recent years, but the site definitely does have a community "vibe" that some fit into well, others not so much. I hold membership in a number of writing forums, but this was the one that felt best to me. I'm not going to badmouth the other ones because I had difficulty getting into their flow.

Finally, as I said earlier, this is a good place to improve your writing. However, there aren't a lot of traditionally published authors here, so it might not be the best place to learn about landing an agent or a book contract. That's not a step in the process that I've gotten to (yet), so it doesn't really bother me.

All in all, I've found it a friendly and helpful place over the last several years and have recommended it to a number of my friends.

I've been a member of the site for several years now and it's been a valuable resource in my writing journey. The writing competitions and workshop forums in particular deserve a lot of praise.

The community on the forum is welcoming and extremely helpful.

I believe some people join the site and look for immediate gratification. There is a system in place to ensure members are required to give back to the forum rather than just take which I believe fosters the positive environment.

I really can't recommend the site enough but in the interest of fairness I've given four stars as the Trophy function for writing competitions is currently down. An extremely minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.

If you are an aspiring writer or a hobbyist looking to improve, check the site out. I genuinely feel like you won't be disappointed.

WF was a lucky find. Since I stumbled onto it about a year ago, I've found interesting people, good information, and a place to exchange ideas and playful banter in equal proportions. The vast majority of people who disagree with each other do so in respectful terms. Moderators do a great job of thinning out trolls and miscreants who are only online to bring more chaos into the world. It's a fine forum and I'm happy to be part of it.

Learnt a lot. Had a lot of fun. Met cool people's from every walk of life.

A very good community for aspiring writers to find friendly advice and support. Unlike some sites out there, people aren't shamed or put down for their work, and can receive genuine, constructive criticism, as well as find answers to their questions on grammar, structure and story development.

Highly recommended.

An excellent site with positive and informed feedback, especially useful for inexperienced writers. Easy layout, monthly competitions in poetry, flash and short story. Well moderated with adult and respectful interaction.

an excellent forum community full of mostly helpful people, which helped me move from rank amateur to multi published author.

The staff team are hard working volunteers who do their best to stay on top of trolls and troublemakers and keep the forum a fun and happy community.

Writing Forums has some of the nastiest admins you will find in an online community. Admins are childish and vindictive. I asked several times for my personal data to be removed from their site. They have ignored multiple requests. It's a cliquey bunch - the same people handful of them reply to all the posts. They are not welcoming or friendly often being flippant with new-comers who ask genuine questions. One newcomer retorted I read actually retorted saying I was looking for an answer not to be made fun of. There are online writing communities that are customer-friendly and respectful. I am posting this because they refuse to take down my written material which is not theirs to keep.

PS: Look at the dates of the all "positive" reviews, you'll see how they happen right after mine, conveniently spaced out a couple of weeks apart. Before my review, there was nothing, no positive reviews. LOL. Yeah, guys the internet community aint stupid. We can make our own deductions as to who wrote those. You don't have to be a detective to see that.

Just one negative (truthful) review

Moderators enjoy harassing members with childish insults and deleting posts that they disagree with in terms of values or religion. If you give constructive criticism to moderators in the feedback forum (which exists for just that), they will accuse you of "defamation" and delete everything you post instead of presenting their reasoning for everyone to see like adults would do. Respecting the members rights to free speech is not on their agenda as they said "this is not a democracy".