We are Yume hear us Roar

What really triggered this article for me was a sentence off a new WPR called Witches Counsel. This sentence read: I know you should credit DRR and AQ but I'm not because they are the site all wprs copied off of... Excuse me? I am VERY offended. Maybe it's not a big deal to anyone else but this WPR did NOT under any circumstances copy off of those sites. Give me one thing off Yume that is similar to both DRR and the AQ (other than we basically want to give out our opinions). Can you find any? I absolutely cannot stand it when Yume is compared to other such WPRs. For one, because each WPR is different and unique in its own way. The AQ were the mother of all SM WPRs but we did not copy them. We have nothing similar to them. I respect our sister site, DRR and respect the AQ but I wasn't even a frequent visitor of the AQ when I started and I didn't even know about DRR until after I started Yume. I started this WPR because other than Elemental Reviews and a great, but now shut down site called Silence Once Broken, most of the WPRs ONLY reviewed Sailormoon sites (The AQ even told me they couldn't link Yume because it only links sites that reviewed Sailormoon, even though 99% of the sites we reviewed back then were Sailormoon sites). I hated that because I had other anime sites that I wanted to be reviewed. AND NO ONE did the reviews as I wanted them to be reviewed. So that is why I created Yume. No one inspired me. I did not copy anyone. I wanted to be different. I wanted to give reviews with humor (check out our old reviews with Tasuki on them!), with opinions, with honesty, and reviews with something to give other than technical stuff like "A broken link here and you spelled this word wrong here". I wanted to give people with other anime sites other than Sailormoon a chance to be reviewed as well. And I'm pretty sure, early sites like Elemental and SOB wanted the same thing. We are different. We are not the same as everyone else. So don't compare. And don't make those statements when you have no proof.

Grant it, Yume and its reviewers including myself aren't very active in the WPR community, so many new WPRs aren't familiar with us and that's probably one of the reasons why she made that statement. I hardly go to the tagboards or to guestbooks or to the forums but we are still here and were are still "roaring". I do often visit other WPRs of course and I guess this whole WPR thing isn't what it used to be anymore. I mean there's even a Drama website now that talks about the Drama in the WPR world? What the hell is that? And there's Bad Candy that discusses events like Buffy vs. A-chan? No offence to both Buffy and A-chan, and Bad Candy (because frankly, I don't really know the story of these two) BUT COME ON! This is not even related to a WPR anymore. They're just more attempts to make people visit. It's not about the good old reviews, it's not about helping people, it's now about who's blaming who and this and that. I don't get it anymore. And here someone says we copied off other sites, while we're still one of the few that focus on just reviews and nothing else. We have nothing special in this site at all. Just reviews and articles. And sure, we may be boring as hell but it doesn't matter. Reviews and helping web owners are the most important, not "Drama". I wonder how all this drama business started anyway and how everyone always talks about stealing other people's ideas. Where is all this blaming coming from? What the hell happened to the WPR community? Everyone just wants to be popular and get visitors. Two years ago, a year ago even, it wasn't like this at all. So what the hell happened? WPRs are about reviews and helping people or just having fun speaking out your opinion about other sites, nothing more. Am I wrong?

Was what I wrote off topic? We are Yume, Hear us Roar that is what we are. We are different, we review differently, we are individuals, SO DON'T compare us to anyone else, even if you are not familiar with our WPR. Sure if your site was reviewed by another site and then reviewed by us and you liked their review better than ours, fine. But don't compare between the reviews for godsakes. We are different. That's the one thing that really pisses me off. I got a hate mail from one web owner that didn't like our reviewing style because she said we were bashing (are we really?) but liked DRR's style. If our reviews were bashing, why did she submit to us, when it clearly stated what kind of WPR we are in the rules? Why did she take my advice to make her site better? Why did she bother thanking me and yet, she had the nerve to compare. I hate that so much. I did not create this WPR to be compared. And that sentence again, I know you should credit DRR and AQ but I'm not because they are the site all wprs copied off of really did it for me (I mean I'm pretty sure DRR and the AQ wouldn't like it if they were compared to us either). Everytime I see it, I get fumes coming out of my ears. Am I just making a mountain out of a mole hill? I know she probably wrote that without really thinking of what she's writing but that is wrong.

We are Yume, Hear us Roar! That is what we are. Although we don't really make ourselves active in the WPR community, nor have any drama, nor have any thing remotely interesting in this site, we still have our reviewes. And that is what we focus on. If you don't like our style, fine. If you don't like us, fine. If you think we suck, fine. I really don't care but like I said, DON'T compare us. Every respectable WPR is different. We have been here long enough already and we have never changed. Yume will always stay the same. We didn't steal anything from anyone, we didn't copy anything from anyone, we are ordinary from the beginning.

You don't need drama, you don't need extra stuff to make a WPR work because in the end, it all ends up with the reviews anyway. Elemental Reviews, Luna Alarm Reviews... (if I list more, I'm going to go crazy, you know who you are)... they are all great sites and they've been around for a long time as well and most importantly they don't involve themselves in drama and they take their job seriously. I will remember them.

We are Yume, Hear us Roar! Yes that is what we are. Hear us Roar. We are different. We are ordinary. We can't be compared. And that is true to most WPRs like I have mentioned already. My sister WPRs are all different. I remembered I Review from the very beginning because they made me laugh and they were amusing. I even wrote them an e-mail, that time of long ago, because they too were different and they impressed me and they still do.Yume will not be around for long but once we disappear, if you still remember us, we prefer to be remembered by our reviews and nothing more. Whether those reviews were Good, Bad, or Awful. If you can't remember us by that but stick to comparing us to others, then we prefer to not be remembered at all.

And all of you should shout that. "We are __ ! Hear us Roar!" Repeat it with me. You don't need anything but good reviews to make visitors come and submit their site to you. Be different. None of us should ever be compared to others.

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