New or old, I think we can all gain some insight into the topics discussed, and the different people that compose the fanfic community here. Topic discussion includes: review begging, wips, betas, and the administration of the star rating system.
If you don't have a TWOP account, or do not wish to have one, please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts and theories in the comments section below.
--sicokitty on March 23, 2007 09:20 pm 15 Comments
Oh, and then on some more issues since, I read more.
I have used betas and I haven't used betas. I know that they are helpful. Mostly, I have issues with tense changes and not using enough contractions. So, for me, catching some of those is helpful. And then the mistyping. Because ususally, I write and then i read what I wanted to type, not what actually is typed.
And, WIP... I ususally have a general idea of where I want my fics to go. Like, for the one that is currently being posted, while I was writing it, I always had a flow chart like "meeting. confrontation. happy" ya know, with more specifics and stuff like that. Sometimes my fingers would type a chapter by themselves, and it wasn't planned, but ususally I felt that those were good additions. and then just today i got an interesting idea to incorporate, so i will see if i can and still make it flow. but, generally, i have my own plans and stuff like that.
(random on the subject of kids. since i babysit, my neighbor used to tell me she is paying me to take birth control. but god knows i still love em)
i may comment again if i think of something. or i may actually join TWoP and join in the discussion there... who knows. but still reading more comments and thoughts.
whenever someone begs for reviews, it makes me want to review even less. i can't help it ... i figure if i think a story's good, i'll review it in my own time. i don't want someone acting like they're entitled or something.
that being said, i'm one of those people that really thrives on reviews. it makes me want to keep writing. but i make sure i never say anything more than 'reviews would be great' ... i just know how much it bugs me when people beg.
Since TWoP is being absolutely IMPOSSIBLE right now, I'll weigh in on this here...
I agree, the Author's Notes begging for reviews have really been bugging me, especially the ones that basically say to review and let the author know if they should continue. I always find that really weird because personally, when I write a story, I'm writing it for myself! If I'm writing a miulti-chapter story, I don't care if my first chapter only gets one review. I'm going to post the whole thing anyway (which actually happened with one of my stories).
I mean, I know I do go to TWoP sometimes and pimp my stories, but usually I don't do that unless my story has been up for a few hours, has dropped down to like, 10th on the page, and only has one review. I know personally, I don't always have time to read every new story on MTT, so I come to TWoP for recommendations of the day's best, and I think others do the same.
Also, betas. I usualy don't use them unless I'm really unsure about a story, and need another set of eyes before I present it to the public. I'm good about grammar mistakes- I always use spell check, and I read it over about 20 times before I post it. Some people need to take this time before they post something up.
Also, I think it's unfortunate that MTT doesn't alow anonymous reviews anymore. I think this also brings down the amount of reviews a story gets because personally, I hardly ever leave reviews anymore, because when I read a fic at work or something, I don't like to sign in on the work computer, and therefore, I can't leave a review anonymously like I used to.
And can I make a suggestion? In another fandom, there's a very popular fanfic archive just like MTT. I'm pretty sure they use the same software, even. But on that site, stories have to be approved by moderators before they are posted. This eliminates stories that obviously haven't been spell checked, stories with insanely long author's notes, or stories with questionable material. I know it's a lot to ask, because you'd have to have a moderator watching at all times, but it's just a suggestion...
Puffing Noise, I should say, we really did not want to have to ban anonymous reviews but it started being problematic with misuse that occurred. Furthermore, we were informaed that it was a weakness in the software that would leave us vulnerable to infections/attacks on the server. All these factors let us to decide that disabling anonymous reviews was the best solution at the present time.
I agree with you that having to preapprove stories would be ideal. This was discussed amongst us a few times and we decided against it because unfortunately, there is just no way we can manage that. None of us have jobs that allow constant access to the computer every day, and the backlog would quickly become more than we can handle. We certainly contact authors if they contervene to rules, but we do so when we stumble upon those problematic stories. We certainly welcome readers pointing out to us problematic stories. These problems did not really exist when we first started the archive so we are still trying to adapt and figure out the best system.
I hate opening a new story and having to read stuff like “if you don’t review I won’t keep writing” or “reviews make me write faster” or “please please please review.” Usually, I close the story and move on. I try to leave reviews, even if they’re as boring as “good job.” But sometimes I don’t. I like getting reviews, but I don’t expect everyone to leave a review. Looking at my current story right now, less than one percent of the people reading it are leaving reviews. That’s okay with me. It frustrates me, as a writer, to have people who say they’ll write only if they get reviews. For the people on MTT who take writing seriously, they generally have an idea of where the story will go. I like to read those stories. And it’s completely easy to pick those authors out of the pile of authors who are pushing out stories without proofing. When an author leaves a note saying “please let me know if this is working” or something along those lines, I will gladly leave a review in order to help. But I don’t like leaving reviews just for ego boosts.
Sorry I had to vent! Moving on… I am a little curious about the star system. I tried to use it once, and it said it goes up to 10 stars, but I though it was just five. If someone could explain how to use it, I would appreciate it—I really want to leave people stars sometimes lol
I've been around a long time, and I say this all in the spirit of providing perspective, and not to toot my own horn. I have been reading fanfiction now for half of my lifetime, literally, and I've seen the birth, growth, and (gasp!) eventual death of several different fandoms. My Fanfiction.Net Authorid# is under 4000, and that was made about a year after I had first started visiting Fanfiction.Net. I've never been much of an active fanfiction author, as I've spent most of my time reading and reviewing. I'm a huge gigantic fanfiction nerd. If someone could turn fanfiction into a career, I'd be the very first to sign up, as it's my primary hobby. Again, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but this is not my first fanfic fandom, and I'm certain it won't be the last. And for those of you who are concerned right now with where Office fanfic is, I just want to assure you all that you guys are doing just fine.
MTT is doing just fine. It's experiencing a period of serious growth, and, while the discussions and the nervousness and all the questions might seem strange, I assure you, it's actually really rather normal. Every major fanfic community has a growth period like this, and all the problems you see now are normal. They're awkward, difficult, and troublesome, but ultimately normal.
I've read through the TWoP pages, and here's a quick summary of what I've read.
- MTT is experiencing an influx of writers
- Formatting is becoming an issue
- Review-whoring is becoming an issue
- The site itself is becoming an issue
- The rating system is being abused
- New writers need to beta their stories
- New writers need to wait until they become established.
- New writers are committing lots of faux pas.
- New writers are kicking stories off the front.
- Too many writers means can't read all the stories
This all right here? Again, it's perfectly normal.
When a fanfic community site is new, it has a few defining characteristics. Quality varies in the community, and depending on the first pioneers, can either be really good or really not-that-good. (MTT had the blessing of having some great authors attract others to the idea of fanfic, because bad fanfic kills a young community faster than arsenic.) You will find that most early fanfiction is romance, and most will be about the main pairing. Most importantly, when a community is established, there are no social rules yet concerning fanfic--and those unwritten rules of a community are what cause the growing pains.
Slight two-paragraph tangent explaining why they cause the growing pains: People just want more material. And they don't want bad material, they want good material. So you'll find two groups of people in early fanfic communties--readers, and reader-writers. The readers just want to read, and the reader-writers write because there isn't anything to read. (MTT is just now experiencing an influx of a third group--authors who just write and don't read a whole lot and want the faaaame.)
The appeal of fanfic, to most, is to have extra material--simply because the canon isn't finished, or there isn't enough. This is why most of the largest fanfic communties are based off of serialized stories, such as Star Trek, X-Files, Harry Potter, etc etc. MTT is the way that people find the extra material, and when it becomes harder to find good stuff (or if there's just a lot of bad stuff), you start finding ways to find the good stuff. MTT is just now coming out of its birth and into its period of major growth.
What characterizes the growth of a fanfic community? Well, growth, but more importantly, the response to growth, which usually is the formal establishment of the unwritten rules and conventions of a community. They haven't been established because, until the influx of new writing talent, there hasn't been any reason to. Everyone has followed them, and if someone was new, they could learn quickly enough because new people were rare enough. But now the community has to band together and figure out where they want to go. Here are some of the suggestions from TWOP:
1 We need to abolish the reviews, or the ratings, or both
2 Mod everything
3 Mod nothing
4 Assign betas
5 Write down the rules or guidelines
6 Create an essay section to help new authors
7 We need to message writers who are commiting faux pas
8 A writer waiting period
9 A writing "workshop" section (a refreshing, original idea I want to touch on later--shout out to asphodel on TWOP)
I've seen all of these implemented, save the last one. They have all worked, to a certain degree, and I'm sure that any implemented would suit MTT fine. I do have my opinions on each, and I'll share them a little farther down. These kind of measures, whatever is taken, will define the direction of MTT in the future. It's almost like puberty, as crass as that may seem. Again this is all normal, and in some ways, better than what has happened elsewhere.
The TWoP fanfic thread is unique in that everyone usually reads everything that everyone else says--almost. Conversations may happen privately and in other places, but the big discussions are happening on the forum in public where everyone can throw in their two cents. That's nice. You all can discuss what's happening, and everyone gets to be heard--even the new people, like asphodel.
The question is now is what do you do with all this information? Great question. The answer being "wherever you choose". I'm gonna throw in my own two cents about where I think you should go based on my experience in the past.
1a. Don't abolish reviews. Reviews are wonderful things that provide encouragement for the reader. Reviews, actually, I believe are misnamed. Reviews have been for a long time a way to show an author an appreciation of their story. Most authors want someone to say "great job", and while constructive criticism is nice, warm fuzzies are better. Not that there's even anything wrong with that, because, ironically, reviews are actually a better rating system than ratings, as they show that a story is popular, for whatever reason--usually it's an indicator of quality. This is a natural part of the fanfic system.
1b. As for the ratings, I think the should stay. I like ratings, but I think one thing should be changed. I think ratings should ONLY be anonymous and severed from the review system. The reason ratings hurt is because fanfic communties are made up of friends. If I'm blahblah's friend, and I give blahblah two stars, it's gonna hurt. It doesn't matter if the rating was correct, I'm still giving bad criticism to a friend. So what happens, then, is that ratings become another form of warm fuzzy feedback, rather than a system that can tell a casual reader "yes this is good" or "no this isn't."
Forced-anonymous ratings would provide any reader the ability to give their honest opinion without offending a friend. And it'll actually be a useful measurement as opposed to what ratings do now, which is just provide more warm fuzzies.
The two issues with ratings I see are abuse and hurt feelings. As for abuse, while an author might abuse it, abuse could be tracked through ip-addresses--and if someone really wants to promote a story, they will, and the mods could crack down if they want to. As for hurt feelings, I would add a feature that allows a story to have a rating or to not be rated. That will give authors a choice.
Another solution I just thought up would be to make only signed ratings, but make the people doing the ratings invisible to everyone but the mods. For example, I, Dooflegna, rate the story Karen Kicks the Bucket a 4*. The writer of Karen Kicks the Bucket, Moxie (winkwink), wouldn't see that I, Dooflegna rated it, nor would anyone else. But the mods would know that I did it, and in that way they could track ratings abuse. This would preserve the anonymity of the rating, while also preventing abuse.
2. Modding everything has been done. It's good and it's bad. Positives to modding everything is that you now have a filter for good material--again, the primary function of fanfic is finding good material. That's basically it. You also let new authors grow, but for the most part it's all about filtering junk. And while it's a singular positive, it's also a fairly important one.
There are a lot of downsides with this. It causes a lot of work for mods. A LOT. It causes a sense of elitism. You will find that junk will still get through because mods might want to be nice, or they're friends with potential authors (aka, nepotism). It's very time consuming, and it doesn't always look good to outsiders. Plus, it can create schisms among the mods themselves, and it can create a backlog of work. You also might kill budding interest from authors who just want there work to be read.
But you do filter out a lot of potential junk. Do they pros outweigh the cons? YOU DECIDE!
3. Modding nothing is (I believe) what you do now. However, remember that Fanfiction.Net doesn't mod anything. AT all. They may place a few finite restrictions on certain types of fiction, but these are just to keep the site from totally collapsing. Because Fanfiction.Net has collapsed. Several times.
4. Assigning betas is a really nice thing to do, but it's another major investment of time and energy. If you mod every incoming work or "approve authors", then it's essential. It is hard to find a beta, but harder than that is finding out how to find a beta. I'd suggest a link on the front page, or a newbie page, to point new authors (or even established authors) in the right direction.
5. Writing down rules and guidelines are never a bad idea. They may be intimidating to newbies, but they're gonna learn the rules someway, and it's either gonna be the easy way (ie, a rules/guidelines page) or the hard way (flames, negative attention, no attention at all, bad reviews, etc.) This is usually best in some form of a newbie page. The big thing about guidelines and rules is how much you define them as guidelines or rules.
- If you make them guidelines, you'll find that most people will follow them, but a lot will not. And that will be frustrated to the establishment, because if you did all this work to show newbies what to do, why the heck aren't they following it? It's frustrating, but it happens.
- If you make them rules and laws, you'll kill potential interest and create even a greater sense of elitism. It'll help cut down on crap and faux pas, but is it that important?
YOU DECIDE!
6. Create an essay section for new--no, make that ALL--authors.
Do it.
The thing about essays, though, is that they have to be really really really really really really really good. Not just okay, not just useful tips, they have to be good. Think MTT for dummies. Cut the crap, and if it's not good enough, don't accept it. There's nothing wrong with a category for essays, but as soon as you have one essay that isn't good enough or that doesn't cut it, you kill the purpose of a beginner's section.
Think about any time you opened a beginner's guide and it really didn't work at all. Or took a class that kinda sucked. If you want to cut down on the less-than-great stuff coming into MTT, then you better make sure that the first info they get is really good and really really relevant. Some personal suggestions on what to include:
- Grammar/style/formatting. As basic and useful as possible. Nothing wrong with advanced guides, but leave that for the essay section. Also, keep it broad. It's great to explain the differences between there/their/they're, but if that's the first thing someone sees, their eyes will glaze over. Start broad, with big important things.
- How to USE MTT. Like navigate and post and review and how to register and log in, etc.
- The ten most important pieces of fanfiction, and why. One sentence description for the why. You are what you eat, so let the newbies eat good good stuff. And make 95% of it stuff that is done, because there's nothing more frustrating than reading something that isn't finished. I say 5% because Moxie's fic isn't done... YET. ~glare and wink~
- The most basic rules of MTT. Kind of what we've been talking about the whole time here.
- A useful link section, and I stress Stress STRESS the word useful. A link section becomes immediately useless to a newbie the second they find a broken link that leads them off to nowhere. And nothing irrelevant.
This section has to be front page stuff. Kind of like how places have visitor's centers. Make MTT's visitor center nice and shiny.
7. Messaging writers who create faux pas is not a bad idea. But you have to be careful in what you consider bad enough to message. Bad formatting? No author wants their formatting to suck. But if they're a bad writer? That's much harder to gauge. I would create personal guidelines on what you would and would not message someone about. Be strict. If you think it's iffy to send a message to an author, it probably is.
8. A writer waiting period. Not a terrible idea, and it might be better than modding every incoming fic. However, it stagnates growth. It also promotes better material. This is kind of the intermediate between modding everything and modding nothing. Not a hugely bad idea, but make sure you're keeping up with demand for new writers.
9. The best idea I've read--asphodel's workshop, or sandbox idea. I love it. My vision of it would be this. A place of no ratings, just of writing and reviews. And the understanding would be that the Sandbox would be a place of constructive criticism. It's not the place to put down warm fuzzies, just a place to make things better. I would have the same signed-anonymity as my suggestion in the rating section (1b). This way, no one would feel bad about leaving constructive criticism, but there could still be moderation.
... WHEW, that's a lot of stuff. I realize that, and I hope I still have some hanger ons. I wanted to give my perspective because I felt I had some insights to give based on experience, and also because I really really really love Office fanfiction, and I want this community to grow and flourish.
Obviously, my suggestions are suggestions, and I hope you consider them and come up with even better ideas. If anyone wants to pick my brain, you can either contact me through TWoP (I just created an account), or you can find me hanging around the OfficeTally chatroom. I am always up for discussing my favorite hobby, fanfic, so come on in and talk to me. Fanfiction has it's own room, too, so we don't even have to disturb any others.
Thanks for listening; I hope I didn't kill anyone along the way.
First of all, Dooflegna, thank you so very much for taking the time to give us the perspective of your experience in fanfic communities.
Some of your suggestions a very good, some are beyond the limits of what we can do with the software, and I think some of it we may be doing already to a degree. But I'll go through everything just to give you a better idea of what's going to work, and what might not.
1. Reviews and ratings are definitely staying. As far as anon ratings go though, as far as I'm aware, apart from the reviewer and the admins, no one can see what rating is attached to what review. The system allows you to leave a review, or a rating, or both together. Reviewers have the option to do each separate, which would create even more anonymity as admins can't even see a rating left on it's own, only if it's attached to a review. As far as rating abuse goes, I'll just repeat what I left on twop yesterday, and that's that we just can't possibly know what is abuse, and what is genuine opinion. Unless there is a recurring pattern of "abuse", you just can't know, and even then, ratings are hard to track back to a specific individual. I would hate to see ratings leave as they're our tool for filtering what is good and what isn't. It's certainly not perfect, but it's all we've got to work with.
I think if someone wants to leave a poor rating, but doesn't want to leave a publicly humiliating review for the author, they should just skip the review, leave the rating, and take it upon themselves to contact the author, and gently offer their help.
2&3. Modding everything is something we discussed in the early days, and occasionally we toy with implementing it, but it comes down to two things for us. 1) We just don't have enough hands to be able to approve each and every story, especially at the current volume they're coming in at. 2) Even if we did have enough hands to approve every story, taste is far too subjective, and what we think is good, and what someone else thinks is good, can be incredibly different from each other. We allow all stories in, and cross our fingers that the rating system kicks in and filters the good from the bad. As I said, even that isn't perfect, everyone has a differing opinion to what they think is good and what is bad. It's a tough call.
Currently though, there is still a degree of modding going on. We check each story to ensure that it has been categorised, rated and tagged with appropriate disclaimers and warnings. Where we can, we contact individual authors privately when we feel there is a huge issue in terms of proofing, and a beta is in dire need. We do this all privately though, as we have been burned in the past for making such suggestions publicly. I hope that's enough to stop MTT from collapsing.
4. Finding a beta is actually very easy, and finding out how is even easier by reading the FAQ. The members list can be sorted by members who volunteer to be betas. Also in the FAQ is a link to a forum thread where people volunteer their services, or you can request a beta if you're a bit shy about contacting someone out of the blue. Our FAQ is essentially our newbie page, as it adresses a lot of the major tools at MTT, how to utilise them, and then who to contact if you're still not sure. The problem there though, is a lot of people are just going to not read the FAQ, which is sucky, considering how much it can do for a new user.
5. We would definitely like to look into creating more guidelines, the FAQ covers a fair bit but it would be nice to grow it more to include some of the current issues, like review begging, which don't really fall under the umbrella of an FAQ. I envision the guidelines to be a set of user submitted essays, or meta, I would like them to more than just, "This is wrong, don't do it.". I'd like to see them explain and dissect why something is a faux pas, offer suggestions on what they can do instead, and essentially create a dialogue on the issue between new user and old users. It would nice to see it as more of a discussion, than treating members like naughty children. Hopefully that will remove the feel of elitism occurring.
6. Yep yep yep. Pretty much what I said above. The quality of the submitted content is definitely something we'd be able to be more cut throat about. We'd really be looking for submissions from some of our older, more established authors. I'm just not sure how best to integrate it to the front page. The more stuff that goes on there, the more lost it can get. Maybe having another random feature block that features stuff from just one category, the essay category, but I'm not even sure if that's possible.
7. We pretty much do this now. We're pretty careful about what we contact about, and what we leave alone.
8. Yea, I don't think we'd do this. It creates more problems than it's probably worth. I think just working with new authors in a workshop type place is a much better idea.
9. This is a terrific idea. At the current number of staffers we have, it's not something we can embark on just yet, but give us time. It's a great concept that needs a lot of work nutting out the specifics so that it runs smoothly and creates as little problems as possible.
Thanks again so SO much for your input into all of this, it's always good to hear from someone who's had a bit of experience in growing fandoms. We've said it before, but we are so new to all this, we need as much help as we can get.
Thankyou!! :-)
Wow, I don't know if anyone is still paying attention to this...but if anyone cares:
Review begging: falldownmore made a great point, when I read someone begging for reviews, it kills any motivation I have to review. Reviews are something the reader gives the writer - it feels like asking someone for a gift - I CAN'T stand it!
Also, when an author holds the story hostage, so to speak, I stop reading right there. Any author's note that says something like "if you want to see what happens next, you must review" or "if I don't get 10 reviews for this chapter, I'll quit writing" causes me to close the story.
Betaing: Obviously un-betaed stories make me nuts. Nothing ruins a story for me faster than an abundance of typos, spelling errors, grammar errors, etc. If you aren't sure about this stuff, get a beta - that's why betas exist - to help unsure authors. Not everyone has the same strengths. I, for one, am a HUGE grammar nerd, but ask me anything related to chemistry or geometry, and I have this cold-sweat-dear-in-headlights reaction.
Here's an embarrassing secret: I LOVE to beta. I LOVE it! Apparently, I am an unfulfilled copy editor (maybe that's what I did in a former life).
Stories being knocked off the front page: Personally, I use the Most Recent link at the top of the page. It's easier than the "front page" method. Also, I take advantage of the favorites option. I get wonderful e-mails that brighten my day at work, and I don't miss out on stories that I'm enjoying or authors that I love.
That was A LOT longer than I meant it to be. If anyone kept reading, thanks.
I wish there was a way to capture the discussion over on TWoP and save it here. What with TWoP's servers acting wonky, and the occasional crash that deletes two months' worth of postings, and the irascible mods who close threads at a moment's notice, there's a good chance we could lose all that valuable discussion.
Don't know how or if that would be possible, just sayin' it would be nice to have the other posts over here for context.
I must say that as a reader/non-writer, I review everything I read. Because I think I owe it to the writer to at least squee! But I do also take the time to point out quality control issues that maybe are the result of lack of time or maybe could be fixed by a little judicious beta-ing. Like Geinnob, I love to beta and can't NOT see errors. And because of the effort that I put into my comments, I'm bummed out when I don't get an author reply. I understand that the fanfic format is not a forum and that this isn't the place for a continued conversation. But I guess for the writers that are begging reviews: practice what you preach.
Not trying to end this on a bum note so let me just praise the favorites section. I love it! I'm so glad that I get notified when a favorite author posts a new story or there's a new chapter to an old favorite. I'd never be able to keep up without it!
Okay, here's my $0.02.
I really think that people don't review like they should. I know I certainly don't. Mostly because I can't be online 100% of the time, and at work I do have to sometimes print them out, and I therefore cannot review stories.
However, while I'm the type of writer that wants more than just "OMG, this story is great, please update soon!", I unfortunately find myself giving exactly that type of review.
But only on MTT. I do actually like to talk about details of the stories and have a conversation with the author (which is easier in LJ formatting) about the story. As some writers who also post on LJ (like fireworkfiasco) will tell you, I can go on and on about a story if I really like it.
The same goes for the stuff that I write. I would LOVE to have a conversation about my pieces...if anyone would be willing to talk to me about it. But as it is, I'd just be happy to know who's reading my stories. Therefore, I beg for reviews.
Does that make any kind of sense?
okay, I'm done. *gets off soapbox*
But what's the big deal anyway? It's just fanfiction.
cheers.
--Lex
Here is my thoughts. I read the first few pages, and then haha, got busy. but here are my thoughts as they are:
I know I am guilty of 'begging' for reviews, but... here is why, I guess.
I review nearly everything I read. I would say basically, 90% of the time I read something, or more I review. Like the only time I don't review is when I am just really tired or brain dead (and then I ususally don't know why I am reading fanfic).
I know when I review I sometimes just say good job, enjoyed it. Most of the time I try to say a phrase I liked, something about it I liked, SOMETHING more than that.
I suck at giving creative criticism, which i know some authors find really valuable/necesary, but I really don't ever notice things unless they are blatant.
So, I guess I beg for reviews since I know that I review everything anyways. It isn't annoying to me. I know I actually rather enjoy writing A/Ns anyways.
But that is my two cents.
I beg because I review :P
(and i really think i am like the only person here who isn't a member of TWoP)!