News
Admins, Validation and Adding New Stories
Ok first of all, I suck because I turned off submissions completely. This is the second time I've made that mistake, hence the suckage. Anyway, that aside, you can all add new fics.

Also, 30 members!! Awesome!

Thanks for all the feedback on the categories and genres. I've started building a tentative idea for each, but it's gonna need some work. You can select which category you want your fic to appear in, then you can select multiple genres for it to be related to. This is really helpful with searches, because say I'm looking for a future fic with angst where Pam and Jim get drunk, I can do that! So while the categories may seem more general, assoicating the genres will narrow it down more specifically. But, keep with the feedback, I'm pretty flexible and very clueless with this stuff.

I'm pretty much happy to add anyone who offered to help as admin. But what I need to know before I go on, is do we want to have each and every story require validation before it's posted? This will be great for the quality of the archive, but it could become annoying if the submitted fics aren't reviewed and approved quickly enough. I think we'd need at least 6-10 people just to review submitted fics, so that the process is done quickly. I think I have four or five people so far who have offered to do non techie stuff, and this would be the non techie stuff I'd like you to do if we stick with the review process.

So we need to decide- yes or no to validating all submissions?

nomadshan, I don't think you offered, but would you be willing to come on board to create and maintain the categories and genres? I pretty much used ALL of your suggestions and you did say you loved sorting stuff!

--sicokitty on July 10, 2006 03:06 am 43 Comments
Comments
Personally, I think it would be neat to validate every story before it is posted. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem for most stories, and would just ensure keywords, ratings, and whatever else are used appropriately. I'd certainly be up to do some of that. If it does become too time-consumming or overwhelming for everyone involved, that approval policy could always be changed in the future...
A bit OT but can I say that some of these site skins freak me out? It took me a while to figure out how to come back to this beautiful layout!
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 03:33 am
Yea, that was basically my line of thought too.

And wow, you shouldn't even be able to choose other skins lol. I'll have to delete the rest, cause they're hell ugly lol.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 04:01 am
You bet! Where should I start?
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 04:14 am
You might need to refresh, but you should be able to see an admin link on the top menu, far right side. Just familiarise yourself and edit as you feel nescessary. :-)
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 04:16 am
nomadshan, it works. It's very cool that you get to lead the maiden voyage of this archive, so to speak, with your story!

That romance skin with the huge roses with dew drops? It lacks a lot of subtility. A lot, a lot, a lot. LOL
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 04:29 am
sicokitty - I moved Steamy from Categories to Genres. That way, the categories pretty much just tell us WHEN the story takes place, and the genres can tell us more about the subject matter.
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 04:34 am
Can I say that I love the fact we have a genre called Wet Jim/Pam? It is all about cultivating pool fic! ;)
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 04:42 am
ooh, that makes more sense nomadshan.

the roses are gross right? lol. i'm trying to delete the other skins now but ftp hates my life.

an yes we NEED more pool fic hehe.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 04:49 am
Okay, I've added my Jam stories so everyone can see what different submissions look like. Haven't figured out the Characters section yet :)
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 05:08 am
I hope I'm not bugging you with all my questions, sicokitty, but I have another one. When I click on the titles under "most recent" from the left sidebar of the main page, it takes me directly to the story but I don't seem to be able to see the info about the story like the rating, category,... Do you know if it should be like that, or if there is any way around that?
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 05:09 am
I apologize for my mountain of posts; unfortunately, we can't edit our posts.

nomadshan, I guess in the characters section, we can post the different pairings. sicokitty, since your site is mostly about Pam/Jim, did you envision the archive to be strictly Pam/Jim or are other pairings or types of stories welcome?
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 05:15 am
nomadshan, you just have to look at the characters area under your admin panel, and just add them in.

morning angel, no i don't think there is. the most recent block is just supposed to be a quick view at the recently added titles, but if you click on most recent on the top menu, you do get the detail.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:16 am
Morning Angel, the characters feature can be used to give you an idea of what characters are in the story. Like if it's a fic that revolved around the time Katy was still with Jim, and she was in the story, the author could select Katy in the characters section to indicat that to the readers.

i do invision it to be mostly pam and jim, but i wouldn't mind a gen office category, though i wouldn't want any slash, it's just not my thing.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:20 am
and the mountain of posts is perfectly ok. this isn't twop where flooding is frowned upon. ;-) plus i'm super excited to get as much feedback as possible, even if you have to do it in ten comments.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:21 am
Figured out the Characters - have added everyone I could think of.
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 05:32 am
That character feature sounds very nice. This software sounds a lot more flexible than ff.net. It'd be probably helpful to authors to specify limits in terms of genre within the submission rules. Would general stories include just the ones with everyone doing their thing in the office or even pairing stories like Dwight/Angela, Michael/Jan, or Ryan Kelly stories?
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 05:33 am
Also: the Character list includes "Ensemble" for those fics.
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 05:34 am
You rock, nomadshan! All this fun is making my night of insomnia a little less boring. LOL
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 05:37 am
I know, it's 4:45 here, and I should probably go to bed, but hey...it's only sleep. :)
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 05:44 am
I figured general would be Jam fic that didnt fit in the other categories, but yea, maybe, the categories cover pretty much everything I think, in a timeline sense, and the genres pick up everything else. Or we could name another category and name it something like, Dunder Mifflin Employees, or other characters or something like that lol.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:48 am
i just had a thought, we should have a category for those fics that are reflective pieces on scenes from the show. like all those casino night fics that involve pam and jims internal thoughts.
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:50 am
Cool, just added Inner Monologue to the genres.
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 05:55 am
where would inner monologues fit in category wise? gen?
- sicokitty on July 10, 2006 05:56 am
There is a category for missing scenes but how about a more general "during the episode" category instead? It could be for any fic that goes more in-depth with what happened during or around a given episode, be it thoughts of characters or incorporating more details or missing scenes?
- Morning Angel on July 10, 2006 06:04 am
Depends on when they take place. For instance, it could be Pam's inner mono during high school (Prequel) or after Casino Night (Post-Episode) or when she's sixty (Future).
- nomadshan on July 10, 2006 06:05 am