[013]
SensuBean
Current Version
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them, which is a much smaller problem taken by itself.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them, which is a much smaller problem taken by itself.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them, which is a much smaller problem in itself.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them, which is a much smaller problem in itself.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"several of my fics are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up some space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Edited: I just noticed that my glitchy memory inflated the amount of stories that you recommended for each other. There were actually just a few of them.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". From what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff accompanied by a PayPal link; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of points to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning, which clarifies that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend almost anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and that I have noticed some of that going on, or seen extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, other shout-outs, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I also like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, and trash sells, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"hollywood diva mindset\\\", but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have genuine good reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
Changed line(s) 7 from:
n
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
to:
The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"trash sells hollywood diva\\\" mindset, but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have very good genuine reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, since people act like lemmings\\\" \\\"trash sells hollywood diva\\\" mindset, but I never found someone reasonable saying \\\"I have major major problems with this, and have very good genuine reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
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The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \
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The description clearly states (or at least heavily implies) that \\\"these stories are definitely better than 90% of the rest\\\", which sets a certain level of demand on the people who recommend.
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, since people act like lemmings\\\" trashy diva mindset, but I never found \\\"I hate this, and have very good genuine reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
In combination with that it is extremely easy to set up temporary accounts and then highlight stuff, or simply ask a friend to do it, and I have noticed some of that going on, or noticed extremely suspicious recommendations; for example a just started temporary account recommending a pure hatefic just to stir things up; Anime Addventure \\\"written in 5 minutes; over to you\\\" stuff; Comparing a story that just had one chapter posted a week ago with some of the highest quality massive fanfics out there (regardless of what we think of the depressingly dark tone, the second part of Shadow Chronicles is probably the tightest plotted fanfic I\\\'ve seen so far); the Thrythlind/Nanya \\\"recommending lots of stuff by each other\\\"; some stories with barely coherent spelling, and so on) it all boils down to that the page really did give an extremely cluttered impression.
The problem of course is that I don\\\'t really have any solid solutions, beyond \\\"continuous work in progress by anyone with an open single identity and honest approach\\\" unless the rest of you are interested in making some kind of \\\"team effort\\\" to think up decent methods and checkups.
Perhaps it is simply due to most people just checking through stories and recommending anything they think is kind of fun, rather than thinking through if it is simply decent or really good; or maybe I have simply stuck to reading recommended stuff myself, and as such don\\\'t have a grasp on just how mind-numbingly awful the general stuff is, and as such almost anything with some half-decent merits (including our own stories) would fit?
Another simple solution/idea is of course to simply remove the \\\"better than 90% of the other stuff\\\" label and let people recommend anything whatsoever that they like or want others to see.
Thrythlind:
The intended point being that it doesn\\\'t matter if you are the same person or simply friends/acquaintances (I\\\'m definitely leaning towards the latter myself, as it would make little sense for you to be open about your general identity, rather than set up another temporary title, othervise), as you are still acting as a unit to recommend each other, and there is a certain level of conceit inherent in saying \\\"I\\\'ve written lots of stories, and almost all of them are better than 90% of the general stuff\\\". In combination, from what little I remember there is nothing actually wrong with your stories. They can be a little bland, but flow quite well, and I could easily see a \\\"top 30%\\\" argument being made, but \\\"all of it is definitely top 10%\\\"... well, in combination with the circumstances, and that they take up a lot of space, I\\\'m sure that you can rationally see the problem. However, to be fair (tbf) a while after seeing it I considered letting some acquaintance who liked the story do the same for me, but then reconsidered.
Still, the two of you didn\\\'t just make some insincere \\\"here only\\\" cover handles, but rather choose to be open about it. To someone reasonably paranoid like myself it does however highlight that others are probably doing the same thing much more discretely.
As for greater validity through later recommendations from other editors, this is a solid point if these are ongoing and honest accounts... although there is of course an argument to be made that once it was highlighted here in the first place the visibility almost guarantees that some other editor should like it.
Muphrid:
Well, if nobody is interested in a collaborative effort I suppose that there is nothing to it but to switch back. It still seems like an extremely uneven quality system, to take away most of the point of the page, and as above it is very easy to quickly make multiple temporary identities (either by oneself or in group), and then there are the common tastes of the type of editor that contributes here (the more tropes, memes, pop-culture references, and in some cases hollow clichés, the better), so multiple recommendations don\\\'t necessarily say that much about general appeal or technical quality, nor does a tvtrope page (I\\\'m considering openly/honestly setting up one for my own story myself), but at least there are a couple of things to consider that came out of it:
- A stronger highlight text in the beginning that editors should make an honest consideration, and not just recommend anything.
- Possible further sifting through linking to awards or mentioning other well-known fanfic authors who have said that they really like the work.
- Possible demand of less confidentiality regarding what ongoing handle the editor goes by outside of tvtropes, and sift away recommendations from temporary accounts.
- The need to develop other forms of collaborative sifting systems.
I like the idea of moving the fics that are particularly notable to the top of each folder instead, although the amount of comments isn\\\'t a good gauge. If someone (including myself) makes a post about problems with a story, and this stirs some debate, this shouldn\\\'t be considered as a validation (well, there is the \\\"all publicity is good publicity, since people act like lemmings\\\" trashy diva mindset, but I never found \\\"I hate this, and have very good genuine reasons for it\\\" to be a useful quality gauge).
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The point isn\'t that the cream of the crop should be for a single entity to decide, just to give all serious contributors some more room to work with to give the recommendation page any point.
to:
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The intended point isn\\\'t that the cream of the crop should be for a single entity to decide, just to give all serious contributors some more room to work with to give the recommendation page any point.
