cot_reviews FAQs
What is the history of cot_reviews?
It all started with a woman and a dream. During the first round of the Children of Time Awards, azriona, on her own journal, began to write reviews of the fics nominated in the Drama category as a way to help herself decide what to vote for. As these sorts of projects tend to, it kind of snowballed from there. Coming to feel that each fic was nominated because it was someone's favourite, she wrote reviews focusing on the positive and was ultimately able to review 64 of the nearly 175 fics nominated in the New Who category for Round 1. Several other people volunteered to help out by contributing reviews to azriona's collection for the Round 2. cot_reviews was born, to make those reviews more easily accessible and organized, and with the goal of getting more fics reviewed now that there were more people reviewing.
Is
cot_reviews officially affiliated with the awards?
No. We exist to review all of the fics nominated for the awards but the sites are run by different teams of people and the reviews have no bearing on either what is nominated nor what wins the awards.
What does your motto mean?
At
cot_reviews , our motto is, "Every fic nominated is someone's favorite. We're here to tell you why." What this means is that every nominated fic was nominated by a person who truly loved it. We write our reviews partially as a way to explain what it is about each story that might make it someone's favourite. It might not be your favourite, and it needn't be, but someone, somewhere loves it, and we feel that makes each story worthy of a few moments of appreciation. In addition, it is also our hope that readers peruse the reviews and perhaps find a brand new favourite of their own that they may have otherwise overlooked.
How do reviewers decide which fics to review?
Our reviewers themselves pick which nominated fics they want to review. This ensures that each reviewer is free to review only fics that they can sincerely praise. Additionally, reviewers are not permitted to review any fics they themselves wrote, beta-read, prompted or otherwise inspired. Reviewers may review fics that they nominated for awards, and when this is the case, it is noted in the review.
Why don't you endorse or suggest which fics to vote for?
Because that is not part of our mission. We may make it easier for you to decide what to read, we may try and tell people why someone made a particular fic their favourite, but we can't tell you what your favourite fic should be.
Why only New Who for Round 2?
Simply a matter of numbers and not wanting to bite off more than we could chew as we got off the ground! When
azriona began in Round 1, she reviewed only in the area of fandom that she felt qualified to review in -- New Who -- but even with that boundary she was unable to get through all of the nominated fics. It was then decided that with a few more people on staff for Round 2, a good goal would be to try and review many more of the fics in the New Who category this time, but to draw the line there (there are only 11 of us, after all). For the next round, we hope that there will be enough interest to move the goalposts even further and expand out to the other categories.
Why is it so difficult to get all the fics reviewed?
Because we're committed to giving each fic the attention it deserves. That means our reviewers read the whole thing (no matter how long it is), and often read an entire series if that is necessary to fully understand and appreciate the nominated story. It also means that our reviews are fairly lengthy, often contain several quotations from the original piece, and have a lot of thought and care put in to them. Doing this takes time and our reviewers do have day jobs. It is our hope that more people come on board to review, in order to both expand our scope and spread the load.
Will other fandom areas be involved in later rounds?
That is our hope. It largely depends on whether enough people with knowledge of those categories express interest in doing reviews.
How can I get involved?
On February 22 we will be extending an invitation for new reviewers to join us. We will be looking for people from all areas of Whoniverse fandom who are committed to the mission of this community, able to stick to fairly tight deadlines, and able to write substantive positive-oriented reviews.
How do I contact the mods?
Use this post to page-a-mod.
It all started with a woman and a dream. During the first round of the Children of Time Awards, azriona, on her own journal, began to write reviews of the fics nominated in the Drama category as a way to help herself decide what to vote for. As these sorts of projects tend to, it kind of snowballed from there. Coming to feel that each fic was nominated because it was someone's favourite, she wrote reviews focusing on the positive and was ultimately able to review 64 of the nearly 175 fics nominated in the New Who category for Round 1. Several other people volunteered to help out by contributing reviews to azriona's collection for the Round 2. cot_reviews was born, to make those reviews more easily accessible and organized, and with the goal of getting more fics reviewed now that there were more people reviewing.
Is
cot_reviews officially affiliated with the awards?
No. We exist to review all of the fics nominated for the awards but the sites are run by different teams of people and the reviews have no bearing on either what is nominated nor what wins the awards.
What does your motto mean?
At
cot_reviews , our motto is, "Every fic nominated is someone's favorite. We're here to tell you why." What this means is that every nominated fic was nominated by a person who truly loved it. We write our reviews partially as a way to explain what it is about each story that might make it someone's favourite. It might not be your favourite, and it needn't be, but someone, somewhere loves it, and we feel that makes each story worthy of a few moments of appreciation. In addition, it is also our hope that readers peruse the reviews and perhaps find a brand new favourite of their own that they may have otherwise overlooked.
How do reviewers decide which fics to review?
Our reviewers themselves pick which nominated fics they want to review. This ensures that each reviewer is free to review only fics that they can sincerely praise. Additionally, reviewers are not permitted to review any fics they themselves wrote, beta-read, prompted or otherwise inspired. Reviewers may review fics that they nominated for awards, and when this is the case, it is noted in the review.
Why don't you endorse or suggest which fics to vote for?
Because that is not part of our mission. We may make it easier for you to decide what to read, we may try and tell people why someone made a particular fic their favourite, but we can't tell you what your favourite fic should be.
Why only New Who for Round 2?
Simply a matter of numbers and not wanting to bite off more than we could chew as we got off the ground! When
azriona began in Round 1, she reviewed only in the area of fandom that she felt qualified to review in -- New Who -- but even with that boundary she was unable to get through all of the nominated fics. It was then decided that with a few more people on staff for Round 2, a good goal would be to try and review many more of the fics in the New Who category this time, but to draw the line there (there are only 11 of us, after all). For the next round, we hope that there will be enough interest to move the goalposts even further and expand out to the other categories.
Why is it so difficult to get all the fics reviewed?
Because we're committed to giving each fic the attention it deserves. That means our reviewers read the whole thing (no matter how long it is), and often read an entire series if that is necessary to fully understand and appreciate the nominated story. It also means that our reviews are fairly lengthy, often contain several quotations from the original piece, and have a lot of thought and care put in to them. Doing this takes time and our reviewers do have day jobs. It is our hope that more people come on board to review, in order to both expand our scope and spread the load.
Will other fandom areas be involved in later rounds?
That is our hope. It largely depends on whether enough people with knowledge of those categories express interest in doing reviews.
How can I get involved?
On February 22 we will be extending an invitation for new reviewers to join us. We will be looking for people from all areas of Whoniverse fandom who are committed to the mission of this community, able to stick to fairly tight deadlines, and able to write substantive positive-oriented reviews.
How do I contact the mods?
Use this post to page-a-mod.