[Policy] Editor's Choice Reccing
Grand Line Vine
The One Piece Fandom Newsletter
Editor Reccing Policy
Last Updated July 30, 2006
Editors at grand_line_vine get to put forward art and fic recommendations to be featured in the Editor's Choice section of the newsletter. In an effort to make the publishing process of the newsletter transparent to curious readers and for the reference of the editors themselves, we have made our editor reccing policy and procedure public.
Unless you're an editor, you can't submit recs to the Editor's Choice section, but you can definitely submit a regular fandom rec! Please read the Fandom Recommendation Policy, and then submit a rec for fic or art. Alternatively, you can join our editing staff and submit Editor's Choice recs.
Recommendation Procedure
Every week all editors, including the editor in chief, general editors, and reccing editors, each submit three art recs and two fic recs. We try to bring a good balance of material, including a mix of gen, het, slash, and femmeslash; of humour and angst; of action and thought-pieces. Generally, we each try to rec one general and one shippy (het, slash, femmeslash, whatever) fic a week. For art, we each try to get in one group pic (because it's all about nakama, isn't it?), one shippy pic (again, het, slash, femmeslash, whatever), and one character portrait.
After the editors choose their recs, they submit them in a comment on a special glv_watch entry locked to editors only. They include the following information:
Title:
Author:
Map: For when no direct link is available. See our indirect linking policy.
Characters/Pairing:
Rating:
Spoilers:
Rec Blurb: This describes why this particular piece is worth reccing and appears in the Editor's Choice archives but not the newsletter itself.
Once the rec has been included in the next newsletter issue and in the current Editor's Choice archive, the comment is deleted and the post is pristine for next week's recs.
As an interesting note, we leave a review for everything we rec. We believe this is both a courtesy to the creator and a great advertising method. If we consider the art/story good enough to recommend personally, then we believe the author should be told this, and why. Plus we can leave a link for them to go see the rec and pimp the newsletter. Win/win, we say.
We often leave more squee or little personal notes and comments to the author/artist in these reviews, so we also leave links to those in the archive posts. This way people who are curious can see what else we had to say, and hopefully people will also be encouraged to leave comments themselves.
Also, although most of our editors write and/or draw in the One Piece fandom, editors may not rec their own work, nor that of any other editor. They may also not submit recs to the Fandom Recommends section, since they totally have their own sandbox to play in. This resctriction does not apply to Skimmers, Sources, Link Checkers, or Browsers, who may not submit editor recs, but may submit recs to the Fandom Recommends section, including recs of editors' works.
Why We Rec
Because we want to spread the fandom love. In any fandom, it's hard to find the good stuff. In a newsletter like grand_line_vine, which tries to report on EVERYTHING, it's especially easy for the really good stuff to get lost. We considered several policies about including and reccing fic. Simply posting all the new fic paints an accurate picture of the state of fandom as it is, and that's what we are really about, in the end: honestly reporting fandom news. However, with things like fic and art, it would definitely be nice to have some kind of indication of what fandom considers to be really good.
An elegant solution to this dilemma was first seen by justira in the Harry Potter fandom newsletter, daily_snitch: there is so much new fic and art for that fandom every day that they could not possibly cover it all, but if a fic or piece of art gets 3 recs sent in by fans, then the newsletter will post it. This is a very fair solution. Unfortunately, it is not a very prolific one. Only having a Fandom Recommends section would not make grand_line_vine a good source of quality fic and art.
This is where Editor's Choice comes in. We each provide links to three pieces of what we consider to be good art, and to two pieces of fic we like. This makes for a consistent source of at least marginally good fic and art.
Is this terribly elitist? We editors definitely are are not the Grand High Dictators of Fandom, we don't get to decide what's good and what's not, but hey, we love One Piece and One Piece fandom enough to work on this crazy project, so maybe our tastes are worth something. But to balance the tremendous elitism inherent in the Editor's Choice section, we have the other two sections. We hope this makes for a fair compromise.
Meet Your Reccers
So who are these people that have decided to dictate fandom for you? Well, let them speak for themselves:
justira is a total fandom mommy, apparently. I'm your editor in chief, founded the newsletter, and currently do the majority of the footwork for it. Please help me. Whining about the TOTALLY VOLUNTARY act of running the newsletter aside, I also draw and write in the One Piece fandom. My big hang-up when it comes to reccing things is characterization: I'm a huuuge stickler for in-character art and stories. I believe I have a sexual attraction to anything that explores character dynamics, and I love basically any character and any pairing/threesome/whatever, although I do have a favourite. You get to guess on that one, though. I'm severely attracted to sketches, but try to rec finished pieces because I think more people want to see those. Be prepared to see an odd cool sketch in my recs, though. I love everything, from gen to het to slash to femmeslash; from humour to dark humour to downright angst; from fluffy friendship fic to raunchy sex. I also love Japanese fan art sites pretty hard, but might not rec from them too much. I'm particularly prone to fics featuring heavy tragic/dramatic irony and pics with well-drawn hands. Also, I talk too much =D
megalotro is a ZOMBIE MASTER who enjoys terrorizing the masses with biting wit and... just biting in general! I also enjoy long walks on the beach. You know, the kind where you get sand in your shoe within the first thirty seconds of even LOOKING at the beach... but I digress! I enjoy reccing nakama-ship and slashy (hopefully snarky!) fics, personally. My art preferences tend towards casual group shots and arty portraits. While my fic tastes usually include Zoro and Sanji or the SmoAce thing, I love all the characters of One Piece; so my current fanart infatuation tends to shuffle through the cast at any given moment. Hope you enjoy the goodness that I enjoy! Also, for the record, I am SO not a whore... I'm just easy!
bottle_of_shine is a total fandom enabler. I am the resident One Piece newbie, having only joined the fun in 2006 by the prodding of justira. Because I'm a sponge for different dynamics, I tend to like all characters, but tend to shy away from extremely dark-themed things, although I'm not adverse to them--they'll pop up now and again in my recs, but they won't be the majority. The majority will be pretty cheerful and/or full of warm fuzzies. I've developed a healthy love for the amazing fanart the One Piece fandom boasts and tend to spend most of my time looking around Japanese art sites--lots of my recs will be of the fabulous stuff posted there.
Join our editing and reccing staff!
The One Piece Fandom Newsletter
Editor Reccing Policy
Last Updated July 30, 2006
Editors at grand_line_vine get to put forward art and fic recommendations to be featured in the Editor's Choice section of the newsletter. In an effort to make the publishing process of the newsletter transparent to curious readers and for the reference of the editors themselves, we have made our editor reccing policy and procedure public.
Unless you're an editor, you can't submit recs to the Editor's Choice section, but you can definitely submit a regular fandom rec! Please read the Fandom Recommendation Policy, and then submit a rec for fic or art. Alternatively, you can join our editing staff and submit Editor's Choice recs.
Recommendation Procedure
Every week all editors, including the editor in chief, general editors, and reccing editors, each submit three art recs and two fic recs. We try to bring a good balance of material, including a mix of gen, het, slash, and femmeslash; of humour and angst; of action and thought-pieces. Generally, we each try to rec one general and one shippy (het, slash, femmeslash, whatever) fic a week. For art, we each try to get in one group pic (because it's all about nakama, isn't it?), one shippy pic (again, het, slash, femmeslash, whatever), and one character portrait.
After the editors choose their recs, they submit them in a comment on a special glv_watch entry locked to editors only. They include the following information:
Title:
Author:
Map: For when no direct link is available. See our indirect linking policy.
Characters/Pairing:
Rating:
Spoilers:
Rec Blurb: This describes why this particular piece is worth reccing and appears in the Editor's Choice archives but not the newsletter itself.
Once the rec has been included in the next newsletter issue and in the current Editor's Choice archive, the comment is deleted and the post is pristine for next week's recs.
As an interesting note, we leave a review for everything we rec. We believe this is both a courtesy to the creator and a great advertising method. If we consider the art/story good enough to recommend personally, then we believe the author should be told this, and why. Plus we can leave a link for them to go see the rec and pimp the newsletter. Win/win, we say.
We often leave more squee or little personal notes and comments to the author/artist in these reviews, so we also leave links to those in the archive posts. This way people who are curious can see what else we had to say, and hopefully people will also be encouraged to leave comments themselves.
Also, although most of our editors write and/or draw in the One Piece fandom, editors may not rec their own work, nor that of any other editor. They may also not submit recs to the Fandom Recommends section, since they totally have their own sandbox to play in. This resctriction does not apply to Skimmers, Sources, Link Checkers, or Browsers, who may not submit editor recs, but may submit recs to the Fandom Recommends section, including recs of editors' works.
Why We Rec
Because we want to spread the fandom love. In any fandom, it's hard to find the good stuff. In a newsletter like grand_line_vine, which tries to report on EVERYTHING, it's especially easy for the really good stuff to get lost. We considered several policies about including and reccing fic. Simply posting all the new fic paints an accurate picture of the state of fandom as it is, and that's what we are really about, in the end: honestly reporting fandom news. However, with things like fic and art, it would definitely be nice to have some kind of indication of what fandom considers to be really good.
An elegant solution to this dilemma was first seen by justira in the Harry Potter fandom newsletter, daily_snitch: there is so much new fic and art for that fandom every day that they could not possibly cover it all, but if a fic or piece of art gets 3 recs sent in by fans, then the newsletter will post it. This is a very fair solution. Unfortunately, it is not a very prolific one. Only having a Fandom Recommends section would not make grand_line_vine a good source of quality fic and art.
This is where Editor's Choice comes in. We each provide links to three pieces of what we consider to be good art, and to two pieces of fic we like. This makes for a consistent source of at least marginally good fic and art.
Is this terribly elitist? We editors definitely are are not the Grand High Dictators of Fandom, we don't get to decide what's good and what's not, but hey, we love One Piece and One Piece fandom enough to work on this crazy project, so maybe our tastes are worth something. But to balance the tremendous elitism inherent in the Editor's Choice section, we have the other two sections. We hope this makes for a fair compromise.
Meet Your Reccers
So who are these people that have decided to dictate fandom for you? Well, let them speak for themselves:
justira is a total fandom mommy, apparently. I'm your editor in chief, founded the newsletter, and currently do the majority of the footwork for it. Please help me. Whining about the TOTALLY VOLUNTARY act of running the newsletter aside, I also draw and write in the One Piece fandom. My big hang-up when it comes to reccing things is characterization: I'm a huuuge stickler for in-character art and stories. I believe I have a sexual attraction to anything that explores character dynamics, and I love basically any character and any pairing/threesome/whatever, although I do have a favourite. You get to guess on that one, though. I'm severely attracted to sketches, but try to rec finished pieces because I think more people want to see those. Be prepared to see an odd cool sketch in my recs, though. I love everything, from gen to het to slash to femmeslash; from humour to dark humour to downright angst; from fluffy friendship fic to raunchy sex. I also love Japanese fan art sites pretty hard, but might not rec from them too much. I'm particularly prone to fics featuring heavy tragic/dramatic irony and pics with well-drawn hands. Also, I talk too much =D
megalotro is a ZOMBIE MASTER who enjoys terrorizing the masses with biting wit and... just biting in general! I also enjoy long walks on the beach. You know, the kind where you get sand in your shoe within the first thirty seconds of even LOOKING at the beach... but I digress! I enjoy reccing nakama-ship and slashy (hopefully snarky!) fics, personally. My art preferences tend towards casual group shots and arty portraits. While my fic tastes usually include Zoro and Sanji or the SmoAce thing, I love all the characters of One Piece; so my current fanart infatuation tends to shuffle through the cast at any given moment. Hope you enjoy the goodness that I enjoy! Also, for the record, I am SO not a whore... I'm just easy!
bottle_of_shine is a total fandom enabler. I am the resident One Piece newbie, having only joined the fun in 2006 by the prodding of justira. Because I'm a sponge for different dynamics, I tend to like all characters, but tend to shy away from extremely dark-themed things, although I'm not adverse to them--they'll pop up now and again in my recs, but they won't be the majority. The majority will be pretty cheerful and/or full of warm fuzzies. I've developed a healthy love for the amazing fanart the One Piece fandom boasts and tend to spend most of my time looking around Japanese art sites--lots of my recs will be of the fabulous stuff posted there.
Join our editing and reccing staff!