ADMIN: Season Three News
Hi, everybody!
As promised, soft_princess and I took some time to talk about the community and to make a few changes that we think are going to keep things moving along better than they have been in the last few months. Some of that was our fault, and we're hoping that our offline lives will be going a little better now; some of it, though, we think we can improve by streamlining the third "season" of maleslashminis.
Season 2 featured a lot of rounds--13, not counting the bonus rounds--and we've realized that was just too many; by the end, even we were starting to lose interest, as it had been six months or more since the characters we were really interested in had been featured in a round.
We decided that our first step should be to find out the average number of stories posted in the rounds focused on a particular character (based on two seasons for everyone but Xander and two seasons plus this autumn's Xander round for him). The results were:
Giles: 15 stories per round
Xander: 11.33 stories per round
Gunn: 10 stories per round
Wesley: 10 stories per round
Spike: 9 stories per round
Angel: 7.5 stories per round
Lindsey: 6 stories per round
Oz: 5.5 stories per round
For the Firefly guys, nobody had a second round; the numbers were:
Mal: 12
Simon: 10
Jayne: 8
Combined "Firefly round" 6
Average for all FF rounds: 9
(The average for the Minor Characters round was 7.5 stories; we've decided to keep it going because it offers people whose favorites are not featured the chance to request/write about them.)
What we decided was that any character who was averaging fewer than 10 stories per round should probably either be eliminated (and therefore put into the Minor Characters round) or put into a combination round. We've eliminated the Lindsey and Oz rounds; Spike, Angel, and the Firefly guys will be kept on, but in combined rounds.
For Firefly, even though some of the guys were popular enough, the overall numbers have convinced us that we should go back to doing one Firefly round, in which all the guys are eligible, as well as allowing Firefly/Buffyverse crossovers in the other rounds.
For Spike and Angel, we're going to combine them into a Vampires round. We anticipate that the focus of that round will be Spike and Angel, but any male vampire character from canon (including the comics) will be eligible. (That includes some characters who are eligible elsewhere, we know--like vamp!Xander from the Wishverse.)
We know that some of these guys are major characters (Spike! Angel! Etc.!), but they haven't attracted a great deal of interest so far in this particular community, and bigger rounds are easier to match up and generate more enthusiasm, overall. This also isn't set in stone--if the Vampires round is huge this time, for example, we'd consider going back to separate Spike and Angel rounds.
That means when the first poll of the new Season 3 goes up, your choices will be:
Firefly
Giles
Gunn
Minor Characters
Wesley
Xander
Vampires
We'll still have bonus rounds every now and then; more about those when they come up.
The next round (Round 29) will begin next Thursday, January 29, when we post a poll. If you were still trying to finish your story from Round 28, you should post it no later than Wednesday, January 28. (If you're doing an assigned backup story, while we'd love it to be posted by the 28th, you will be allowed to post later if necessary.)
Questions and comments are welcome.
--mireille719, for the mod team
As promised, soft_princess and I took some time to talk about the community and to make a few changes that we think are going to keep things moving along better than they have been in the last few months. Some of that was our fault, and we're hoping that our offline lives will be going a little better now; some of it, though, we think we can improve by streamlining the third "season" of maleslashminis.
Season 2 featured a lot of rounds--13, not counting the bonus rounds--and we've realized that was just too many; by the end, even we were starting to lose interest, as it had been six months or more since the characters we were really interested in had been featured in a round.
We decided that our first step should be to find out the average number of stories posted in the rounds focused on a particular character (based on two seasons for everyone but Xander and two seasons plus this autumn's Xander round for him). The results were:
Giles: 15 stories per round
Xander: 11.33 stories per round
Gunn: 10 stories per round
Wesley: 10 stories per round
Spike: 9 stories per round
Angel: 7.5 stories per round
Lindsey: 6 stories per round
Oz: 5.5 stories per round
For the Firefly guys, nobody had a second round; the numbers were:
Mal: 12
Simon: 10
Jayne: 8
Combined "Firefly round" 6
Average for all FF rounds: 9
(The average for the Minor Characters round was 7.5 stories; we've decided to keep it going because it offers people whose favorites are not featured the chance to request/write about them.)
What we decided was that any character who was averaging fewer than 10 stories per round should probably either be eliminated (and therefore put into the Minor Characters round) or put into a combination round. We've eliminated the Lindsey and Oz rounds; Spike, Angel, and the Firefly guys will be kept on, but in combined rounds.
For Firefly, even though some of the guys were popular enough, the overall numbers have convinced us that we should go back to doing one Firefly round, in which all the guys are eligible, as well as allowing Firefly/Buffyverse crossovers in the other rounds.
For Spike and Angel, we're going to combine them into a Vampires round. We anticipate that the focus of that round will be Spike and Angel, but any male vampire character from canon (including the comics) will be eligible. (That includes some characters who are eligible elsewhere, we know--like vamp!Xander from the Wishverse.)
We know that some of these guys are major characters (Spike! Angel! Etc.!), but they haven't attracted a great deal of interest so far in this particular community, and bigger rounds are easier to match up and generate more enthusiasm, overall. This also isn't set in stone--if the Vampires round is huge this time, for example, we'd consider going back to separate Spike and Angel rounds.
That means when the first poll of the new Season 3 goes up, your choices will be:
Firefly
Giles
Gunn
Minor Characters
Wesley
Xander
Vampires
We'll still have bonus rounds every now and then; more about those when they come up.
The next round (Round 29) will begin next Thursday, January 29, when we post a poll. If you were still trying to finish your story from Round 28, you should post it no later than Wednesday, January 28. (If you're doing an assigned backup story, while we'd love it to be posted by the 28th, you will be allowed to post later if necessary.)
Questions and comments are welcome.
--mireille719, for the mod team