Mod Post: I'd Like Your Input! (Please?)

[chispas]

Hello everybody~.

I've been thinking about what I can do to increase the liveliness this community. I'm super, super, seuperrr psyched about how successful it is already, but I'm curious as to if anyone has any ideas to encourage growth within the community. I have a couple of ideas I want to put forth. Anon commenting will be on, so feel free to

Comments

[anonymous]

I don't know if there's a solution to the feedback question - I mean, you can't help what pairings and characters are popular, and with the best will in the world, I'm afraid I for one am not going to be able to leave a comment on a brilliantly-written fic if it's about people I don't really care about, even if I read it in the first place.

Plus, I got very nervous about posting more specific prompts after people got a bit restless with the same pairings being prompted over and over. I happen to love some very popular pairings, so if I post prompts suggesting the pairings I really want, I'm worried there'd be a lot of eye-rolling and "Not this *again*!" So I try and be more open about pairings in case anyone feels the prompt fits their own OTP.

(The rest of the comment isn't aimed specifically at you btw, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on the original post at the same time! ;)

I think challenges, whether fortnightly or monthly (though I agree weekly is probably too much) might get people writing more - if there's a chance to write something shorter and less in-depth people who maybe haven't written before can dabble and try their hand at it. Plus it won't take too much time for those of us who want to dash off something quickly without disturbing our regular writing time. ;) Basically I just would love more fic to read more of the time, haha, so I'm all about encouraging new people as well as old!

[anonymous]

First anon again:

Re: commenting
I'm afraid I for one am not going to be able to leave a comment on a brilliantly-written fic if it's about people I don't really care about, even if I read it in the first place.

See, this is something I don't understand. I'm not saying you should leave 500+ words feedback, but just a short 'nice story' or 'liked it, even if i don't care about the pairing' is all the feedback people need to keep writing and branch out. I've heard people say that they won't even try writing in small fandoms because they won't get comments anyway. Which is just sad.

To me, I prefer some specific pairings as well (which is natural), but I leave a comment - longer or shorter - on every fic I read. If I haven't left a comment, I haven't read it, which I only do if a pairing or kink isn't mine at all. And with the few fics that are out there, I even read a lot of fics for stuff I really don't care for, and often find myself enjoying it.

I'm not saying read stuff you don't want to read, that would be silly. But if you read it, let the authors know. Just two words can mean so much and keep people writing.

Re: prompting for popular pairings
I can understand the frustration on both sides, but we need a middle ground. I think a lot of people just got annoyed because out of 20 prompts, (felt) 12 were Felipe/Rob and 7 were unspecific pairings. I bet most of the annoyed people would have been less annoyed with 5 of those 7 unspecific ones would have been specific.

And a lot of people might have been annoyed because there are already so many Rob/Felipe specific prompts, and even more unspecific prompts also get filled with the pairing. And if that gets combined with people reading but not commenting on other pairing fills, the writers that do write other prompts will get even more discouraged and more frustrated about all those Rob/Felipe fics.

I'm not even going to say something about the quality of fic, because that doesn't matter: If you read it, leave feedback; that encourages more variety and in the end, more fills in general.

[anonymous]

I'm afraid I for one am not going to be able to leave a comment on a brilliantly-written fic if it's about people I don't really care about, even if I read it in the first place.

Just to clarify, what I really meant by this remark about commenting is that it's very likely I *won't* read it in the first place if it's characters I don't know anything about. So of course it's a real shame for people who write more obscure pairings, and I wish I liked them because I do always try to comment if I've enjoyed a fic! But more popular pairings are going to get more comments because more people read them, and I don't want people to be put off just because their fic doesn't get as many comments as someone else's - it's not a judgement of quality! But if people get put off writing obscure pairings because they don't get as many comments as more popular pairings, then the only things that will get written are popular pairings, and it's just self-perpetuating, if you see what I mean!

I bet most of the annoyed people would have been less annoyed with 5 of those 7 unspecific ones would have been specific

Even if they'd all also been Rob/Felipe...? ^^;; Because the only reason I don't specify a pairing is because I think it's too popular lol.

Sorry, this hasn't been an especially helpful comment as to finding a solution, but tbh I've never been put off by lack of comments, lol, cos you never know until you've written and posted it what people are going to think! So I always think it's worth giving it a go, if you're inspired! :)

[anonymous]

I suspect it's more annoying if you don't like Rolipe (I am a big Rolipe fan btw) and find an unspecific prompt has then also been filled with them? (I also am a big fan of chocolate cake, but you know, if I'd eaten 12 and then I had 7 unspecific desserts to go, and 5 of those 7 then turned out to be chocolate cake as well, I could see how the trifle lovers could be fed up and I might also be wanting trifle myself by that point... whereas if we'd all just known from the start that the trifle wasn't happening, we could accept it.... or something ;P)

[anonymous]

I don't think there's any rule against filling prompts more than once! Then we can all have chocolate cake AND trifle! :Db Lol I like this analogy a lot >.>

[anonymous]

There isn't - in fact multiple fills are perfectly allowed by the rules! Then it's chocolate cake, trifle, victoria sponge, and ice cream all round XD

[jenner_ginnis]

Yeah it's actually kinda interesting when you get multiple fills. Not seen one yet when I've gone, "Oh that sucked compared to the other one" in case that's what puts off the second bod.