Well, firstly - my main 'complaint' is the layout. It drives me nuts and it really needs to be fixed. Personally, I'd say the person to do that would be makeyoubelievex - she designs most of my layouts and they're all wonderful. She knows what she's doing.
I second the thought of adding KMFDM - it's close enough in the fandom, considering a lot of it's going to have Skold in it.
I honestly would be really pissed if we needed to have someone beta out work before we posted them - or however you're thinking. I don't like other people editing my work. I've never used a beta and I don't plan on it. It's just a thing I've got - I don't want other people changing my writing. I think it should be a 'rule' that we don't accept stories with blatantly bad grammar, punctuation or formatting. I think most of the current writers know what is expected of a 'good' story and the mechanics of writing properly, but if the community starts to grow - we're going to get people who don't fully understand the concept of proof-reading. I think these would be times when a moderator takes the story down, informs the poster why it was taken down and ask them to fix it and re-send it.
I spend enough time on here, so I'm willing to help. I'd like to see this place get a bit bigger and a bit more productive. I thank you greatly for responding. I'm hoping I'm not coming off too bitchy.
I think that TwistedKlown's suggestion of saying that stories with blatantly bad grammar, punctuation or formatting will be removed is a much better suggestion that forcing a beta onto people. Advising people to use one and saying that fics may be subject to removal if they are found to be of exceptionally poor quality or have complaints lodged about them.
^ I second that. People can list their 8 year old sister as beta if they really can't be arsed, and we might be flooded with the sort of crap you find on fandomination.net.
But that would need a very active moderator. Moderating posts would be a valid option, where you post and it goes to the moderation queue where a mod reads it then approves if there's no bad spelling/grammar. if there is the story is rejected and the mod can suggest a beta or point out the mistakes and encourage reposting. That however needs someone to do that all the time. Granted, we don't have a ton of fics here, but i for one hate to wait for my story to appear on the site when i know there aren't any mistakes, have betaed and proff read 3 times and it still doesn't appear cause the mod has no time for it.
I don't think that's really necessary because it takes up too much of the mods' time - after all, nobody's getting paid for this. If I was moderator, I wouldn't really want to do that. So far we haven't actually had rubbish fics, so my vote would be that beta is RECOMMENDED but not enforced, and if something obviously hasn't been bothered with and loKs liek D1S!!!!! then we'll pull it down. I think more good fics get posted here than bad ones, so creating a moderator queue where the authors would have to wait for their fics to get through would be very unrewarding, as fics get few reviews anyway. Imagine writing the fic for a week, then waiting another week for it to get approved, and then getting maybe one review. It makes it more frustrating if you've had to wait for it. :)
ERGH! Moderating POSTS is a PAIN! I've done it on only vagely active mailing lists and it is a really annoying and often not worth the time.
I think the best thing to do with this is to make sure the mods are active and reading all the fics that come in - that's the only way bad fic gets found is if people are reading it! And I know I can't talk much given I just pulled my most recent fics, but I for one wouldn't bother to post anything if it had to wait in a cue.
I for one wouldn't bother to post anything if it had to wait in a cue.
Me too, and I know katrinavt will be of the same opinion as she's said that to me often, and doesn't usually bother with posting her fic on moderated communities.
It's too much of a hassle and if the moderators have RL issues, they of course take precedence (rightly so!) and posts can wait in line for days at a time!
Plus, being in several different time zones... It makes it hard on those of us who are in the minority and out of the main time zones (US and Europe) as we have to wait for many hours - usually over night - to see our fics posted.
I second the thought of adding KMFDM - it's close enough in the fandom, considering a lot of it's going to have Skold in it.
I honestly would be really pissed if we needed to have someone beta out work before we posted them - or however you're thinking. I don't like other people editing my work. I've never used a beta and I don't plan on it. It's just a thing I've got - I don't want other people changing my writing. I think it should be a 'rule' that we don't accept stories with blatantly bad grammar, punctuation or formatting. I think most of the current writers know what is expected of a 'good' story and the mechanics of writing properly, but if the community starts to grow - we're going to get people who don't fully understand the concept of proof-reading. I think these would be times when a moderator takes the story down, informs the poster why it was taken down and ask them to fix it and re-send it.
I spend enough time on here, so I'm willing to help. I'd like to see this place get a bit bigger and a bit more productive. I thank you greatly for responding. I'm hoping I'm not coming off too bitchy.
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And you could be exempt from the beta rule. :)
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I second that. People can list their 8 year old sister as beta if they really can't be arsed, and we might be flooded with the sort of crap you find on fandomination.net.
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But that would need a very active moderator. Moderating posts would be a valid option, where you post and it goes to the moderation queue where a mod reads it then approves if there's no bad spelling/grammar. if there is the story is rejected and the mod can suggest a beta or point out the mistakes and encourage reposting. That however needs someone to do that all the time. Granted, we don't have a ton of fics here, but i for one hate to wait for my story to appear on the site when i know there aren't any mistakes, have betaed and proff read 3 times and it still doesn't appear cause the mod has no time for it.
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I think the best thing to do with this is to make sure the mods are active and reading all the fics that come in - that's the only way bad fic gets found is if people are reading it! And I know I can't talk much given I just pulled my most recent fics, but I for one wouldn't bother to post anything if it had to wait in a cue.
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Me too, and I know katrinavt will be of the same opinion as she's said that to me often, and doesn't usually bother with posting her fic on moderated communities.
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Plus, being in several different time zones... It makes it hard on those of us who are in the minority and out of the main time zones (US and Europe) as we have to wait for many hours - usually over night - to see our fics posted.
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