In support of the Spoon
So I hear in and around LJ that not everyone's thrilled with the recent changes over on the Teaspoon. Nothing wrong with that, of course; everyone's entitled to an opinion, and you'll never get everyone to agree on everything anyway. But since I do actually feel that, on the whole, the changes are making the 'Spoon a better site, I thought I'd speak up about why I support the mods and the new policies, just to redress the balance a little.
First of all, let's take the moderation policy - all new submissions, whether chapters or stories, are in a moderation queue. This can mean a delay of up to several hours for a story or chapter to appear on the site. Now, I've whinged myself about having to wait a couple of hours for a chapter of a fic I was following when I knew the author had posted, but that's only because I'm used to seeing stories appear immediately. There are other archives where it can take weeks for stories/chapters to appear.
I like the moderation policy because:
- we now get decent summaries, properly-spelt, which actually give some clue about what the fic is about, instead of badly-spelt, ungrammatical 'summaries' of the sort that
honorhwould spork in her Summary Executions.
- no more review-whoring in summaries - sorry, but I review if I want to, not because the author's begged/threatened. And, actually, since I'm a stubborn bitch, begging for reviews makes me do precisely the opposite.
- as I understand it, fic content is also being looked at (though I have no idea how the mods have time to do all this); for example, I'm delighted to see the back of self-inserts, fic where the author appears 'in conversation' with the characters.
All of that's worth the delay in getting fic actually up on the site, in my opinion.
Then there's the demise of round robins and essays. I didn't have a problem with essays, as such, though I take the point that there are other fora for this kind of thing. And, yes, a few of the essays seemed to be just excuses to write about how much the author liked/disliked certain characters, rather than any kind of real meta. As for round robins, very few of these were genuinely round robins in the sense of an actual story, with an ongoing plot. Most of them, as far as I could see, were an excuse to character-bash (let's see how many times we can kill Reinette) or insert individual authors into the story.
The ratings changes are an improvement, though I wasn't altogether happy with the first version, which left us only with Adult or All Ages. As a number of people pointed out, that's a huge spectrum, and many fics aren't suitable for all ages yet aren't adult and don't really deserve that rating - plus there are people who like to read mild smut but don't want full-out descriptions of sex. I was very pleased that the mods reintroduced a Teen rating - and that shows willingness to listen to users who make their point politely and convincingly.
The disappearance of the thumbs-up - really, on a scale of one to ten, where ten's of earth-shattering importance and one's 'I wouldn't interrupt reading the financial pages (which I never read) to pay attention it it', I'm about a two. ;) But I think it's a good idea, because it never worked as it should. I reported to the mods months ago the fact that one negative vote took away the thumb (because I accidentally hit 'dislike' on a fic I really enjoyed and found that I couldn't correct it); they were surprised and agreed that it was clearly a bug in the programme. Seems it couldn't be fixed. In theory, anyone taking a dislike to a particular author or a particular ship could have gone on a 'negative' voting spree had they wanted. I've no idea whether that was ever a concern, but in any case it's no big deal to see the thumbs gone.
And then there's the Tens, which seems to have attracted the most controversy. Personally - and I was on two of those Tens lists, if I recall correctly - I'm glad to see them gone, on balance. Some of the lists weren't really of any use to anyone - shortest story, longest story etc - and of the 'favourite story/most reviewed story' lists which people have been lamenting, again on balance I think these aren't much of a loss. As I commented over on
whofic, the lists mostly comprised stories for the most popular ship on Teaspoon, Doctor/Rose (and, yeah, I'm a Doctor/Rose fan myself), so they were of little use to anyone not looking specifically for Doctor/Rose. And, also, there did seem to be something of a correlation between at least some of the stories on the 'most reviewed' list and those whose authors did everything, including holding chapters hostage, to get reviews. Now, maybe everyone who reviewed would have anyway; maybe those stories deserved the reviews they got. I didn't read some of them myself as I tried a couple of chapters and found they didn't appeal to me, but obviously a lot of other readers liked them and that's good. Still, I don't feel that the Tens disappearing is a major loss. And, as I've said elsewhere, if you who want help finding good fic to read, then take a look at the favourites page of authors you like. You've got a better chance of finding more fic you might enjoy than you would on one list of ten most-reviewed or most-favourited fic which in any case mostly focuses on one genre.
Also, for fic recs, there's now
calufrax. The mods there are encouraging recs from as many eras and companions as possible, so it'll be interesting to see what comes out of that. There's some attempt to discourage too much Doctor/Rose as there's already a Doctor/Rose rec comm (though there's also a general DW fic rec comm; having said that, that seems to be pretty dormant now). Though I've been told I can rec Doctor/Rose as long as I mix it up a bit and rec other genres also - and that can all be New Who if I wish. I'm signed up to rec from 11-17 February, and I intend to rec Nine, Ten, OT3, Doctor/Jack and Doctor/Rose.
The final reason, though, that I support the Teaspoon through the site changes is that it's ultimately a private fanfiction site. The people who run it give their time freely to this role. They pay for it - yes, some of us helped with donations and will do again, but we're not the ones who pay the bill month after month. It's their site; they're entitled to make the rules. And before anyone says anything about dictatorship or whatever, every other fanfiction site on the internet does the same. Take fanfiction.net (and these changes, I'm thankful to say, are stopping the Teaspoon from degenerating into a Whovian version of ff.net): that site has rules - lots of 'em - and there's been controversy about those too. What about when ff.net banned adult fic? Deleted adult fics with hardly any warning? Created adultfanfic.net and then had all sorts of problems with that? Moved to a chaptering system with barely any consultation? Changed the upload software so lots of formatting disappeared when fics were uploaded?
I moderate a message board in another fandom. I used to edit for a fanfiction archive in that forum. I know that moderators do a hell of a lot of work that's unseen and under-appreciated. I know that most of the time mods only get attention when things go wrong - and then they often get abuse rather than thanks. Yes, I know that mods can make mistakes and get things wrong. I certainly have. We have a very hard-working team over at the Teaspoon, and I only know two or three of them, and that only slightly; one of the new mods is on my flist, but that's all, I believe. They're working even harder right now with the moderation policy. So this is me standing up and saying thank you for all your hard work, and congratulations for what you're doing to make the Teaspoon a fanfic archive to be proud of. You might not get everything right all the time, but you try damn hard and you deserve thanks as well as the (constructive, I hope!) criticism you may get when you do get things wrong.
I'm proud to be an author on the Teaspoon, and thank you for hosting my fic and for providing me with lots of other great fic to feed my addition.
- wmr on the Teaspoon.
First of all, let's take the moderation policy - all new submissions, whether chapters or stories, are in a moderation queue. This can mean a delay of up to several hours for a story or chapter to appear on the site. Now, I've whinged myself about having to wait a couple of hours for a chapter of a fic I was following when I knew the author had posted, but that's only because I'm used to seeing stories appear immediately. There are other archives where it can take weeks for stories/chapters to appear.
I like the moderation policy because:
- we now get decent summaries, properly-spelt, which actually give some clue about what the fic is about, instead of badly-spelt, ungrammatical 'summaries' of the sort that
honorhwould spork in her Summary Executions.
- no more review-whoring in summaries - sorry, but I review if I want to, not because the author's begged/threatened. And, actually, since I'm a stubborn bitch, begging for reviews makes me do precisely the opposite.
- as I understand it, fic content is also being looked at (though I have no idea how the mods have time to do all this); for example, I'm delighted to see the back of self-inserts, fic where the author appears 'in conversation' with the characters.
All of that's worth the delay in getting fic actually up on the site, in my opinion.
Then there's the demise of round robins and essays. I didn't have a problem with essays, as such, though I take the point that there are other fora for this kind of thing. And, yes, a few of the essays seemed to be just excuses to write about how much the author liked/disliked certain characters, rather than any kind of real meta. As for round robins, very few of these were genuinely round robins in the sense of an actual story, with an ongoing plot. Most of them, as far as I could see, were an excuse to character-bash (let's see how many times we can kill Reinette) or insert individual authors into the story.
The ratings changes are an improvement, though I wasn't altogether happy with the first version, which left us only with Adult or All Ages. As a number of people pointed out, that's a huge spectrum, and many fics aren't suitable for all ages yet aren't adult and don't really deserve that rating - plus there are people who like to read mild smut but don't want full-out descriptions of sex. I was very pleased that the mods reintroduced a Teen rating - and that shows willingness to listen to users who make their point politely and convincingly.
The disappearance of the thumbs-up - really, on a scale of one to ten, where ten's of earth-shattering importance and one's 'I wouldn't interrupt reading the financial pages (which I never read) to pay attention it it', I'm about a two. ;) But I think it's a good idea, because it never worked as it should. I reported to the mods months ago the fact that one negative vote took away the thumb (because I accidentally hit 'dislike' on a fic I really enjoyed and found that I couldn't correct it); they were surprised and agreed that it was clearly a bug in the programme. Seems it couldn't be fixed. In theory, anyone taking a dislike to a particular author or a particular ship could have gone on a 'negative' voting spree had they wanted. I've no idea whether that was ever a concern, but in any case it's no big deal to see the thumbs gone.
And then there's the Tens, which seems to have attracted the most controversy. Personally - and I was on two of those Tens lists, if I recall correctly - I'm glad to see them gone, on balance. Some of the lists weren't really of any use to anyone - shortest story, longest story etc - and of the 'favourite story/most reviewed story' lists which people have been lamenting, again on balance I think these aren't much of a loss. As I commented over on
whofic, the lists mostly comprised stories for the most popular ship on Teaspoon, Doctor/Rose (and, yeah, I'm a Doctor/Rose fan myself), so they were of little use to anyone not looking specifically for Doctor/Rose. And, also, there did seem to be something of a correlation between at least some of the stories on the 'most reviewed' list and those whose authors did everything, including holding chapters hostage, to get reviews. Now, maybe everyone who reviewed would have anyway; maybe those stories deserved the reviews they got. I didn't read some of them myself as I tried a couple of chapters and found they didn't appeal to me, but obviously a lot of other readers liked them and that's good. Still, I don't feel that the Tens disappearing is a major loss. And, as I've said elsewhere, if you who want help finding good fic to read, then take a look at the favourites page of authors you like. You've got a better chance of finding more fic you might enjoy than you would on one list of ten most-reviewed or most-favourited fic which in any case mostly focuses on one genre.
Also, for fic recs, there's now
calufrax. The mods there are encouraging recs from as many eras and companions as possible, so it'll be interesting to see what comes out of that. There's some attempt to discourage too much Doctor/Rose as there's already a Doctor/Rose rec comm (though there's also a general DW fic rec comm; having said that, that seems to be pretty dormant now). Though I've been told I can rec Doctor/Rose as long as I mix it up a bit and rec other genres also - and that can all be New Who if I wish. I'm signed up to rec from 11-17 February, and I intend to rec Nine, Ten, OT3, Doctor/Jack and Doctor/Rose.
The final reason, though, that I support the Teaspoon through the site changes is that it's ultimately a private fanfiction site. The people who run it give their time freely to this role. They pay for it - yes, some of us helped with donations and will do again, but we're not the ones who pay the bill month after month. It's their site; they're entitled to make the rules. And before anyone says anything about dictatorship or whatever, every other fanfiction site on the internet does the same. Take fanfiction.net (and these changes, I'm thankful to say, are stopping the Teaspoon from degenerating into a Whovian version of ff.net): that site has rules - lots of 'em - and there's been controversy about those too. What about when ff.net banned adult fic? Deleted adult fics with hardly any warning? Created adultfanfic.net and then had all sorts of problems with that? Moved to a chaptering system with barely any consultation? Changed the upload software so lots of formatting disappeared when fics were uploaded?
I moderate a message board in another fandom. I used to edit for a fanfiction archive in that forum. I know that moderators do a hell of a lot of work that's unseen and under-appreciated. I know that most of the time mods only get attention when things go wrong - and then they often get abuse rather than thanks. Yes, I know that mods can make mistakes and get things wrong. I certainly have. We have a very hard-working team over at the Teaspoon, and I only know two or three of them, and that only slightly; one of the new mods is on my flist, but that's all, I believe. They're working even harder right now with the moderation policy. So this is me standing up and saying thank you for all your hard work, and congratulations for what you're doing to make the Teaspoon a fanfic archive to be proud of. You might not get everything right all the time, but you try damn hard and you deserve thanks as well as the (constructive, I hope!) criticism you may get when you do get things wrong.
I'm proud to be an author on the Teaspoon, and thank you for hosting my fic and for providing me with lots of other great fic to feed my addition.
- wmr on the Teaspoon.