In support of the Spoon

[wendymr]

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

Comments

[nyaaaaaauuuuuuu]

instead of badly-spelt, ungrammatical 'summaries'...yes, or, er, 'summeries." Maybe it's my internal evil kitty, but seeing that particular typo always makes me crack up.

Sure, you have to get used to a couple hours' delay when posting a fic. But...while it's nice to see everything immediately, it's really not an inconvenience, to me, anyway. There're lots of other things to do in between posting and approval. Like real life. And the dishes. (Which I am pointedly avoiding doing at this very moment.) I, too, am a bit impressed by the mods' dedication, to be able to get turnaround time for approval down to a few hours.

I used to be on ff.net, but got a bit tired of the site, as well as the fandoms I was writing in, so when I got into DW, I was really glad to find Teaspoon, as it was definitely a step up from ff.net. And I think the changes now seem to be for the better.

[wendymr]

Yeah, I posted on ff.net for a while, though the fandom I was in before (Lois and Clark) has a really well-organised archive (www.lcfanfic.com). But I finally gave up after one change too many from the site owners, which destroyed all my formatting when I uploaded a fic. Apart from that, though, I rarely actually read on ff.net because of the (lack of) quality of fic there. Coming from the L&C archive, where every fic is edited for spelling and grammar before posting, I was spoiled.

And, yes, delays waiting for my fic to be moderated don't inconvenience me one bit - like I said above, I'm not that desperate to get new reviews ;) And given what honorh says about ff.net taking 24 hours to upload a new fic/chapter, I think we have it pretty damn good at the Spoon.

[tardis_stowaway]

Hear, hear! My only major problem with the changes is losing the hilarity value of truly awful summaries (and honorh's executions of them). A higher quality of stories is worth a couple fewer laughs at the expense of the grammatically challenged

[wendymr]

I agree; as I commented to honorh above, I'll miss her sporking. But I'm sure she'll find something else to poke fun at (in a totally good-humoured way, of course :) ).

That sounds a tad over-zealous, and I know I've put a comment like that in a fic summary on occasion, but hey, big deal. It's not like you're being told you can't upload it, and if that's the kind of thing the mods have decided is extraneous for summaries then that's their choice. Yeah, if they started rejecting fics wholesale for reasons that really couldn't be justified that'd be different, but so far I'm not seeing evidence of that.

As for calufrax, have you signed up to rec yet? You clearly like a variety of fic/pairings/eras, so your recs would be interesting :)

[tardis_stowaway]

As for calufrax, have you signed up to rec yet? You clearly like a variety of fic/pairings/eras, so your recs would be interesting :)

Why thanks! I'm still pondering whether I should. I don't completely limit myself to one 'ship or era, but I lean pretty strongly towards Doctor/Rose and sometimes OT3. My knowledge of Classic Who and associated fic is exceedingly limited. I would have a difficult time picking out a true variety. On the other hand, I think it would be fun to pimp out my favorites. My current mission is to seek out more decent Martha fic, so maybe I'll find some worth recommending.

[foible]

I have to confess to having a bit of an old school view of archives. Way back in the olden days (before ff-net and the magic of uploading your own work to an archive) I managed what eventually grew into a behemoth the old fashioned way. I read the fic as it hit the list serves (yeah, this was pre lj, too, oh God I'm old) and asked the authors for permission to archive their work. Some of them gave me html'd copies, others spoke not this strange html and gave me text. I also accepted submissions, which led to my beta-reading a lot, 'cause I was terrible at saying no. I wrote most of the summaries, set the ratings, and had monthly features to pimp the really good stuff.

Anyway... the damned archive ate my soul (and my social life) and I ultimately found a sucker friend to take it over, who eventually found an even crazier nicer friend who, bless her mad heart, maintains the beast to this day

[solarflar3]

I think the changes will be good in the end, there will obviously be some upheaval at first. Although it is a pain when you are waiting for your story to appear, people need to bear in mind that the mods have a life too. I posted my last fic just before I went to bed and it was there, along with reviews when I got up the next morning. So no hardship there

[misscam]

Moderation is an ungrateful job and ten.

I think most of these changes are for good, though not without some problems. However, whichever way you choose to run an archive you will have problems of one kind of another. I think these are lesser of two evils, quite frankly.

And a comm where even multi-era stories can get rec'ed is always nice :D