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Post by Moni on Dec 18, 2017 17:05:17 GMT -5
This is probably going to be my last post on this thread because I'll be MIA (lol sorry vets) for the next six weeks or so. I might hop on, onnnnly to collect fuzzies and distribute them, but otherwise I'll be very scarce. So this'll probably be a direct response as well as general thoughts/ideas. I do not promise any of these general thoughts/ideas are good, but I promise that I will have thought of them! Huzzah! Okay, so to those curious about the incentive systems other websites use--unfortunately, the systems themselves are not very transferable to the NTWF. The websites I'm talking about are very writing-focused and built up a community that cares about giving/receiving feedback from their inception. You may have been on some of those sites--basically, they operate by a very by-the-numbers point system. The expectation the website foists on to you from the outset is that you'll be asking for feedback--that's what you're supposed to do--and on that expectation of "selfishness," they also pretty much have a system where you have to "spend" points to put up your own work; those same points are earned when you review someone else's work, so it's a well-oiled machine. For many reasons, this won't work on the NTWF. As Shinko (lol I really hope I tagged you right) pointed out, there seems to be an overly prominent fear of being "that guy" and being looked down upon if you even so much as repost old work or try to get it noticed. (On an unrelated note, I did actually try to make it more acceptable to ask/repost old stuff as far as NT works go, but no one has gotten the memo of what exactly I mean by "self-promotion." I want advertisements in size 7 rainbow marquee font, people, and it'll make my day if someone actually goes and does that.) Theere's no system to do this on proboards, and implementing something close to it is rather hard. I did actually have an idea for a forum event that focuses on sharing work and getting feedback, since those are actually surprisingly popular and using the already in-built ideas of the forum to encourage a behavior is monstrously easier than trying to design a whole new system for feedback. Basically, it would work kiiiiind of like warm fuzzies: each person chooses (or "curates") a work that they wrote and are proud of (so that critical comments and praise are still meaningful, and can't be shrugged off as "well, this piece isn't REALLY important, so all of these don't matter.") Then a list is made, and each participant is assigned to review a certain fraction of the total amount of pieces picked. Now in this idea, the comments would ideally be balanced and well-thought-out (ie a couple paragraphs please). They wouldn't have to be overwhelmingly positive because... well, there's already a forum event for that, though obviously *balanced* is the key word here. Depending on the amount of participants, you could even allow varying lengths of writing to be posted. (ofc if you allow fanworks there has to be a caveat that it can't be impenetrable to someone completely unfamiliar with the fandom), The best way to implement any sort of incentive system is basically via an event like this, but a) I kind of get the feeling that most people on the NTWF dislike me, so I've been averse to trying to start it myself because honestly I feel it would be a ghost town, and b) I'm not sure how keen people would be on an idea like this. re: conflict resolution. There's no one-size-fits all when it comes to conflict resolution, and part of the problem is that people don't really try to take the time to see if whatever they decided to do was constructive/worked for that particular incident. I know I've personally blindsided people and I've been blindsided by other people (ie one party thought the situation resolved well when it realllly didn't because people weren't being completely honest with what they wanted), and that can potentially only breed more ill will, so you know, I think "don't explain" as a general rule works but following up and not putting it under a bridge is important too. It's really part of the platinum rule as opposed to the golden one: sometimes, don't treat people how you'd want to be treated, but how *they* want to be treated, because people aren't the same in how they deal with their feelings. (If I followed the golden rule, I would always textwall and explain the situation, because I tend to perceive raw apologies as not honest and an attempt to appease my feelings, and I reallllly dislike that, but that would also not be conductive at all, and if someone followed the general advice of "don't explain" to me I'd probably be a little miffed.) But yeah. The idea of smaller forum events is welcome too, I think they'd be a good thing. Recurring events are also good, so that gets a thumbs-up from me. Thorn
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Post by Celestial on Dec 18, 2017 17:47:44 GMT -5
I've been keeping up with this thread, though I have not had the time or energy to really post a coherent reply. So I'll just keep things brief: In regards to your point about excluding characters Tiger, much like PFA, I honestly also forget. Especially in Medieval, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and it does not help that I honestly have a one-track mind. If I think of somebody who a certain trait applies to or would be interested in it, I zero in on a few characters. It is never a personal thing, and I do agree with PFA, in this case, a gentle reminder is best. As I said in my prior post, a lot of this sort of thing is not personal, so it is worth not taking it personally. This goes to everyone, and it applies to me too, as I have been in that situation where my characters were not talked about and I felt really bad, but I just had to remind myself that it was probably just forgetfulness. And in that case, I simply chimed into the conversation with my own characters. Now, does that mean it doesn't hurt? Of course it doesn't. No matter what, being forgotten hurts. But I am trying to explain my point here: this is not malicious. In regards to reviews, yes, it is quite a tough dilemma. It does not help that writing does take quite a bit of investment, a lot more than art, to get through, and with people's lives being so busy, they might not have the time to read something or might honestly just forget it. I really do like Moni's idea of a forum review event, and I was actually thinking of taking it a step further to make it go into a "Review the Work Above You" sort of thread. Basically, you leave a review and then leave a piece of yours for somebody else to review later, and so on and so forth. It might be a success, or it might die without a single post, but something structured like that or Moni's suggestion to encourage reviewing, no matter who it is, and make it less of a stigmatised thing to ask for feedback might be good for this forum. I also do think that more openness and communication as well as less of a fear of giving a bad review (as long as it is constructive and handled well) should be more acceptable. We are adults, we should have the emotional maturity to admit that sometimes, yes, we do suck, and that our friends are not pulling us down but trying to make us improve. I think it's also worth pointing out that we do have a review badge, y'all. It is a small incentive, but one nonetheless.
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Post by Tiger on Dec 18, 2017 19:25:28 GMT -5
And with the Medieval example Tiger gave, even though I might know all the details of other people's characters, they're not always at the forefront of my mind in the heat of an exciting new story idea or whatever. I know I've done stuff like that before, and I'm sincerely sorry if anyone has ever been offended by that, just... please politely poke me when that happens? I definitely don't want anybody to feel excluded, and I would be more than happy to accommodate anyone I may have accidentally forgotten about. Going back to Celes' point, if there's a problem, please speak up about it. In regards to your point about excluding characters Tiger, much like PFA, I honestly also forget. Especially in Medieval, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and it does not help that I honestly have a one-track mind. If I think of somebody who a certain trait applies to or would be interested in it, I zero in on a few characters. It is never a personal thing, and I do agree with PFA, in this case, a gentle reminder is best. Okay, except here’s the thing - I did say something. And after multiple times of having to push my way into the conversation, it still didn’t sink in. The only reason the one situation changed is because I got angry and snapped at somebody. So, again - a gentle reminder does not always or even usually, in my experience, work. And you know, I hate that it’s that way. I don’t want to be at the point where I’m so hurt that I’m angry. I don’t want to be yelling at you guys. I don’t want to feel like my opinion only matters to people when I’m shouting it at them - ‘cause you know what, even when the situation’s fixed, it feels like it was only fixed to stop me from being angry, not because there’s actual care for the emotions behind it. It also wasn’t a sometimes forgotten situation - it was very constant and with very specific topics. And, again, I would insert my characters into the conversation and remind people, “hey, uh, Leif kind of did/is this thing, maaaaybe don’t steal that from him?” Maybe that’s on me, maybe in those contexts Leif’s just not memorable enough, but the point is - the nice reminders aren’t currently working. Now ideally, yes, a polite reminder is what I’d like to be able to do when my characters get left out or pushed down. But I feel like there needs to be some kind of acknowledgement that the times in the past we’ve attempted to be nice about it, we were not successful, and some commitment to pay more attention for those reminders and generally be more mindful of people getting left out. Otherwise, we’re gonna go right back into doing things exactly the way they were, and clearly that wasn’t working.
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Post by Celestial on Dec 18, 2017 20:22:05 GMT -5
Tiger, I do acknowledge that there were times like that. I also do think it is not a problem solely limited to you: my characters have been pushed down and left out of casual conversation plenty. Regardless, it is not my feelings that were hurt, it was yours, and for that (and I know I was part of the problem) I apologise. I do not want to see your feelings hurt. I do want to bring up that what you are experiencing is not an isolated incident: I often feel like my characters are constantly ignored and not spoken about unless I bring them up, or are pushed down from conversation. I do not say this to deminish how you feel, only point out you are not alone in this. Ideally, I would like to see more general casual conversation around characters and feedback given more freely, but I do not know how feasible this is, given time constraints and the fact that it does need to be a team effort. You are also right, sometimes being nice does not work, because people go "alright" and then forget about it. As such, I would be curious to hear what exactly you want to see done about this. If you don't have any specific solutions, I am sure we can try to work something out that will work for everyone. But I think it is also important to hear what you have to say and what you want done. EDIT: After sleeping, I've had some new thoughts. While I understand why public callout posts are not allowed, and I am glad for it, since it can seriously get ugly and we mods have a lot to deal with, I also think it does work to make sure grudges simmer and fester. If something is done that is upsetting and it is called out in public, the aggrieved party cannot fully express themselves. This is why I think PM needs to be utilised more when discussing specific issues, so they can be talked about freely and without fear of "airing dirty laundry". This works even for friendly reminders, and I know I remember PMs more vividly than public discussions of the issue. I am open to being PMed about specific grievances if anybody has any. Because seriously, I don't like hurting people, but I can be an oblivious schmuck moron sometimes (partly due to communication disorder, and partly due to being an idiot) so I do appreciate being told "yo, this is not cool, stahp".
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Post by Tiger on Dec 19, 2017 14:13:03 GMT -5
As such, I would be curious to hear what exactly you want to see done about this. If you don't have any specific solutions, I am sure we can try to work something out that will work for everyone. But I think it is also important to hear what you have to say and what you want done. I mean, I obviously can't demand people not forget characters, but I would like if, now that’s it been put out there as a recurring issue, people would try to be more aware of it and if they notice someone constantly being left out or constantly having to sidle in like “hey, my character would be involved in this, too, y'know, because [canon facts]" - maybe bring their character up before they have to, or poke people doing it consistently privately? Or at the very least, be open to people coming to poke you (general you) about their characters being excluded or put down. And I’ll try to be more proactive about confronting people on it; I felt like I’d made my issues pretty clear in the public chat so going to individuals felt pretty pointless, but if you guys want to be contacted directly, I’ll try it again. Just, y’know, make sure to listen and change behavior or that’s completely pointless, too =P (( To be clear, since I feel like the vagueness makes this point a bit muddled and there’s definitely a bit of a wavery line - when I’m talking about characters being put down, I'm not saying things like "x character is physically stronger than y character because that's literally canonically true" or "y would know more about this subject than x because they've trained in a similar field" or "this character would be the worst at a party, you should send Z in their place" shouldn’t be allowed. Commenting on character traits and flaws is one thing and with how often I make fun of my dweebs, I’m obviously not saying we can’t talk about that. What I’m talking about is like…people putting down or dismissing characters to make their own character seem better, or in a way that denigrates the author. I can try to cobble together examples or clarify more if y’all feel that’s needed, just let me know; I’d just need a little time to pull together an explanation that gets the nuance of it across without making direct references to stuff that’s happened in the past). Tl;dr: - I just want people to watch out for it, try to be more aware that it’s something that happens not infrequently, to avoid it themselves where they can, and to take reminders into account instead of just going “oh okay, sorry,” and then doing the same thing the next time the topic comes up. Now for something different! On the topic of making good apologies, I’ve had some success with “well, how would you feel if it was you”-ing, sometimes complete with a little spun-out scenario if I know them/their characters well enough. Sometimes that seems to get people to go “oh, yeah, that would suck, wouldn’t it?” and chills out the over-defensiveness a bit. Obviously it’s not perfect or we wouldn’t be here with this conversation, but if that’s something people could do in their heads when they apologize, that might help us avoid some of the apol-arguments before they make they situation worse - kind of tying into what Liou said about expressing that you understand the other person was hurt by your actions (and feedback for Liou, that was a really good post, apologies for not addressing it sooner). This might also help with the character degrading thing - I mean, there have been comments made in Medieval chat that I was startled by, because I knew whoever posted them would not feel that was okay to say about their character. And yeah, like Moni said, your mileage of what’s okay may vary, so it’s worth considering the other’s person’s point of view as well - but definitely if you would be offended by a comment, don’t say it to someone else unless you’re positive they’d be all right with it! XD
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Post by Shinko on Dec 19, 2017 22:24:49 GMT -5
PFA Usually if I ask for feedback retroactively all I say is "did anybody get a chance to look at x yet" or "I can't wait to hear what people think of y" which to my mind seems innocuous enough but if that reads to other people poorly, let me know and by all means I'll try to think up something else. X'D Twillie I suppose that is a fair point. It'd be hard to strike a happymedium though, and I'm never sure what people will appreciate in depth feedback and what people will be intimidated by it. XD (Or ignore it entirely, which I also got on the NT reviews, but cest la vie.) Moni I'd just like to put it out there (not just directed at Moni, but at everybody) that the general Medieval expanded universe does have a lot of self-indulgent fluff fics, but it also has some novel length, novel quality works we put a lot of heart and effort into. And I'm currently working on a Hero City story that's over 60,000 words long and only about halfway finished. So the assumption that none of it is "important" or "work we're proud of" isn't accurate. Not super relevant to the conversation at hand though- if you all want to do an event like that I'd be down, though it's definitely the sort of thing you'd want an interest check for before you committed to it. Tiger's said all I could really contribute to the current discussion, but I'll back her up. Yes we have specified when stuff was bothering us before, yes we really are just looking for everybody to be a little more aware and watch for unintentionally excluding people. We know changes to habitual behaviors aren't a thing that can be done overnight, but nothing's going to change at all if the refrain of "well we don't mean any harm and can't help it" keeps being repeated as a brush off. Just... be more aware of the problem and take more serious note of it when people express frustration over something you've said or done. That's all we're asking for in this regard. (And to be clear to the forum at large this is not just a Medieval fandom thing, Tiger was only using that as an example since being vague was getting a lot of "I'm not sure what you're talking about" responses).
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Post by Moni on Dec 20, 2017 2:51:29 GMT -5
that the general Medieval expanded universe does have a lot of self-indulgent fluff fics, but it also has some novel length, novel quality works we put a lot of heart and effort into. And I'm currently working on a Hero City story that's over 60,000 words long and only about halfway finished. So the assumption that none of it is "important" or "work we're proud of" isn't accurate. Let me rephrase what I see as the problem: My impression that people don't really value their fanwork is tied up with the impression that the only "worthy" work an author puts out is novel-length and "novel-quality" (a phrase which is meaningless--it's like saying something "short story quality" or "poetry-quality"), which is by-and-large influenced by the publishing industry. Since novels are *THE* things that get published, the culture around writing shifts to being more novel-centric. There's no reason why a short fanwork can't be full of love and effort, but--well--your very insinuation that short work *has* to be fluff and long work isn't fluff kind of epitomizes this attitude. Most of the time, people will expend their novel-writing efforts to their original stuff which is more likely to get published. It's just how most writers see it due to the larger writing culture and how most of them hedge their bets, unless they're in a reallllly active fandom. Fanwork doesn't get you the recognition, short fanwork isn't "serious," serious stuff is NOVELS, that's what gets published, that's where they're going to put most of their energy. It's a calculation that has a lot of logic behind it, even though I sort of find the underlying assumption that short work isn't "important" to be kind of... eh. (Which obviously doesn't mean that really passionate short fiction writers and poets don't exist, they're just... not the supermajority.) As a reader, it's just really off-putting to know that if I want to read something an author is proud of, I have to read a novel-length work by them, and it's really hard to find shorter works that fit the criteria of "things their writers are proud of." This is a frustration that's not really limited to the NTWF, either, and is not meant as any sort of attack on the writers; it's just a consequence of the broader "writer culture." ... which, I think, is so broad that it might require a thread on D&D pff.
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