Story Reviews » Review Group Round Robin · 2:59am Jan 12th, 2016
Hello everyone!
As you are all aware, as a community here, we like to encourage others to read the works of authors we all enjoy. At one point, it was easy to select quality works to share, but as our community grows, amazing stories inevitably get bypassed by either more popular ones, or the sheer amount of written work submitted to the site. In an effort to combat that, review groups emerged which earned a spot on the Social Site Posts, so that these lost gems could be more easily accessible to users who don't have too much time to dig in search of treasures.
And the question now is... whenever you read a site-blog doing story those reviews, did you ever think to yourself: "My friends and I could do that too?"
Are you a competent reviewer, avid reader and would like to share the hidden gems you've discovered with the whole site?
Well, we have good news for you! This is your opportunity to join a project we are working on... a project that would give you the chance to write reviews that the whole site can read!
Maybe you're knowledgeable about Romance fics, or Crossovers, or Horror, and you've been looking forward to your favorites being showcased, but they never seemed to make it to the site reviews. If that's the case, and you're willing to put in the work into reviewing and recommending them—just like Seattle's Angels, The Royal Canterlot Library and The Royal Guard do—this is for you!
We're not looking for more of the same either. Just like the review groups mentioned above your approach can (and should) be unique to your group. More serious. Less. Quirky. Fancy. It might include ribbons and look like it was designed to be a scene from Utena. It's up to you. What we're really looking for is content.
If this seems like something you would like to do, go ahead and read below to find out more information.
(At this time, we're interested in hearing what your review group would focus on and, if you already have some review examples, we'd love to see them!)
This project works like a Round-Robin. There will be an ordered list of groups, every post we take the next one off the list and put it on the end. Posts will be either every week or every two weeks, depending on how much interest we get.
Eligibility requirements and group expectations
-Groups are expected to provide and maintain at least one backlog post.
-All submitted posts must meet post expectations.
+Failure to meet this results in a skipped turn.
-Conduct is expected to be professional.
+This means no starting drama about missed slots, other groups “taking” your recommendations, etc.
+This is not a competition, groups do not “win” or “lose” or do better than each other. Groups are expected to make an effort to be cooperative with other selected groups.
-No guarantees will be made that a group will retain their slot if any problems occur.
+This includes user response, if a particular group’s posts are unpopular, they are likely to be removed due to lack of interest. This will generally have to be at least somewhat of an extreme case, however.
-We will not be able to accept all groups that apply, we want to make sure groups don’t have to wait that long between posts, but we don’t want to have some overly high post rate either.
Post expectations
-Variety of stories in the post, effort should be made to appeal to readers interested in different things.
+Some level of commonality is ok if the theme is very general, but effort needs to be made to make sure the stories vary in some other way, so no posts of 5 romance-focused shipfics with the same pairing or anything.
-Around 8 stories per post, 5 as an absolute minimum.
-Reasonable length of the stories themselves, large numbers of oneshots or very short stories might warrant more total stories.
-Every story should be accompanied by a short, 1-2 paragraphs-long description written by the group reviewers, not the story’s author. The author’s description should generally not be included, the person writing this recommendation should be explaining why it's being recommended in the first place by themselves.
+Intended to be a place for them to show why they’re including it, framed around whatever their overall theme or goal is. Done correctly, this should be a self-explanatory reason for the reader to read it, no need to double-up with the author’s words as well.
+This is especially true for submissions from groups that have more of a theme to them, a lot of the author’s descriptions are going to be similar and show off that they follow that theme… but in the post that information is implied, we want to know what makes the story interesting beyond that.
-Spoilers should be avoided
-Multiple stories from the same author in a short period of time should be avoided. If there are sequels to the story reviewed, that can be mentioned, but do not review a bunch of sequels one after another. The objective is to diversify as much as possible the story and author pool.
-Correct spelling and grammar, good sentence structure, reasonably organized.
Story inclusion rules
-No M stories.
-Must not have been recently* featured in a previous post. (*Up to mod discretion.)
-Either complete or actively updating.
-Spinoffs of other stories are heavily discouraged; stories should be something ready for the general audience of new readers.
-Normal sequels are fine, although a note should likely be made and the original linked as well.
-Not already popular, this is a way to promote lesser-known high-quality stories, not re-list the featured box or popular stories list.
-High-quality writing, reasonably good spelling/grammar.
Note that these group reviews are not going to replace Seattle's Angels or The Royal Canterlot Library. We are looking forward to hearing from all of you! If you have any questions you can ask them in the comment section below. If you already have a group for reviewing, samples and feel ready to give this a shot, you can PM me (Wanderer D), Eldorado or Professor Plum.
Awwww shit!
FREE FOR ALL TIIIIIIIME!
~Skeeter The Lurker
No but seriously, this sounds like it'll be insane fun to see in action.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Sorry I don't have any review groups to jump in, but hell, it looks fun.
I'd be in if I can find a cool group.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/11/17/766391.png
Really hope we get a broad range of interested groups. Having the alternating, semi-specific focuses will be cool—like those times SA says, "Hey, let's do a Trixie round", but more frequent.
3680816 Yes. I also feel we need a reliable semi-weekly review report of Trixie stories. And another for Sunset Shimmer. And another one for Rarity.
I don't 100% agree with this one. You're right that the reviewer should have their own summary or description, but by these rules the Royal Canterlot Library interviews and the Seattle Angels reviewers would both be ineligible because they both provide the author's description in italics. (Both of these would also be ineligible for other reasons too. RCL only interviews one author per post and SA often reviews fewer than 5 stories per post.)
It seems odd to me that you would hold the new reviewers to a different standard from the reviewers currently regularly featured.
3680854
The "featuring the author's description" bit applies to the review of the story, not any other part of the blog. So it's okay to include it (so long as it doesn't make the blog crazy huge), but it mustn't be a part of the review. The rule's there to prevent groups from just copying the story's description and calling it a day.
As for the other stuff, the new groups are designed to fill a niche that neither SA nor RCL fill. Having all three major groups doing exactly the same thing as each other wouldn't be the best idea
So, basically, it's a similar same thing to Seattle's Angels and The Royal Guard, except that it's open to any group that proves itself a credible source of reviews/good stories?
Sounds nice.
3680865
Thanks for the clarification.
On your second paragraph, I feel that including the description is just a matter of courtesy. Encouraging diversity is good (and obviously a big point of the entire round robin style), but the rules as I had initially read it suggested that it would be required to do something that would make the review worse*. Being different shouldn't mean that someone has to be better than another.
Not to worry though, since as I now see, that was not the intention.
*For most styles. I recognise that some reviews would be best without the author's description included.
Wait, here's a question!
Do we need to be a part of a group?
~Skeeter The Lurker
Not that I'm interested in applying, but does it have to be a group? Could it be just a person who does reviews on their own?
Our current policy on individuals is that you must setup a group for your recommendations, generally including setting up (relevant) folders as well. The group will act as a more "persistent" list of your recommendations as well as provide a place for users to find other interesting stuff that might've not quite met the bar to be included in one of the site posts. The rules have no requirements about how large the group is or how many people are involved in making the decisions as long as the resulting submitted posts meet the other requirements.
This means that if you want to do all the work yourself, you may, however you will be held to the same standards as other groups, including variety.
3680890 3680887 what 3680900 said.
3680909
Aight. Thanks.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3680830
Yo, I'm down.
Wanna start a group?
3680900
Thank you for the clarification.
The Pleasant Commentator and Review Group Focus on promoting stories that are great, and pointing out tips on stories that lack certain qualities.
Our full reviews are very author-focused, and our reviews for the round robin will adapt good rated stories for the potential reader.
i.imgur.com/JG7AHJJ.png?1
3680912
Skeeter's Solo Lurker Recs confirmed
Also, get hyped. More literary analysis and discussion can only mean good things for the overall level of writing on Fimfic, and more chances to uncover gems that would otherwise have slipped through the cracks.
Guess my lampoon editorial will have to wait for its grand debut.
I would kindly accept, but I don't have the time. With how I'm doing right now as a regular ol' editor... yeah, I'm going to reject your offer. Sorry.
Bit of a recommendation for people considering doing this, speaking as someone who does reviews:
Having too many reviews in your post is actually a bad thing.
I do five stories per post I do in my personal blog. The Royal Guard does six. The RCL does ONE.
The thing is, the more stories you put into your post, the less likely any of them will be read. Back when the Royal Guard did like, 12 in a post or whatever it was, most of the stories weren't read very much. If your goal is to get people to read the stuff you're reviewing, less is more.
I probably don't have the time for this kind of commitment right now, but I wish I did.
Oh, boy, this promises to be entertaining.
I was out the moment you said "No M-rated stories." Which is too bad, because this gets me to thinking that I may want to start my own group for my reviewing purposes, and in most of the other categories I think my reviewing methods meet the criteria (although you may disagree on that). Oh well, I guess my reviews will be limited to those who follow me and the authors I am reviewing.
The group still sounds like a great idea, though. I think I know what my next blog is going to talk about.
3681074
RCL isn't really centered around reviews, even. They're interviews with an author that tends to expand on the behind-the-scenes development of a story, from their perspective. To a further extent, Seattle's Angels tends to be more pitch-y in their reviews than giving a full critical analysis.
On that note, I'm dubious of this opened door having to be centered around reviews. Random potential ideas off the top of my head include things like an author spotlight, where a few fics of one author get reviewed at once; things like Chris's first sentences in fanfiction where he ranks of how well various stories can hook a reader with their openings; and even the How-To guides Wanderer D used to do more of a while ago. The point is, if you're looking for uniqueness, a typical story-feature-and-review block can only be spun in so many ways.
I love the idea at hand and look forward to more groups capitalizing on this offer, but right now I have to say it feels restrictive in its content.
3681116
In Seattle's Angels, we can't review M-rated fics simply because of the "no linking NSFW content in blogs" rule and M-rated fics tend to be very NSFW. This applies doubly to site-wide posts, because people with the NSFW filter turned off would still be able to see the NSFW content being featured, which is a conflict of interest. Believe you me, if we were allowed to do so, it'd have been done already. And you'd know who to blame.
3681134
My ears are burning...
3681134
Oh, I am well aware of why they can't do M-rated stories. It's fairly common knowledge, considering the question comes up time and time again from new members not paying attention. I'm just saying that my own unwillingness to remove M-rated stories from my review blogs immediately rules me out. It's a shame, because I like to think I'm contributing to the community this way.
Also, does anyone really think that the kids don't know how to turn off the Mature filter when Mommy and Daddy aren't there to look over their shoulders? I know making this point doesn't change anything, I'm just saying.
3681028
Maybe, maybe... Tis a tempting idea, for sure.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3681143
I'm not sure I follow. You can proceed as normal except when it's time for your (group's) site post. And for that one post every x weeks, you don't have M-rated stories. So it's less that you're removing M-rated stories from your blogs and more that one blog every so often just doesn't have them.
3681149
I suppose that's true. Rearranging the order of the review schedule won't affect my reading schedule (yes, I actually schedule my readings, to the day and the individual chapter, over a month in advance). It would be a real shame if I had to push back a requested review a week because of something like this, and it still means that legitimately great stories rated mature won't get the attention they deserve, but it would also keep me involved.
Still, isn't this just for group posts? I may make one, but I question whether I'd want to go through the trouble if I could convince the head honchos to let me just link my regular review blog. I have enough on my plate as it is without admining and double-blogging.
3681134
Other forms of community driven content are a possibility in the future, this is partially to gauge interest in this sort of content and possibly get ideas on what does or doesn't work under this structure.
Something along the lines of those how-to guides might be interesting, however they would serve a completely different function and would likely run on their own schedule. At the moment we will see how much interest there is in this rotation and work from there.
Groups, huh? Oh well. Don't feel like going out and hiring myself to a group. My shelves and "If You Haven't Already" blogs are good enough for me.
3680900
3680909
So in other words, a person like me who has a consistent review schedule of almost a year, with public spreadsheets for tracking and sorting reviews and story recommendations, along with public schedules of when reviews will occur along with requests, still has to make a group that does all the exact same stuff and thereby requiring double-posts of numbers and triple-posts of the reviews?
...
It's starting to look like I'd have to completely revise my methods in order to do this. Suddenly I'm not so encouraged...
3681193 You don't need to post your reviews in the group. None of the current groups do that.
About a year ago, I would probably look into this, With the sheer amount of stories I was reading here (even before creating account here) I would love to try, but Now there is school and work, and I am unable to even keep up with the stories that I am in the middle of.
3681248
But I would still have to make the group and start double-posting all my stats in order to meet their criteria, or make the group and throw away the pre-built spreadsheet setup that I've spent the better part of a year perfecting. I'm not particularly fond of them saying that all of my efforts to list and link every story I've ever read and reviewed, sorted into recommendation levels, along with linked, automated author scores and a schedule for review releases, all integrated into a single GDoc file, isn't worth a little group that will have practically no starting members, won't offer a third of the features and can't be as easily updated.
I understand that they don't want to make exceptions, and I'm fine if they're determined to stick to their guns. I'm just saying I'm not willing to increase my already substantial workload or throw away all the time I spent developing my system.
3681619 Nothing is set in stone yet, Paul. We're still measuring interest, and we know some individuals are very effective in their own right about writing reviews. I'm hashing out details with the others, but there's a possibility that individuals with a history of reviewing might not need to necessarily form a group, but will definitely need to join the round-robin group.
I'll keep everyone posted on this.
3681627
That sounds a lot more manageable. If you guys do decide to let individuals in without the personal group requirement, I will be very interested. Thanks for the forewarning, D!
Personally, I tend to skip posts with more than 5 reviews. If a post comes out once a week and has 8 stories on it each week, it isn't selective enough to be very useful to me, the reviews will each be too short to convince me to read any of the stories, and reading the post itself becomes work. I'd rather have a Seattle's Angel-type post: 3 stories, with 3 long reviews each.
3681657
We, uh, we haven't done three reviews for three stories in over a year, if I'm not mistaken
3682062 I guess it's usually 2 now? It would be easier to check if old Seattle's Angels reviews were all posted under the same account.
3682527
Four stories, two reviews each, yes. And we have a Resources Thread that has a complete list of all reviews.
...and upon checking it, it turns out that the last round with three stories was January 2014. So just over two years. In fact, seeing as we're on round 74, we've actually been doing two reviewers/four stories for more rounds than we ever did the 3/3. Huh.
Interesting.
OK, unless it somehow creates a problem, we will allow individuals to apply by themselves, however individuals will be held to the same standard as review groups for content, coordination, etc. As long as the posts all meet the criteria, it really doesn't matter exactly where they came from, so we're not going to restrict it.
Additionally, even though this should be obvious, I will state it anyway: you're not allowed to sell positions in the post, for money or anything else. I don't think anyone was planning on it, but we want stories included based on the criteria that they're actually good, not that the author had money.
3682737
This made me laugh, not because I don't suspect such things happening, but because I agree with it completely. Glad that was mentioned.
So, where would I submit an application for a group? And how exactly does round-robin work? I understand the goal of this endeavor, but I don't understand how I can get in on it.
3683743
PM one of the people listed near the bottom of the post with information and at least one sample review.
3681627 I'd generally be interested to contribute. Either solo or as part of the http://www.fimfiction.net/group/206880/the-fimfiction-bureau-of-imaginationists which I will inform of this post.
Question... what do you mean "Backlog". Like a record or something?
3685102
Basically, we want groups to have their next post prepared at least a week or two in advance so we don't have to deal with trying to track down someone who isn't online when the post is scheduled to go up. Originally we were going to require one post be ready at all times, but if we get a lot of submissions we'll likely loosen that to "a few weeks". We want to be able to maintain a consistent schedule, a ready-in-advance requirement means that will be a lot easier.
Additionally, some level of advance-planning will enable easier coordination of not having multiple features of the same story.
3685142 May I see... an example of a post/structure per say?
3685150 Just take a look at any story review. Present Perfect has a lot of them, PaulAsaran as well, there's Seattle's Angels's review on the side bar in this page.