On the subject of "dead fic" shelves · 5:52am Mar 20th, 2020
So the main part of this doesn't actually affect me but I wanted to use whatever platform I have to talk about it because it's a shitty thing people do on this website and maybe some people will actually learn if enough of us authors talk about it (I have low expectations but hey, I'm gonna try).
So Albinocorn made a blog post about dead fic bookshelves (as in people who make bookshelves for stories that haven't updated for a long time) and I mostly just wanted to echo his thoughts to my own audience. Obviously that's much smaller than his audience, but fuck it, there's very nearly 500 of you now, I can pretend like throwing my weight behind something can make a difference if I wanna.
The summary of the point is if you're gonna make dead fic shelves, fuckin hide them or you're an asshole, point blank. It doesn't send a positive message to an author, it sends a message of whinniness and entitlement. It makes authors not want to update stories, which is generally the opposite of what you're going for. And honestly, no one's even saying don't make dead fic shelves, just hide them. Simple.
"But, Krickis," you're surely saying, "you have a freakishly good update schedule. Why do you care?" Because god fuckin damn no one should ever write like me and that includes me. I write the way I do because writing staves off my suicidal depression, it's a coping mechanism so I do it a whole hell of a lot. It was actually because I saw a comment bringing up another author (thankfully it wasn't me) who updates regularly as if that's something everyone should just do. We're doing this for free or very close to it, so yeah, people should do this at the speed that's comfy for them.
I'm gonna go a step further than Albinocorn did though and say if you have any negative bookshelves to hide them. I've landed on bookshelves with titles like "meh"and it just feels like well fuck you too then (I think the person who put me on that shelf follows me, so I sincerely hope you're seeing this and take it to heart). I've seen much worse bookshelves, like someone I saw once had ten bookshelves ranked 1/10 through 10/10 and they were all visible to the authors. And look, negative feedback can be helpful. If I wrote a story and it sucked, sure, tell me what was wrong with it. But, you know, tell me what was wrong with it. Because landing on a shelf like that doesn't tell an author shit, it doesn't help them get better. If you want shelves line that, fine, just make them private.
I once had someone add a story to a shelf called “Has LGBT bullshit” or something really damn close to it. I’m honestly glad I made them mad.
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Yeah I saw that shelf! Someone on a Discord server I'm on landed on it and screenshot it for us, we all had a good laugh. In that case the negative shelf wound up being petty funny because it's obviously just a hateful asshole, but when it's stuff like "dead fic" or "1/10" or something it just hurts the author and makes people want to not write.
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I’m not sure if I ever had anything added to one of those. I think I’ve had stuff like “waiting for updates” and much more polite names but nothing else that was so outright bad.
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I've never had a fic go all that long without updating, so I'm mostly immune to this. But I have friends who have gotten very discouraged because of it. Waiting for an update isn't that bad, but I've seen a few dead fic shelves just by being nosy and looking around what shelves someone has.
I honestly hate that bookshelves are visible to begin with. Like, I can understand why favorites are visible by default, but I wish that custom bookshelves didn't have the option to be visible to authors whose stories are added to them. Having them visible on your profile page is one thing, but telling an author that their story was added to any random bookshelf that isn't a default Favorites one serves absolutely zero purpose.
Also, what the heck is even the point of adding a story that you don't like to a bookshelf? If you don't like a story, just click the thumbs-down button—y'know, the thing whose sole purpose is to show if you dislike a story—and move on.
Completely unrelated (but still kind of related? Maybe?), I do wish that there was an option to block seeing when a specific user adds a story to a bookshelf or group or what have you. A few weeks back, there was a particular user who would add dozens, if not hundreds, of stories to every single folder/subfolder in most of the groups that I've joined and blocking them did nothing to curb the massive amount of spam in my Feed. It got to the point where I had to disable Story Added notifications for most of those groups just so I could see when a favorited story updated or an author that I follow made a blog post.
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I’m not sure if I’ve had more than a couple stories go so long without updates they would qualify.
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It can be nice to see if it's something positive like "Best. Possible. Thing!" which is one of my only visible bookshelves (that and the standard favorites are the only shelves I have visible if I recall correctly). That's for stories that are just my all time faves, so it can be a little boost for an author too see they've landed on a shelf like that. Granted, a good comment will always mean more than any bookshelf.
I guess the point of having a disliked story on a bookshelf is for people who want to track everything they've ever read. As an obsessive person myself, I get that. I kinda wish I had a (hidden) bookshelf that contained everything I read so I could quickly and easily just pull up the stat of how many words I've read on this site, but I didn't think of doing that until I'd already been here for years. But yeah, just like hide 'em if people are gonna do that...
And I wonder if I might know who you're talking about there. Someone was doing that a while back on some groups I was in, it was rather annoying.
I can understand wanting to keep track of stories that I read and didn't like, so as to not waste time with it again in the future, but I honestly find that to be so much effort that could easily be solved with using the downvote button. For me, personally, it's very seldom that I actually use that button. Because of that, when I come across a story that I've downvoted, I know not to bother with it. Adding to a bookshelf to show that I dislike it just feels like a lot of unnecessary, avoidable negativity.
If the name of the user you're thinking of starts with a D, ends with a T, and the name as a whole is pretty much gibberish, we're likely thinking of the same person.
I don't have any such shelves myselves, however do you know whether unlisted shelves show notifications to the author? I like to make unlisted shelves for series and sometimes I end up reorganizing them to get them in order, and I wanted to be sure I wasn't spamming anyone when I do so.
Also I need to redo the WWB shelf now to fit Thicker Than Water in the right place. I really wish Fimfic would just let me re-order them instead of having to remove and re-add them.
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Also I'm pleased to have my own shelf 
They do not notify the author, so feel free to do so as many times as you desire
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I was going to disagree with you, until I realized that I got strangely annoyed when I found my stories in a shelf named "read stories'. That was the most " meh" I have ever experienced.
Honestly I wonder if a large majority of people using the site are even aware the shelves are author viewable. I know personally I had no inkling they were until Albinocorn made his blog.(thankfully I didnt have any shelves made that would offend)
I have a shelf with Cancelled fic's. I only put Fic's there that have been Cancelled by the author/s. I also have Custome text field where I explain my Shelves. But yeah i agree with you thats a pretty shitty thing to do for fic's that just haven't updated :/
What about a shelf called "hiatus" for fics that weren't marked as hiatus but are. Too on the nose?
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Considering how often authors comment “Thanks for the favorite” and such, I hadn’t really considered anyone might not realize authors get notified when people add stories to bookshelves. But yes, if someone legitimately just doesn’t realize that this is something authors can see (and indeed, get notified of), then of course that’s different. Still, in that case I hope blog posts like this and like Albinocorn’s will inform people who didn’t know.
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If the author themselves mark it as canceled, then that’s different of course.
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I would just make that shelf hidden. Why would you need to notify the author that you’ve put their fic on a shelf like that?
I've planned to make a bookshelf on "Eagerly Waiting an Update". Mostly because I love shifting through my favorite fics I have wrote, and sometimes I bump alongside one that I read a while back that I loved to pieces but hasn't gone with an update in two years that I'd love to read again but have a personal reminder that it probably won't be updated soon.
"Dead fic" or "author doesn't care" folders though that you publically alert others to is kind of nasty overall. Kind of sucks there are people who use folders like that and don't even think things through.
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Favorites used to be a permanent thing, but after the bookshelves update, you can rename the thing to anything. So that "[insert annoying title here]" alert could have been a renamed Favorites folder.
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Both Private and Unlisted stop notifications.
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Yeah, I have a seperate folder for stuff I finished reading, but its frankly a redundant alert if it goes through so I put it on Private. Its mostly to help me keep a rough estimate for how many horse words I have wasted my time on.
I keep a bookshelf with "Stuff I've read" with—unsurprisingly—all/most the fics I read. Do you consider this in poor taste to have be public? I generally slot the stories into favourites or liked stories as well, but the discussion here got me wondering if it's either spammy, or as The Frank put it, conveying just a feeling of "meh".
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Getting a notification that I’ve been put on a shelf that’s just like “everything I’ve read” without any other bookshelf notifications is just like “well, guess I wasn’t good enough to get on anything higher”
Hmm, I would say landing on such a shelf as well as a more usual favorites shelf wouldn’t be a big deal. I wouldn’t worry about being spammy or anything of the sort. But landing on that shelf without being on a favorites shelf would be a little
c.c oop sorry