Orient Express Explorers 53 members · 15 stories
Comments ( 18 )
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Twilicorn
Group Contributor

I felt the need to put a little more detail to the front page. Bad Horse, if you have anything against anything I say, feel free to yell at me.

Firstly, this is for the GOOD stories. Not the troll ones. Anything that hits the feature box is worthy of reviews, hooves down. Anything you think should be featured can be posted, but may be removed later on.

Secondly, I'm assuming (and this is more of a theory) that there'll be different boards on here for each category, and you comment on the stories on the boards. I'l fix this when I figure out the real plan, but basically, when you post something here, post it there.

On the topic of posting, which would you rather receive?

this story was good but needs work. there wer tond of grammar mistakes and speling and they were oooc. good but needs work.

Chugga, chugga...
This story was amazing! On behalf of the Orient Express Explorers, I thank you for writing. I spotted the occasional spelling and grammar mistake, but nothing so noticeable it scared me away. The characters also seemed a bit out of character, but based on the scenario, I can see why. I eagerly await more from you!
-Golden Delicious of the Orient Express Explorers

That's what I thought. Be polite, for lands' sakes. If you wouldn't tell a four year old (and explain the terminology you used) or let your strict grandmother read it, don't make someone else! Remember, the point isn't necessarily to proofread, but to lend a helping hoof towards something they may not have seen.

I may add more, if Bad Horse lets me xD

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

519063
Sweet. So, What you're saying is, we should review every story that hits the feature box? That's going to take a bloody lot of work.
I'm keen.
Begin mission: Helping Hooves for Good Stories to Make Them Better

This is Australia...

Twilicorn
Group Contributor

519150
Maybe not everyone...
No. Let's try every flipping one. We can do it!

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

519159
On it!
Also, Idea.
If you're going to be away from the internet for a while, you can download the stories to read offline and review when you get back. I do this quite often.
Edit: Shotgun 'Out Of Touch'

This is Australia...

Twilicorn
Group Contributor

519175
And let's try and use the format

Chugga, chugga...
stuff here
Username of the Orient Express Explorers

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

Will do.
Can I leave in my "This is Australia..." before the "Username of the Orient Express Explorers"? Or do you reckon I should Ditch it?

This is Australia...

Bad Horse
Group Admin

519063 If you put more work into the group than me, then you should call the shots. And I hope you put more work into it than me, because I'm lazy.

I have one principle that I think is important: The group should always request permission from the author first. It's a waste of time to critique someone who doesn't want it, and descending on a story uninvited is what the TWE did. Does that sound good?

Twilicorn
Group Contributor

519291
I think maybe we could mail something simple off the bat like...

Chugga, chugga...
This was great! We at the Oriental Express Explorers would like to formally review this story, with your permission. Thank you!

-EU at the Oriental Express Explorers

And if they consent, provide a pretty, happy, excessively cheerful review.

Bad Horse
Group Admin

The way I see it, the group is a promise to fimfiction authors that, if they're good enough, someone will eventually give their story a thoughtful critique. BUT, you can already get that by submitting your story to Equestria Daily. What do we have to offer beyond that?

Also, is this group really necessary when Seattle's Angels are doing something similar? The only important difference is that they only consider stories that haven't gotten much attention. Would it be better for us all just to go over there and help with that?

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

519421
Hang on, didn't you set this group up?
But, Yeah, I see what you're saying.
With this group so small (and, let's face it, chance of it growing at a fast pace is pretty small), We have a bit of a problem of 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few' Even if we just stuck to the feature box, We'd have our work cut out for us.
It's just... I like being part of an exclusive club. I like to be part of something, and able to say "I was there when that started". I suppose that may often be an absurd hope, but...
I dunno.
I think I'm gonna join Seattle's Angels, but I'll stay in this group too.

This is Australia...

Bad Horse
Group Admin

520780 Here's my thoughts:

Seattle's Angles and EqD provide high-quality reviews by trusted reviewers. We are different because we encourage everyone to write their own review. The reviews will not generally be as high-quality as Seattle's Angels and EqD reviews! But that's all right, because one of the goals is to get even the rank-and-file, so to speak, in the habit of writing more-thoughtful reviews, and to help people get practice writing reviews.

Hopefully, choosing a story and having several of us review it will be more fun than doing it by our lonesomes. BTW, we should create a thread for each story we review, and post a link in that thread to all reviews of that story, so that we can find each others' reviews. Can you non-admins create new threads?

My personal reservation is that I don't usually read stories from the featured box. I read stories by people whose work I'm familiar with, or who are recommended to me by people I trust.

Strangeling
Group Contributor

519291 This I agree with; if anyone cares about this humble servant's opinion.

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

521177
Sweet. I can now see the point of this group. For the last couple of days, I've been thinking; "What can we possibly do that hasn't already been done?"
But now I can see how what we do is different.
Also, we should have a system where more experienced reviewers review the reviews of less experienced reviewers, and give them advice on how to improve, if necessary.
Just a thought.

This is Australia...

Neon Czolgosz
Group Contributor

519421

Can we request reviews for our stories? If so, how do we go about that?

Bad Horse
Group Admin

527225 Nominating an unfeatured story is done by writing the first review, and you can't review your own story. But stories that have been featured recently can be added to the Featured folder without being nominated & seconded!

Your odds of getting a review aren't great, since we've only got 32 members so far. I suggest you be sneaky, and write a blog post telling people about this group and that you added your story to it. You've got almost 300 followers. Surely at least one of them can write 80 words about it.

And welcome to the group! I hope you stick around, even though you have your own stories to write. Chuckfinley wrote "Pipsqueak's Day Off", for those who don't know. It's good. (It's not the story of his that was featured, but it's really good.) We also boast Georg, GhostOfHeraclitus, Church, and Reginald1648, who have also visited the featured box recently.

Well, I was following links around Fimfiction and perhaps unsurprisingly I ran across this group. From what I can understand, this all seems like a good idea, and although I haven't been specifically targeting particular groups of stories (say, The Feature Box), I've been trying to write decently interesting and helpful reviews for other authors, so I could really get on board a more organized initiative like this.

That said, given the inactivity in these parts, I'm not quite sure what I ought to do if I want to help out. Just read Feature Box stories, write reviews referencing the OEE, and make note of it in a thread in the group forum? Or...? Apologies for being somewhat obtuse on this (and maybe I'm just failing with some basic understanding after a long day), but despite all the instructional info I'm not quite sure how to get started.

ThatPoemGuy
Group Contributor

Alright. I'm back. Perhaps by doing massive numbers of reviews, I can encourage others to do the same.
Let's get back in the game people. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we only have seven reviews. that's fairly poor.

This is Australia...

Bad Horse
Group Admin

698704 That said, given the inactivity in these parts, I'm not quite sure what I ought to do if I want to help out. Just read Feature Box stories, write reviews referencing the OEE, and make note of it in a thread in the group forum?
Yes. The process used to be more complicated, but then little got done.

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