Hello everyone.

I know, it's been a while since much has happened in here. I take a good amount of the blame for ECS's fall, and I've been spending some time since then trying to think of what I could have done differently, what could have helped the group continue, and recently I had an idea I just couldn't leave alone.

I would like to reboot the group as Spike's First Glance reviewing group.

Here's the concept: Spike finds out that ponies and people are writing fanfiction stories about him and his friends. He decides that he should see what they are about, and starts reviewing the stories that he finds. Of course, as he is Spike, he can't always get through the first chapter, or even the description before bowing out. After a few reviews, he starts bringing in his friends. Background ponies that are played by other reviewers.

This reboot would need a few people willing to review and play these other reviewers, and we would need to empty the queue and then start accepting submissions. These reviews would be not guaranteed to continue past the title, and have no length requirement. Each review post would just be the reviewing characters reacting to the story at a first glance. Meaning that if a story's title alone made the reviewing character throw up their hooves or hands and walk away, that would be the review. If we could make this happen, then the reviewers would be under less pressure and be able to complete more reviews.

Any thoughts? Any volunteers? I've spoken with M1sf0rtune already, and gotten his blessing in giving this a try.

--Hope

Sweet Luna I forgot we even existed. If someone hadn't sent me a PM I might never have seen this post either. I'm a little busy these days, but I could probably get a review in every other weekend or so. My OC writes as a hobby anyway.

6018753
Nice to see you're still around after all these years. Good luck with this!

Is this because I submitted my own story for critique in my own review folder awhile back? I was just looking for some groups to add my story to and get a little exposure. Then I saw the TECS folder marked dead and submitted it there by mistake. In hindsight, I should have been browsing in the actual group page...

Also, I don't see the point in having volunteers RP as pony reviewers. IMO it's a needless complication, and while less of a pressure than requiring critics to cover a certain length of a story, it's a pressure nonetheless. Repurposing it as a 1st Glance type of review group is still a great idea though.

Though thinking about it, I wouldn't have it stop at one critic though. Let's say a story is submitted and is given its first 1st glance review. It should then be passed to a 2nd critic volunteer who gives it another glance, and 2nd perspective that views the story again to see if the 1st first glance is sound. This may go on for a 3rd, 4th or even 5th time, depending on the author's request. The consensus is taken as an average summary/score of all the reviews on that story.

6019646
I love your suggestions!
I like the idea of a character of some kind reviewing because to me it's easier for a character to be blunt and opinionated without hurting the author's feelings. Even a lot of the big reviewing groups resemble this style where they will have their own OCs talking about the story. Maybe using Spike or other canon ponies isn't necessary, but using characters as the reviewers makes it much easier to deflect any anger authors may have. It's not an attempt to have an objective "fair" approach to each story, it's more of a fun way to get a quick opinion.

I think that passing on for extra glances to other reviewers would be appropriate if the reviewers deem it worth their while, not the author. If it's up to the author then almost every story will come with the maximum number of reviews requested.

But the passing on idea in general and the consensus is an excellent idea!

Writing the reviews as OCs with no requirement for them to write it as a story would make it so that at the very least they just sign off with their OC's name, making a distinction between the reviewer and the character making the judgement.

What do you think?

6021926
You make a good point about using OCs as a technical freedom. I know I said it was moot, but the prospect seems vaguely fun now that I think about it myself. I'll try and see if I can come up with a rough draft of procedures within the next few days or so. Something to help streamline the retooling of the group. I'll be looking into TECS' old protocol, just to see if I can use parts of it for some of the framework.

6022700
I cheer happily at your willingness to be involved!
I can't wait to see the guidelines, then we can maybe poll the remaining members or just go ahead and change the group over since I have permission.
You're awesome! I need to get Perception Filter to take a look, see if he's interested.

6018753
This sounds awful. Time to leave the group.

6022987
Ouchies, well... I suppose someone was bound to dislike the idea.
I find it personally amusing that "Group is dead, no activity, no reviews" wasn't enough to leave, but this was. But
Any tips on why it's so repulsive before you go?

It's an interesting idea, if nothing else. I can definitely see it being fun, but I'm not sure how useful it'll be to the authors. Depending on the character we choose to write as, it's entirely possible that the things we say to the author might be utterly irrelevant, and will, in many cases, be flat out terrible ideas that should never be followed.

How about this idea:

Two review categories.
Fun: canon characters, no good advice promised, no length promised, character chosen by reviewer.
Learning: reviewed by our personal OCs, first 1000 words read before review, minimum, and advice should be helpful.

The best of both worlds, and maintaining a "our reviewers are not being paid for this, so cut them some slack" attitude.

That could work. I do like the idea of doing the reviews as characters, so as long as there's a way to make them useful at the same time I'm ok with it.

One of the reasons I am partially against portraying characters as reviewers is that you're basically overlaying a certain character's biases on top of your own, which potentially leads to a clash of opinions. Some people fine with that and can perfectly write as certain characters from the show, but the unconscious influence of bias from actual-self cannot be completely dismissed. That said, I'm not against using OCs as reviewers, because well, they are original and are basically a reflection of the person who created them, and can only really be filled with that creator's bias.

Anywho, I will include those two categories in the tentative draft. Testing waters after all. The draft is coming along well, and I should have it up on Friday, as the draft's plan could be potentially put into effect next month.