It's with a heavy heart that I do this, but I have made the decision to suspend Comment Club. I want to thank everyone who has put in the time and effort into participating these last few Slates and keeping this little thing chugging along, but I don't see a path back to my original vision of what Comment Club was supposed to be, which was a vibrant community of readers eager to read and comment on fics together. The energy was there at first, and then it waned (in me, too!), as is natural for anything of this kind. But then it didn't come back, and I could not figure out how to capture lightning in a bottle again.

Celestia Slate XIV, Luna Slate XIII, and Cadance Slate V will be the last of their kind. Everyone who participates or participated in them will get the privilege of nominating for Celestia Slate XV, Luna Slate XIV, and Cadance Slate VI, as promised. However, those Slates will be posted with no expiration date, and no subsequent Slate to nominate for. Commenting on them will truly be for the joy of commenting, and I can promise to get to every one myself.

At the end of this week, 2022 Feb 17, that last round of Slates Eternal will be posted, so please get your nominations in by then! I will then post a longer retrospective that is more fitting for the gratitude I feel for all of you who have participated in this little experiment. I just have a lot of fandom obligations this week to get to first.

And this is not the end. I still do want to have a part in something that will highlight and give attention to underappreciated fics that deserve a second chance, so you may see a new project involving me soon. And, who knows? Maybe one day it will make sense to try something much like Comment Club again, with lessons learned and modifications made.

--Bicyclette

sobs and cries and shits i am so upset that college made me so busy

Dang, now I regret coming late to the party! Here's hoping the last round is just as excellent as the others have been. If nothing else, I have a good backlog of stories to read and comment on!

7643649
Thank you for running it while you had time and the inclination. I can imagine the effort took many hours per week to manage on a technical scale plus the detail and reading required that you then channeled into writing detailed comments!

While I agree things weren't racing on all hooves at all times, it did seem that it was flowing rather than ebbing recently (e.g. the most recent Celestia slate participation was about twice as robust as the last, I think)...but obviously the entire function wasn't growing large--it was at best maintaining status over the past month or two. Best wishes with what you choose to use all that freed-up time for!

...give attention to underappreciated fics that deserve a second chance, ...

A worthy goal! There are many quality older tales, but it can be hard to locate them since while the site has tagging, it does not have a curated "repository" of collected links by theme/celebrity curator (though some users maintain their own "favorites" lists, no drive-by viewer is likely to ever find those). I'll continue to try to link a few thematically pertinent stories from others in my tales' authors' notes. (I think at least Mockingbirb does something similar from time to time).

Beyond that, if anyone is looking for repositories that are still active you probably know about most of these but maybe one is new to you: TCC56's blog, Paul Asaran's blog , Present Perfect's blog, and although it is strangely located off-site... Louder Yay and whatever is featured on Equestria Daily. (For defunct but large repositories/directories, there are: One Man's Pony Ramblings, the Royal Canterlot Library, Seattle's Angels (Index), and probably many older ones--the Seattle's Angels index lists some under "Resources"). Ask-for-review groups are beyond this scope, but those, like Reviewer's Mansion, also exist. And presumably Graymane Shadow's G5 review group will be operating soon.

7643665
The thoroughness of your comments has been impressive. I cannot say I agree with all advice that you have provided on others' stories (just most of it) ; however, your kind thoughtfulness is admirable!

7643673
I think one of the beautiful things about fiction, and art in general, is that there’s no need to agree on everything. I’ve heard it said that creative works are intersubjective, meaning that the culture around the work ultimately determines the work’s quality or worth. I haven’t agreed with everything you say, either, but I’ve found your comments to be thorough and helpful, even when I’m not the one who wrote the story. It’s been fun commenting with you all, and I hope to continue doing so.