UUUH! I WANT IN!!!!!!!

*coughs* ... *composes herself* OK, so, what I meant to say is - just the other day I was thinking about this! About how, considering how prolific AND talented everyone is around here, wouldn't it be fun to celebrate it? Also to highlight other stories maybe, not from here in the comm and ... well, just ... ANOTHER reason to go mental and celebrate ;) Who needs an excuse for a party, eh?

So, uhm, if people want it and if you were looking, I would LOVE to help organise it *happy grin*

A non community category would be good- that way we can get some of the stuff from ff and Ao3 that didn't make its way here.

On the other hand, it could get political and icky, like I've seen some fandoms get (which is why I left fandom until I was lured back by y'all :P). But I'm pretty sure this bar would manage to do well.

I was thinking I could do banners or something. Wanna see what the mods think. I'd hate to see things get messy. But I do think it could be fun.

I think it could be a lot of fun, but to avoid getting political (which I do see happen in a lot of fandoms), you'd need a clear schedule, a way of nominating and voting that can't be tampered with, and a lot of categories. I mean, sure, there are heavy-hitting awards like "Best fic" and "Best author," but I think it's more fun if there are categories like, "best AU," "most creative Budapest," "best Clint backstory," etc. And having each of the categories be named something different is always fun (The Virginia "Pepper" Potts Award for Best Banter, The Howard Stark Memorial Award for Best Innuendo (Fondue?)), too.

Uuuuh, loving this! The whole having categories that aren't, well "average". And, yes, clear schedule and voting system are an absolute must!

I guess I thought only a few categories would be simpler, but that actually sounds really fun. What would we name the best kidfic category?

I was thinking it could be based on our community tags. Keep it fun and crazy....

I definitely think this would be a better system then "best fic" or "best author" at least as far as avoiding the political cliquey nastiness. This way we'd all get to highlight stories that focus on different things done well as opposed to the overall "best" which is so horribly subjective anyway.

If we could keep it this way, I'd totally be happy to see it.

Otherwise though, I'm one who just might be a little leery... especially after the sockpuppet voting that happened in the HetReccers poll a few months back. Most of the bar is awesome, but if we already know that there's a few who might pull that kind of BS to skew votes to their faves.... It just worries me a little!

I am going to be the dubious one and vote for 'could we please not?'

Awards get competitive, and for those of us who aren't as popular as the in-crowd (and honestly for those of us who have things like anxiety and shyness) having an official award can rapidly just turn into a bunch of stress and not be any fun at all.

If we must, could we do things like people can only win one? Nominated for multiple sure, but you can only one win so it's more in the nature of being fun and celebratory rather an a clear competition for 'the best'.

I'm kinda with you on the definitely leery of it turning into a popularity contest and not a fun look at lots of awesome fics ya know? We'll see how/if it shapes up.

And great, LJ. I keep getting emails that, supposedly, someone I haven't talked to in ages (I don't think she's on LJ anymore oO) has replied to my comments on this post ... *le sigh* WAY TO CONFUSE ME, LJ!

Add me to the "please no" list. I don't like fic and artwork awards, I've only had bad experiences with them, and have seen how ugly and bitter things can turn out due to competitivness this can result in. I didn't read other comments - will do that in a moment, but I'm wondering if there is a better way to celebrate creativity and prolific-ness of members of this comm. In my experience, fic awards are usually given to most popular things... not best quality things.


One of my favorite things about this comm is the lack of people who go around acting like they're more important than others because they're more popular, their art or more often their fics (and then also, their meta observations, opinions et cetera are "more worthy" than other members have to offer). I would really hate to see that happening here.

One of my favorite things about this comm is the lack of people who go around acting like they're more important than others because they're more popular, their art or more often their fics (and then also, their meta observations, opinions et cetera are "more worthy" than other members have to offer). I would really hate to see that happening here.

Thank you Anuna, those were my first thoughts on this exactly. This bar celebrates everyone who puts something forward and that's what I love about it.

Maybe we could do like an epic bookmark thing instead? Everyone goes through favorite fics till we have like the biggest rec list ever from every category, including art. Then it's not a competition?

That's what I just suggested :D

As I've mentioned in a couple comments, this just worries me.

We can say all day long that this is the best bar and people would never bring drama into it, but we literally just had proof to the contrary a couple months ago that it's not precisely true.

If people in this comm were willing to cheat and make fake votes in the Hetreccer Ship Poll, then what's to stop them from doing it here?

Especially as it'll be even more of a personal "win" for them if it's for one of their stories or one of their friends stories?

Like I said, I'd like to think that it wouldn't happen in this comm with how awesome everyone USUALLY is... but there's members who have already proved that wrong and even bitched out the HetReccer mod when they were caught doing it.

And that worries me. I am not as active here, but I love getting to come and smile every so often. I worry this will just open us up for major drama.

??? I must have missed that. How was it "proved"?

It seems like we've decided against doing a competition anyway.

Just a random brainstorm as there were a lot of worried comments.

Do you guys know communities like het_reccers? They do a lot of big rec celebrations or meta-write up things where people claim a ship and run with it.

We could try and adjust it for our purposes? Like ... every x months, we put up a list of categories (be they whacky or serious ... debatable) and people snag them and then they rec a bunch of fics that fit that category ... like, if we have baby fic category, people could rec short fics, long fics, "fun" fic, dark fic, loosing the child-fic, keeping it-fic, not even able to conceive etc etc ...

you know what I mean?

That way we'd all just DRAWWWWN in mountains of wonderful recs (that half of us have not enough time to read xD DAMNIT, GIMME MORE TIME!)

Contributing to the brainstorm:

-We could do a Valentine's Day themed thing
-Maybe some sort of treasure/ easter egg hunt for Easter?

Edited 2013-01-13 09:23 pm (UTC)

I've only skimmed the comments that kick off each thread and this is me speaking just as me, not for all of the mods: I don't like the word 'best' unless it's followed by 'bar'. I love that we have a community where everyone who contributes in any and all ways is celebrated, even if just be being here. By all means, lets rec the things we love. There are, after all, LOTS of amazing and wonderful things here to be loved!

There's a lot of mention of rec lists. I myself tend to consider the 'fanwork' tags as themed rec lists, the all the things fridays, and the whole bar as recs list :) I understand that can be overwhelming and I know there's often focus on what's posted here and not elsewhere, so: when the bar kicked off I tried to do rec posts of things that I'd seen in places outside of this bar, from AO3 and tumblr and pinterest and all over the show. I haven't had so much time to do that lately, but everyone is always welcome to post recs and rec lists and to ask for recs and to share the things that they've found, on here or elsewhere.

All the things friday was originally set up as a 'pick a theme for recs' day, where we said things like let there be AUs and lo, all things AU were recced and discussed and new things were written, and all things friday can still be that and anyone can sign up for it. Ask workerbee73 if you can host a friday - she usually manages sign ups.

Us mods are always open to ideas and suggestions, and I'm just going to email the rest a heads up about this thread, and maybe doing another all the things sign up sheet or something, but my intial reaction is that we already have celebration happening and I don't think we're exhausted it just yet :)

Edited 2013-01-13 09:36 pm (UTC)

Naw, I'm not gonna be doing anything award like. Just an idea, but we're doing alternatives, mostly. I do feel like some of the newbies deserve some love for writing their first fics in the fandom, stuff like that. Some people have great fic that no one knows about....

daxcat79, I love you and I love this bar, and I love all the enthusiasm here and how we're always thinking up new and fantastic adventures in fandom-- let me just say that right up front..

But my vote is a very respectful (and loving) no. I want us to keep on celebrating difference and I worry that a competition might hamper that. I want everyone to continue to feel free to pursue their own creative visions and not be discouraged by thinking "omg no one is going to was to look at/read this because I think about the characters in a different way than other people do" (And dude, I think this all the time in regard to my own crap. ALL the damn time.)

I'm all for recs and for sharing our excitement over something we love and enjoy. (Self-recs not so much but that's just my deal, but heck, it's all free speech and these are free internets and if that's your thing well that's cool too.) It's truly all good.



Edited 2013-01-13 09:40 pm (UTC)

Just a thought. No biggie.

Apologies if I'm repeating what anyone else has said/suggested - I've been offline almost all weekend and haven't had time to read all the comments!

Anyway, put me down for Awards=No but Rec/Bookmark-a-thon=Yes. I'm terrible about finding things outside of AO3, I only ever seen non-AO3 fics if they're recced or posted here pretty much.

I also REALLY love the idea of a Valentine's Day something or other. We tend to get a lot of really good drabbles and short fics (sometimes longer things) from seemingly drive-by events like the hometown challenge or the kiss-a-thon. :D

Another thing I've been thinking a LOT about (but would want someone else to create/do because I want to *PLAY*) would be a Last Drabble Writer Standing event. anuna_81 and kadollan and I have been talking about that idea actually - but given how the others I've seen/participated in have been run it might be easier or better to have it's own separate community rather than doing it internally like we did the secret santa, I'm not sure?

*perks up* What would this involve?

My two cents, as a total fandom newcomer who is so in love with the 'LOVE ALL THE THINGS AND ALL THE PEOPLE' ethos of this bar, is that an awards thing would make me a little uncomfortable.

BUT. I think your epic rec idea is fabulous idea. And I think the reccing newbies idea is a really, really great idea. Lest it sounds like I'm talking about me, I'm not. I've got a couple of lovely people already who know about me, and are encouraging enough to keep me going.

But if I HADN'T been lucky enough to get picked up by those lovely people, then writing would be SO much less rewarding, and lonely, and just less fun. And it's less likely I'd stillbe doing it

So, because I'm all about sharing the love and the joy of Shipper Nation, I think it'd be really lovely to try and give other newbies that kind of support and encouragement which they might not have yet if no one knows about them!!

SO I am massively pro-that :)

I would love that, might need help finding all the newbies though... It's a lot to go through. We'd need to know all the writers, and focus on the first fics.

Hey guys!

Just a quick request - there has been a lot of 'we'll put this in the Friday posts' going around re: various suggestions, which is great!

But could we all (as per the mod post a few days ago) remember to warn and rate for things in the Friday posts? Including graphics? That makes them safer and way more inclusive than just a happy free-for-all for those who don't have triggers or things that trip them up.

(re: graphics, one way might be to put them all in one thread, or spoiler-cut them - this also helps those of us who don't have fast, cheap internets)

We have always encouraged warnings for the all the things posts - it was even on the profile page until it was replaced with a link for the general rules post - and it is, of course, now a rule to always warn. This being the best bar, I'm sure everyone will endeavor to play nice :)

An idea for a rec-athon:
A comm I'm part of in another fandom did a "rec olympics" post this summer- they chose different fandom tropes ("first time", "missionfic") and categories ("romance" "longfic") and media (vids, mixes, art, graphics, etc.) and asked people to nom three favorites - gold, silver, and bronze. (And some people only had one, or two, but they still threw them in as whatever they wanted to...)

They did it over a week or so, and left the posts open to noms for another week.

At the end, everyone who was nommed was given a banner, and they created an AO3 collection for the people who wanted to add their fics and other media. It was pretty awesome.

I really appreciate how respectful everyone has been of each other's opinions here, and of the fact that everyone feels this is a safe place to share their thoughts, feelings and opinions. The two definitely go hand-in-hand.

Best. Bar. EVER. :D

THIS :)

So I'm very, very late to this party (and don't have time to "expand" on *all* the comments. Glad to hear that there are so many people speaking out against awards; even with the best of intentions, anything that looks like a popularity contest is bound to hurt someone's feelings, even if it doesn't go political.

And I am totally with jacedesbff about being awed by the respect people are showing in the discussion. I used to play (operative: past tense) on another board where things degenerates into tangents within half a dozen posts -- I LOVE THIS BAR.

Personally, I like Samalander's idea of a rec-a-thon, where (maybe on a Monday, which is a dreadfully dull day anywhere ...) someone comes up with a fic or icon/banner trope and asks people to submit things they've written, seen, read and/or liked (no limit to number of submissions)? You could end up with an awesome collection of "kid", "first meeting," "Budapest," or "Clint/Natasha lose their memory" fics.

I think the idea of awards was trying to highlight and rec, so the post evolved into how to rec without competition type thing, so no worries :)

YES <3

This...was actually was all the things friday was originally about/for, so if there are particular things people would like to see recced they can host or ask for those things as themes, is the idea. I've been tracking the ideas emerging here and there are thinky thoughts happening on other reccing ways, but I'm hoping people take advantage of what's already around as well :)

*sits in the corner* I just want to write. Point me in the direction of prompts, new or old. That's all I care about.

Here's a story synopsis I came up with, that might be a fun prompt to see how people write it (because there are a lot of ways to do so):

Natasha repays her debt. She just never imagined Clint would be so terrible at walking in heels.

Or, since I know you like AUs: times are rough on the farm, so Clint gets himself a mail order bride from Russia in the 1800s and Oh, did you mean, like, at some other point? Okay, I'll start writing up a bunch of prompts. ;)