Question For My Lovelies...

[daxcat79.livejournal.com]

So I noticed the other day that another community did awards, like fanfic awards, and best art awards, and stuff like that. It seemed like a great way to celebrate some of the amazing stuff that's posted on this community. I was just curious if there's something similar here, and if not, was it something people would be interested in?

EDIT: 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?

Comments

[daxcat79.livejournal.com]

Lol yeah, the promptathons are pretty exhausting and a lot of work. I thought maybe having grids with prompt words with smaller fics and people finish out their grid posting fic. It might be easier because it'd all be people who have agreed to participate and easier to keep track of, maybe? *shrug*

*thinking hat is on*

[inkvoices]

See, I thought that was what you meant, but clarity is awesome :) Us mods are on a learning curve with the comm, so you'll have to forgive us sometimes. If we have a philosophy it's that everything is 'allowed' and that we like people who live outside the cultural box and expand the cultural box, but I guess people have to join in to learn that. We're not used to being this big a comm - our growth spurt, woah - so having a big sign pointing stuff out... we had an intro post and stuff, but long ago in internet time, huh?

What were the most important/relevant/useful things that you learnt from that intro post you did? And/or what things did you wish you'd known before joining or that you wanted to know or didn't want to ask but wanted to know?

Hmm, what about the profile page? Do you look at that? Or sticky posts at the top of journals? (Because those are the big three places to stick a 'look here' sign.)

[ashen_key]

An image thread helps if people actually use it, and don't post ten graphics to one comment before it has time to collapse. Such as a general graphics thread, sub-divided within that thread for gifs, pics, picspams, etc - that will collapse a lot faster.

And people can do spoiler-cuts in comments, yep. So just say 'there are pictures under here!' + all warnings re: triggery material and sexual content, and then spoiler-cut, and that'd be MUCH more friendly. I've had to duck out of a lot of all-things-friday posts due to the number of graphics. And if people just want to have a post for graphics, then say in the post itself 'warning: graphics heavy'.

Re: Friday Posts

[dictator-duck.livejournal.com]

:). Thanks.

I just think it'd be useful to post reminders in the Friday posts? Like in the post where people sign up to host, remind them to put a specific footer at the end of their Friday post. ("As always, please remember to warn and mark NSFW content in your title, and put images and .gifs behind spoilercuts [link to how that html works]," for example)

I haven't PM'd mods just because there are so many infractions in those posts... I feel like a jerk to go and e-mail the link to what triggered me, when I know there're more I haven't seen (like I'm singling the person out?) and they can't even be edited since people have replied?

♥

[inkvoices]

I'm not actually following, you mean like bingo cards? Or diving threads of a post up into groups of prompts? Or...?

it'd all be people who have agreed to participate and easier to keep track of, maybe? Sorry, but you made me laugh a lot just then because lol, like, oh, say, the small number of 54 who signed up to do Secret Santa? That turned into pinch hitters on top of that and a graphics gang and community treats? :D

Re: Friday Posts

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

Just seconding Inkvoices here, we try to catch these things, but sometimes things slip past us. Mods are only human! :) We created the new rules post and that will hopefully help things. I know I haven't been watching the comm as closely as I have in the past due to real life things, but I have resolved to watch for these things more closely in the future.

I understand the need for trigger warnings and have always encouraged the use of them. I have a few triggers myself.

[inkvoices]

Yeah, but I don't think purely_distel means that. I think they're on about our lack of signposting for new people, something saying how inclusive we are maybe, which I can get. I forget that the comm has grown so big and how intimidating that can be O.O

[inkvoices]

I don't know if image threads will work for some all the things friday posts, where things are a party atmosphere and spontaneous and images are part of a conversation, although for posts that we know are going to be image heavy it would work. And maybe a warning in the header that images have started to turn up, hmm.... We can't exactly police people starting to chat with images or gif wars or random icons (guilty as charged) and I know people don't always warn for those if they're not sexualised, although they should when they are... Maybe 'here be images, note if NSFW, warn if NSFW? *thinky thinky thoughts and taking notes*

Spoiler cuts, that would work :)

[ashen_key]

That makes sense! But yeah, if it's more organized party post, then a graphics thread is good. If not, then spoiler-cuts.

Parties aren't fun for those who can't join in, after all.

Re: Friday Posts

[dictator-duck.livejournal.com]

Not saying mods aren't human or looking out for things; just pointing out a flaw that persistently exists in the Friday posts and needs acknowledgement and management.

Hope you're doing well, re: real life things.

Re: Friday Posts

[inkvoices]

I think a reminder would be a good idea :) I'm note-taking on everything and we'll see what kind of a reminder we can come up with, although I think you have the bones of it.

It is always, always fine to PM a mod. We don't then single that person out and rage at them or anything, promise! We chat, we ask what they meant - because often people don't mean to offend anyone or trigger anyone or mess up etc or there can be crossed wires - and every so often we did amendments to the rules on the profile page and now we have a main rules post. What we are evolves, and a lot of that is about the feedback that we get. Even if things like the comments in all the things friday can't be edited, it would have raised it louder and we would have gone down the road of doing our best to solve so everyone is as happy as possible :)

[inkvoices]

I think if it was a rec post version of all the things friday or one of our sectioned off ones, it'd work, but a lot of them are meant to be party time things. I'll put forward the spoiler-cut idea though, even if it's only until a thread collapses. Like I said, we can't police everything thought. (And, personally, I lean more towards keeping an eye on warnings, plagarism, people being nasty to each other, as my priorities when I have my mod eyes on.)

We do try to be as inclusive as possible at all times :)

[ashen_key]

I wasn't asking for policing, just an awareness? And yes, I'd rather you concentrated on warnings over graphics, too.

[daxcat79.livejournal.com]

What you do is you have a grid, and in each box is a word associated with our spies. Like one could be hands, bow, fight... and so on. By the end of the month they would have to finish their grid of prompts and those who get through them get banners.

Haha, well this would be a lot easier because everyone would post their grids so keeping track of everyone would be just as simple as getting a link to their grid (a link to each fic embedded in each word. Understand better?

Re: Friday Posts

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

Okay, thanks for pointing it out, we'll post warnings in the future or ask OPs to (since we can't edit other people's posts).

Re: Friday Posts

[inkvoices]

We acknowledge it; we're just working on the management bit, specifically how to balance keeping it all friendly and inclusive to people who want to kick back and relax as well as making sure everything is warned for and inclusive for images and people don't bash characters and everyone is happy and...oh, yeah, real life, have I eaten yet tonight? ;)

Also hoping all is well on the home front, Sugar *hugs*.

Re: Friday Posts

[dictator-duck.livejournal.com]

Thanks, :)

[inkvoices]

Well, we're aware, but that doesn't mean that everyone else is aware, which means that we need to do things to make sure that they're aware, which includes politely tapping people on the shoulder occasionally...which is what I call policing *shrugs* walking the beat kinda thing, y'know? Like I said, we work on it. We work on everything, we do we do *grins*. Yeah, we've been building up to that rules post and most of it is about warnings because we've been paying attention and wrestling with it. Fingers and toes crossed, my friend, fingers and toes crossed.

[inkvoices]

AH, you mean a bingo :) I've seen those, where everyone gets issued a table of prompts, posts it on their journal, writes or creates it for each one, and then posts when they've finished. It would still require tracking and, depending on numbers, a ton of banners...if individualised...hmmm, could be streamlined. I will add this to the suggestion box!

(I'm collecting a lot of things, so if they don't all happen at once, don't sue me ;) It'd be nice to have some things to spread out over the year/whenever and this one could definitely work.)

Re: Friday Posts

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

No worries, and apologies if I came across a bit short, real life is stressing me out.

We take any feedback about the comm very seriously and discuss things at length off-camera, so to speak. Running such a large community presents its challenges, and we never anticipated it would grow so much! Sometimes that means bigger things like changes to the community rules take longer to work though, especially since we have busy lives and are in different time zones. Rest assured we are taking these things seriously and are discussing how to best come up with a solution that suits everyone.

[daxcat79.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just remember it was really fun. It was tough, but a great challenge, and something everyone looked forward to.

[inkvoices]

Hiya! I've been trying to keep track of all the ideas on this post - wow, there are a lot! *beams* What I'd say is, we're gonna have to spread things out over the year and I've counted about five (?) suggestions for Valentines so far (and I can't remember if that's including from the mod chat or not lol) so please do have thinky thoughts and ideas and chat about them, and then email or PM us mods with a rough plan or outline of as many as you like and we'll see what's going on, if they work here or need to be on a different set up, when might work best for them, who's willing to organise, how to organise, how they fit in with what other people have been asking us for...and all that jazz. Looking forward to hearing all about them :D

[purely-distel.livejournal.com]

oh, though I've been sort of throwing my ideas out there, I realise that we should/can't have them all the time *laughs* that would be mental!

I've managed ficathons, exchanges etc before, so that in general isn't the problem. I was thinking (but NOTHING is set into anything, not even sand) of it being mainly a commentathon, though obviously if someone is inspired to write a long story from the prompt then, by all means - they should go for it.

The whole "quarter annually" thing that I was talking about at some other point during the discussion (if you even saw that?) was about the rec list that we were talking about at some point, which obviously would not have been a HUGE thing for the comm. But I think we've moved passed that anyway?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_samalander/]

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.

[inkvoices]

Insanity happens, so it's always good to clarify *grins*.

Oh, if you email us with ideas and volunteer to help with them, we WILL draft you in, have no feear ;) but depending on what you do depends not only on the work for you, but the work for the mods, and how big it's gonna spread, and what work that'll create, and... y'see? So yeah, clarification and planning are our friends. A commentathon would probably be one of the easist options, especially since we're not that long off, but it does sound a lot like the promptathon and that got epic fast. Maybe we could set a general theme or give a shorter time limit for prompts or something, I don't know yet. What I do know is that the mods have been chatting about doing something for that time of year which may or may not be similiar or the same ;) But yeah, ALL YOUR IDEAS, rough sketch 'em, send 'em, we'll see what we can bring out to play!

I saw reference, but I've been trying to track the whole post, so... I'm not actually sure how the whole rec listing idea ended up, because we have a lot of similar things or things that could be tweaked anyway, apart from the idea of highlight new and underappreciated works, which is awesome. Again, sketch out what you were thinking of as a seasonal thing, by all means. All the ideas, and volunteer your little heart out, and then watch how instead of doing a couple of banners you end up organising a graphics tream *shakes head at self and laughs*.