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Reader and Writer
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2009
- Messages
- 3,419
- Reaction score
- 70
I said this when the "you must vote for all of the category" rule was implemented: it's almost counter-productive to require readers/voters to vote for categories/genres that they are not interested in. This rule led to the 'popularity vote' problem that we have now because unfortunately readers are more likely to just vote for the fics they've heard are good in a category they don't like instead of doing the required reading.
Obviously, our goal is to get more exposure to more of the fics on here, and finding the best route to that goal is a work in progress. But yeah like I said back then, forcing people to read fics that they have no interest in just to be able to vote is not the way to go.
I honestly think the only way to handle this if we keep the voters system and don't go to a judging panel would be to offer a "Best Reviewer" Award as part of the Awards. This would encourage people to not only read a high number of fics, but to leave meaningful responses in each fic's threads. This would be good for everyone. I don't remember who to credit with this idea, but yea. If reviewers as well as authors have the incentive to do their due diligence, I think the quality of voting AND year-round reviewing will go up. If reviewers know they could win an award (although it's a bit sad that it takes an award to motivate them), they will be more likely to read more fics and offer constructive thoughts, which again, would be beneficial to everyone (and not just in terms of the awards either).
I honestly think this very small remedy would help in a far bigger way than banning previous winners from competition. Because I admit that my fic has several readers that I know ONLY read my fic (or only a few fics on this site). I'm sure this is true for a lot of fics on this forum. The thing we are missing here is that this is not necessarily a bad thing... it's simply an inevitibility.
I mean, obviously we want exposure for everyone, but it kind of makes sense: My fic is an anime-based story... there are some people in this whole big community that are mostly interested in the anime and aren't necessarily interested in the slightest about reading a fic about game-only characters or anything else really. Conversely, there's people who hate the anime and aren't the least bit interested in reading a fic based on it. My point is that, by removing fics from the running, you can't expect those voters to offer meaningful responses to fics that they don't care about. They are far more likely to not vote at all. Now, perhaps if they were only voting for a certain fic because it's the only one they were interested in reading in the first place, you could argue that you wouldn't want those people voting anyway... but I'm just saying that this is the issue we face when we have open voting in a competition like this.
This is why I think offering the "reviewer award" would be the best remedy. It's the only real way to encourage people to actually read and comment on more fics, which will prepare them the way we want before the voting. It's the only way to do that without losing a great deal of the voters altogether. Now, I know we want quality over quantity like Zekurom said, but I think if we included the "best reviewer category," it would be a fair compromise to everyone who has voiced differing opinions on this manner.
Obviously, our goal is to get more exposure to more of the fics on here, and finding the best route to that goal is a work in progress. But yeah like I said back then, forcing people to read fics that they have no interest in just to be able to vote is not the way to go.
I honestly think the only way to handle this if we keep the voters system and don't go to a judging panel would be to offer a "Best Reviewer" Award as part of the Awards. This would encourage people to not only read a high number of fics, but to leave meaningful responses in each fic's threads. This would be good for everyone. I don't remember who to credit with this idea, but yea. If reviewers as well as authors have the incentive to do their due diligence, I think the quality of voting AND year-round reviewing will go up. If reviewers know they could win an award (although it's a bit sad that it takes an award to motivate them), they will be more likely to read more fics and offer constructive thoughts, which again, would be beneficial to everyone (and not just in terms of the awards either).
I honestly think this very small remedy would help in a far bigger way than banning previous winners from competition. Because I admit that my fic has several readers that I know ONLY read my fic (or only a few fics on this site). I'm sure this is true for a lot of fics on this forum. The thing we are missing here is that this is not necessarily a bad thing... it's simply an inevitibility.
I mean, obviously we want exposure for everyone, but it kind of makes sense: My fic is an anime-based story... there are some people in this whole big community that are mostly interested in the anime and aren't necessarily interested in the slightest about reading a fic about game-only characters or anything else really. Conversely, there's people who hate the anime and aren't the least bit interested in reading a fic based on it. My point is that, by removing fics from the running, you can't expect those voters to offer meaningful responses to fics that they don't care about. They are far more likely to not vote at all. Now, perhaps if they were only voting for a certain fic because it's the only one they were interested in reading in the first place, you could argue that you wouldn't want those people voting anyway... but I'm just saying that this is the issue we face when we have open voting in a competition like this.
This is why I think offering the "reviewer award" would be the best remedy. It's the only real way to encourage people to actually read and comment on more fics, which will prepare them the way we want before the voting. It's the only way to do that without losing a great deal of the voters altogether. Now, I know we want quality over quantity like Zekurom said, but I think if we included the "best reviewer category," it would be a fair compromise to everyone who has voiced differing opinions on this manner.
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