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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

I imagine Magic: The Gathering discussion would fall in the Entertainment Inc. section. It's the one that seems to fit the most.
 
Ehh, 40k is a bit much. That's about 8 chapters for me, which I would never be able to pull off in the five months before the close of the awards and the start of the next. That's why it's tricky, and I'm not sure if a word count is the right thing. On the flip side, I can't think of any other qualifiers that would be better.
 
Just want to quickly drop in and say hi and thanks for the birthdays greetings folks. I've lost my internet (again) for the moment and haven't been able to connect on my mobile network until now due to poor connection, in case you were wondering.
 
Actually, the issue is quite the opposite, lol. Here's a list of word counts of all the nominated story updates since June 20th - December somethingth (the previous Awards season):

Unpredictable -- 4,588
The Long Walk -- 9,945
How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps --15,493 (actually, idk what the official cutoff was + this includes a chapter posted on December 27th, which may be outside of the period)

Survival Project -- 26,595
some rise by sin -- 13,542

Ritchie: The Boy Who Won -- 12,440
Stainless Steel -- 7,280

Psychic Duelist Django -- okay so I stopped four out of twelve new chapters in because this was 20k+
Union City Angels -- new work, but 13,331

Storm Island -- 29,649
A Sine of Things to Come -- 16,338
Communication -- yeah there were 10 new chapters posted gonna call that 20k+

The gist here is that 1) there are definitely fics being reconsidered every season that have only updated one or two chapters every six months, and 2) 20k is actually pretty hard to reach, let alone anything higher. Only a third of the supposedly Award-worthy/active stories on this site update that frequently, and Psychic Duelist Django and Communication are the only things that went even remotely above that . I'm definitely in favor of imposing a limit, but I think 20k is fair enough. That amounts to almost a novel's worth of polished writing every year if you want to dominate a category, which seems fair.

Not really in favor of the "do lots of edits and only have to write 10k" thing, because there's no real way to quantify what "do lots of edits" entails. Yeah, it sucks and it's tough, but I'd rather have clear-cut guidelines where we can.
 
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If we're doing stats here (And I honestly didn't realise that some of these stories managed to turn out wordcounts like this), then 20,000 words over six months comes to about 3,400 per month. 25,000 comes out to just over 4,000.
 
The word count only applies to stories that have previously won, not just nominated.

With edits that word mean more than just fixing spelling and grammar. At any rate, we would probably be a tad lenient: if you got to 19,999, we aren't going to ban you from taking part.

Do people have any issue with the compulsory nominations?
 
Um. My fic is not good to turn to for this decision, and probably not Sike Saner's either. Both of our fics are completed. I don't know about Sike Saner, but I've not put any work into Survival Project while posting. The version I'm posting is the edited version and is a reposted thread - any comments made have been considered for the sequel instead.

EDIT: I was going to suggest not allowing fics like mine to be eligible at all, but then you completely exclude writers like Lord Kyuubi who like to write far in advance or just finish the fic before posting anywhere on the internet.

Since it's for fics that have won only, I think slightly below 20,000 (15,000 maybe?) is not an unreasonable expectation. I would personally say that to be nominated (for those who have not won), you have to update 2-3 times with no specified word limit. 1 chapter means someone can post the day after awards end and contribute nothing for 6 months. You can argue that people just won't nominate someone who's disappeared/doesn't make an impression/whatever, but you can still try to encourage more activity.

If we're going to go with edits, I'd say only full rewrites should be eligible. Full rewrites are usually put in separate threads, so you can see the differences and the progress made. No one wants to go back to a fic they read 6 months ago and try to analyze just exactly what the author changed about several scenes in several different chapters. I can't see any other way this won't be argued over somehow come time for awards, and having authors show the exact changes made by putting their chapters side by side or something seems ridiculous.

As for compulsory voting, I don't see a problem except that "at least one" is too low. At least 2, or probably even 3, is what I'd aim for. It is not that unreasonable to ask someone to spend a few hours between each awards reading 2 or 3 fics that, more likely than not, will provide them with inspiration for their own stories.
 
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As for compulsory voting, I don't see a problem except that "at least one" is too low. At least 2, or probably even 3, is what I'd aim for. It is not that unreasonable to ask someone to spend a few hours between each awards reading 2 or 3 fics that, more likely than not, will provide them with inspiration for their own stories.
We would only stick to one, as both rules would require people to nominate not as high profile work, and the first option would require people to change their nominations. If someone only read three stories and came to the awards and all three had been nominated, they would then be left with nothing to nominate. One at least gives people more freedom, but we would examine it in later awards if we had to. Ultimately what we are asking is what people prefer around compulsory voting, as I am not letting in compulsory voting and then everyone just nominates The Long Walk or something to be eligible.

Also, whatever we do with the word count, it would be up to the author to provide the data/prove they have met the requirements. I would not be asking anyone to go back through someone else's story and try to spot differences between versions. Any story that doesn't meet the requirements would be listed as non-eligible.
 
I've already made my opinions known at length in judges discussion, so I'll be very brief here. I prefer option 1 in regards to nomination - it's common sense, and there's never been an advantage to double nominations anyway. I don't mind compulsory nominations if they're a) going to apply equally to all self-nominations (as is implied here) and b) don't double up with compulsory voting.
 
b) don't double up with compulsory voting.
The easiest solution to voting would be that we actually have a wide range of nominations in the first place. If we have an even mix between recurring and new nominees, we probably won't have to change anything about voting. We'd only make changes if, after all this, we still end up with only a few fresh nominees.
 
The easiest solution to voting would be that we actually have a wide range of nominations in the first place. If we have an even mix between recurring and new nominees, we probably won't have to change anything about voting. We'd only make changes if, after all this, we still end up with only a few fresh nominees.

I think we're finally in agreement. Before I forget though, I would strongly suggest to test it for a few seasons. Remember that one where we had over seventy nominees? That was last winter, I think, and the summer wasn't too shabby (Could be misremembering). Thoughts for the future
 
Okay, I thought about it more and at least one probably seems fine. Though I'm interested to see if anyone has tried to come up with any way to "prove" edits have been made and that they're substantial enough to be eligible. Whatever the method is, it should also encourage me to edit instead of thinking it's not worth it.
 
I think we're finally in agreement. Before I forget though, I would strongly suggest to test it for a few seasons. Remember that one where we had over seventy nominees? That was last winter, I think, and the summer wasn't too shabby (Could be misremembering). Thoughts for the future
Summer is always more popular than winter, but this winter was I think the worst awards in terms of turn out we've had for quite some time. Only six/seven people nominated anything this time, and normally we at least get in the double digits. It was also the first time we've had to drop categories. We will see what effect these changes have next season and see what needs adapting.

Okay, I thought about it more and at least one probably seems fine. Though I'm interested to see if anyone has tried to come up with any way to "prove" edits have been made and that they're substantial enough to be eligible. Whatever the method is, it should also encourage me to edit instead of thinking it's not worth it.
I, now, put the original chapters in spoilers at the bottom of the post partly for continuity purposes, though I may be the only one. I would encourage people to keep some copy of their older copies around as proof, but I do agree it will be tricky to monitor and control. I think we have to at least provide some sort of option.
 
Summer is always more popular than winter, but this winter was I think the worst awards in terms of turn out we've had for quite some time. Only six/seven people nominated anything this time, and normally we at least get in the double digits. It was also the first time we've had to drop categories. We will see what effect these changes have next season and see what needs adapting.


I, now, put the original chapters in spoilers at the bottom of the post partly for continuity purposes, though I may be the only one. I would encourage people to keep some copy of their older copies around as proof, but I do agree it will be tricky to monitor and control. I think we have to at least provide some sort of option.

But that's not concrete proof until someone analyzes it to approve the edits to be substantial enough for eligibility, is it? I can say I edited, but what if I only added in, like, 5 sentences total?
 
Hmm,

I'm not against the new rules, but to me it does seem like the winners already vary frequently due to a change in judges, so to enforce this sort of limit is a tad funny in my opinion, but I can see the reason, especially with other categories/ones that only receive a few nominations. That said, I do feel that a winner should not be reached/picked from a pool that doesn't have all available options simply because one has already won, otherwise it lowers the standard of the awards, in my opinion. I can understand only wanting to award stories that are still being worked upon and not wanting to give an award to the same story over and over, and the limit is very reasonable, but perhaps instead of completely banning them from the awards, a point reduction could occur in the overall section? Say, if they only updated 5,000 words, they would lose 15 points or something. Again, not against the idea, but personally I don't see the current system as a huge problem. (Though I did not pay the best attention to the awards this season, so I'm obviously not the best informed here.)

Perhaps, if wanting to help promote new stories and authors within the community is big priority, then what about adding a category such as "Best New Story"? It wouldn't require any extra judging, which is the biggest pro I can think of, and it also gives authors (new and old) hopes of winning an award against long-running stories.

I do agree with the nomination part, though, particularly the first idea. If you want to nominate your own work, you should have to nominate others too. It not only helps with adding nominations, but gives a good incentive to read.
 
But that's not concrete proof until someone analyzes it to approve the edits to be substantial enough for eligibility, is it? I can say I edited, but what if I only added in, like, 5 sentences total?
If they only edited five sentences, they would not be allowed to use that as a reasonable excuse. I am talking about substantive, obvious edits. You could look at the first arc of Eight Easy Steps and compare the chapters: that is the sort of editing I am thinking.

Hmm,

I'm not against the new rules, but to me it does seem like the winners already vary frequently due to a change in judges, so to enforce this sort of limit is a tad funny in my opinion, but I can see the reason, especially with other categories/ones that only receive a few nominations. That said, I do feel that a winner should not be reached/picked from a pool that doesn't have all available options simply because one has already won, otherwise it lowers the standard of the awards, in my opinion. I can understand only wanting to award stories that are still being worked upon and not wanting to give an award to the same story over and over, and the limit is very reasonable, but perhaps instead of completely banning them from the awards, a point reduction could occur in the overall section? Say, if they only updated 5,000 words, they would lose 15 points or something. Again, not against the idea, but personally I don't see the current system as a huge problem. (Though I did not pay the best attention to the awards this season, so I'm obviously not the best informed here.)

Perhaps, if wanting to help promote new stories and authors within the community is big priority, then what about adding a category such as "Best New Story"? It wouldn't require any extra judging, which is the biggest pro I can think of, and it also gives authors (new and old) hopes of winning an award against long-running stories.

I do agree with the nomination part, though, particularly the first idea. If you want to nominate your own work, you should have to nominate others too. It not only helps with adding nominations, but gives a good incentive to read.
It is more about stories not being judged on the same content over and over again. If someone just posts one very short chapter, there is nothing really new, comparatively, to judge. If someone posts 15/20k words and they are still of a high quality, I am more than happy to give them an award again, but it seems silly to give them an award if they only updated the story, like people said, a day or two before the awards began. You'd have to think about Best Story: does something deserve to win the top award two seasons in a row if they only posted one new chapter that didn't really move the plot along?

Points don't really mean as much as they used to anymore, they are more there as guidelines, so losing points won't actually change anything. I am weary of adding more categories, just as I don't want to dilute things and I think having 'best new story' would open the door to 'why don't we best long running story', 'why don't we split the categories up by length', etc, and I am not rebooting the awards. We do have a Best Newcomer award to recognise new authors
 
If they only edited five sentences, they would not be allowed to use that as a reasonable excuse. I am talking about substantive, obvious edits. You could look at the first arc of Eight Easy Steps and compare the chapters: that is the sort of editing I am thinking.

Er, but unless you can tell a chapter is especially longer or cut down (which is the only obvious edit), then that still requires someone to take the time to read/skim/analyze/something. I guess the mods can take the week before awards to compile a complete list of eligible fics?
 
Speaking of awards, when will the 2015 winter banners be ready?

Whenever engineering stops trying to ruin my life (i.e. never, but I plan to get a set of test banners out to Ace by Thursday or Friday). I would have gotten them finished earlier but those things absolutely suck the life out of me. I'm way too meticulous.
 
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