Ratings for fukufics

[Crescent Pulsar S]

There is a difference. A business wants people who are serious and constructive. But a site like this is for fun, for following our own paths. Sercon folks try to, um, help us do that. Their way. Sometimes it works; sometimes it's buzzkill.

Fun doesn't exclude serious things, though. One common way of being a fan is dedicating time and effort into something, in some form or another. (For instance, this site wasn't started for shits and giggles, but to serve an actual purpose.) Reviews and ratings have both a practical and useful place in fandom, which can improve someone's experience. While that doesn't always work out as intended, that potential failure is no reason to cast it aside. It's not like we're restricted to being either formal or casual about this, and I'm certainly not suggesting that there would only be serious reviewers with an obligation to provide reviews. Reviews should be open to whoever's actually willing, but the problem is that not many stories got a review (or a proper one) before, and I think that stories (especially the finished ones) deserve at least one, decent review in the one place that's specifically dedicated to them. Am I wrong in thinking that?

[PCHeintz72]

I agree fun can be serious, I suppose.

I for example am a star trek fan, whom occasionally dusts off a private project I have that involves a renovation and redistribution of the federation star fleet, both in the timeframe of the original cast movies, and the Next Generation timeframe post dominion war... that is fun for me, but a serious project.

But even given something like that, it is also not something that would have a overly wide appeal outside a few select individuals...

I'm not telling you not to do it, or try to convince someone to do it, just that I fail to see the usefulness to me personally given my own reading habits and past experience.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Fun doesn't exclude serious things, though. One common way of being a fan is dedicating time and effort into something, in some form or another. (For instance, this site wasn't started for shits and giggles, but to serve an actual purpose.) Reviews and ratings have both a practical and useful place in fandom, which can improve someone's experience. While that doesn't always work out as intended, that potential failure is no reason to cast it aside. It's not like we're restricted to being either formal or casual about this, and I'm certainly not suggesting that there would only be serious reviewers with an obligation to provide reviews. Reviews should be open to whoever's actually willing, but the problem is that not many stories got a review (or a proper one) before, and I think that stories (especially the finished ones) deserve at least one, decent review in the one place that's specifically dedicated to them. Am I wrong in thinking that?

I've been involved in judging quite a few competitions, and the pressure is intense. "Say something useful, but don't hurt their feelings." That's how many writers' groups operate -- but people who aren't used to that have tender feelings, easily bruised. When giving reviews on FFnet I try to keep it positive, but there've been occasions I simply haven't been able to. Grammar corrections usually go in a PM -- they're fiddling detail, not a review for the world to read -- but when somebody jumps the shark in a story I've previously been enjoying, I can't always stop myself from putting it in a review.

And that's the trouble with honest reviews: you keep running into Sturgeon's Law.

Most decent stories on FFnet have many reviews. I've seen stories with thousands, and even a few with tens of thousands. Stories with only a few reviews aren't likely to draw the attention of reviewers, nor raise their desire to review.

What would be far more useful would be lists of recommendations. Which already exist. I already subscribe to several. One I use is DM's Best Completed Stories. Not reviews, recommendations. It works well to check the Favorites lists of authors you like, or of authors that like you.

Reviews happen, anyway. Recommendations happen. If somebody wants to do it, no reason they shouldn't. I count PCHeinz' reading list as suggestions. There are the "looking for a story" threads, and I check out those possibilities too. Nothing stops any of us from writing reviews, and we can post them anywhere we thing there's an audience. I just don't see the need to do it any more formally than it already is.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

I can't really agree with that way of thinking. Being too passive too often is fine with large fandoms, because they can pretty much sustain themselves without much need for artificial engagement or encouragement. While I don't think there's any need for anything grand, I feel that fukufic stories have too small of a fan base for the sort of attitude that would lead to such thoughts as, "well, I don't see anyone doing anything, so why should I?" There's only one direction where the feelings of pointlessness lead.

I mean, it has nothing to do with being ambitious. This is pretty much the only site (that I know of) devoted to fukufics, it only has a community with about a dozen or two active users, and lists known fukufic stories (though it used to be a bit more than that). The fandom's small, but that doesn't mean that our interest has to reflect that. It's going to be hard for new people to care, or the old people to continue doing so, if those in the present don't seem to, and there are a bunch of things we haven't done that a lot of people pretty much expect to be done/available nowadays.

I just don't see the appeal of stagnation.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

I just don't see the appeal of stagnation.

And I don't see stagnation. I may be looking in different places, but FFnet has lots of reviews. Tenhawk Presents has reviews in the tens and hundreds, as does Twisting the Hellmouth. Mediaminer doesn't do too well in the review count. And who knows how many other sites there are?

Nor was I counseling inaction. I was suggesting that if people wanted to do something, they should. I simply see no need for a formal structure.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

Those places aren't devoted solely to fukufics. And any lack of stagnation (especially in FF.Net's case) is due to different circumstances and conditions, which includes things that this site isn't doing.

I mean, as far as I can tell, we don't even have reviews on the site anymore. The site can't always ebb; when will it flow?

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

So write some. There is plenty of room under miscellaneous.

[Crescent Pulsar S]

Room, yes, but it's not exactly advertised. It'd be better if there was a forum for such topics, so they don't get mixed in with other topics. At least, I think the reviewing of the stories that our fandom focuses on deserves more attention than that. And on the site, in the data section of a story's article, there could be a link to the topic that has the reviews for it.