Writing Help Forums - I&B

Summary:

Bringing this up again

Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 29 Oct 2018 05:39

So, not sure how many staff are aware, but there was a sudden influx of new members today and the forums got slammed. We had, at one point, 35+ unanswered draft threads. Granted, I've generally been able to alleviate this a bit by accepting apps on a bit of a delay and screening for people who have sandboxes and sending them a special message advising them to use the I&B forum if the content was problematic, but… it's no secret that the forums are hilariously understaffed and crazy thankless to the point of being an active drain on the reviewers.

Plenty of drafts the Forum Crit/butterfly squad team goes through end with "get the base concept checked in the ideas and brainstorming forum before you try to fix the full draft". I'm wondering if now is the time to implement a step for newer authors with heavily problematic drafts necessitating that they get their ideas checked before writing anything new, and before receiving detailed feedback that ultimately might go to waste if they just fix up the small details draft while ignoring the conceptual issues.

I brought up the proposal before the summer: http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-6103772/writing-help-forum-process-change but since there were some comments against it (granted, from staff who don't regularly post in the help forums), I didn't push for implementation.

All that said… I'm going to be increasing my IRL work hours in January. I won't be able to keep an eye on the forums and jump in several times a week to pick up slack, and I don't want any staff to feel guilty for not contributing to what's pretty much the most thankless and ill-appreciated task on the entire site.

As a general note of the average experience… today I picked up five threads to critique at my own pace while I did chores. When I was 2/5 done, three more threads were posted, one of which that had two drafts.

This is on top of going through apps and keeping the forums clean and commenting on all the responses I get on threads I've already left a review on. We need something to make the forums more efficient, because soon I won't be around as much to help turn the tides.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

LadyKatie 29 Oct 2018 06:23

To link Zyn's statements in the previous post,

1. First-time authors (i.e., authors who have not yet authored a successful mainsite work of their own. Co-authored articles will not count for this.) must have a concept cleared in the Ideas and Brainstorming forum before they can make a draft thread soliciting feedback.

2. Concepts presented in I&B can only be officially cleared by successful authors or staff members.

3. Draft threads that are created by first-time authors without a corresponding I&B thread will have a redirect/instructions notice posted, and then locked.

I don't think any of these are unreasonable, actually. 1 seems like it's going to be a lot of work on us, but it also doesn't require staff to rubber stamp every little thing. We already encourage interaction with experienced, non staff authors, and quite frankly this is a community and we should encourage involvement and interaction.

Two would clear up a lot of the clutter in the Drafts forums. I personally have told three people to go back to ideas and brainstorming this week, a few of whom had been recommended there by other crit team staff. I also frequently see half baked paragraphs going "SHOULD I FINISH WRITING THIS OR NOT?" and I can't give you an honest answer because there's nothing here for me to crit. In fact, nothing here for me to crit is the most annoying out of anything that I could possibly read in drafts.

Three requires staff oversight yes… that we already have in place for people posting full drafts in posts, posting multiple threads for the same draft, and watching for particularly vitriolic crit. We usually catch these on our own, and if not, users are sometimes reliable for pointing them out.

Is this a lot of bureaucracy, yes. But in my experience, forum crit is a never ending cycle of giving the same responses over and over again, taking away from drafts that could be amazing if they were given a little more help and authors with potential going in the wrong direction because the most anyone on staff can give them is two paragraphs on what they liked, what they didn't like and begging them to go to chat for more eyes on a draft because we will never have time to go back to this forum post. Users are required to read the rules anyway, if they can't follow them, that's on the user, not us.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Modern_Erasmus 29 Oct 2018 14:52

I have to admit I’m skeptical this will actually wind up reducing work. As is, completely unworkable drafts get a short review before being bumped to I and B (and not every user actually goes on to make an I and B thread). Under this system, we have to police the d and c forum for first timers, force them to go to I and B via discussion/thread action (the latter of which only mods and admins can do), review their idea thread, then review the draft thread.

We’d be replacing a 1-3 step process with a 3-5 step process, easing the pressure on d and c slightly but multiplying the pressure on I and B. Plus the fact that virtually every writer who needs to be shunted to I and B under the current system never manage to produce something good anyway due to lack of experience/talent/etc.

Edit: Honestly I think the only way we make a meaningful work reduction when it comes to extremely low quality drafts or ideas (the kind with elementary level grammar or bad fanfiction esque plots, I’m talking irredeemably terrible rather than garden variety terrible) would be for reviewers to be able to leave a brief message rejecting the draft/idea without needing to go in depth on the why. If I open a draft and see no punctuation, a very blatant self insert sephiroth clone, or multiple misspellings per sentence, it’s not worth my time to review it because I already know this is never going to succeed. Being able to quickly say something like “Due to excessive grammar/spelling errors this draft does not meet the standards necessary to receive a review” would be the only way to solve this issue.

Mind, this solution is quite harsh and runs contrary to the traditional operating procedure, in which even the most messy/irredeemable stuff still gets a fair shake. It would also require care to ensure no reviewers abuse the system to reject drafts and ideas that are bad/terrible but not utterly hopeless.

Last edited on 29 Oct 2018 15:06 by Modern_Erasmus Show more

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 29 Oct 2018 17:29

If I open a draft and see no punctuation, a very blatant self insert sephiroth clone, or multiple misspellings per sentence, it’s not worth my time to review it because I already know this is never going to succeed. Being able to quickly say something like “Due to excessive grammar/spelling errors this draft does not meet the standards necessary to receive a review” would be the only way to solve this issue.

I can get behind this provided we have some sort of general guideline for when it is acceptable to drop the message, and something we can link the authors to so they can do their own self-study. I know there was some uneasiness about having a generic checklist of things that all articles should have, but… at this point, reviewers are basically being that checklist for things that authors should already be doing on their own. When there are things like basic grammar errors and containment that's 100 meter cubic cells for a cat, it really feels like a waste of time to review when more talented and dedicated authors are waiting for feedback as well.

Last edited on 29 Oct 2018 17:29 by Zyn Show more

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Lazar Lyusternik 29 Oct 2018 18:36

Proposal in works. stay tuned.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

(account deleted) 30 Oct 2018 11:52

I’m going to save me thoughts until after seeing said proposal.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

DrMagnus 03 Nov 2018 19:46

I think what's actually missing here, is a staff step of bumping a draft off of the draft forums if they feel it's not ready. As in, an official staff step of "This is not ready to be reviewed, please correct basic formatting, punctuation, grammar before asking again" or "This concept isn't ready for drafting. Please go to the I&B forums until approved by a staff member"

Currently, users will happily argue with a staff member/critter and generally be like "I think it's great, you're a biased buttbutt" instead of actually fixing any of the issues with a work.

This is a kind of hybrid solution between what some of the INT branches do (Full approval before anything can be posted at all) and our current system of "Whatever you feel like". This would also necessitate keeping a list of drafts/users who currently have this requirement, somewhere publically on O5 I'd imagine.

Lazar said he's starting a proposal, but this feels like a decent go-between step for said eventual proposal.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

fieldstone 29 Oct 2018 16:52

I actually see this as a great potential time saver - I try to give every draft a fair shake and it means I end up wasting a lot of time trying to find some constructive advice on work I know full well is not going to make it because the concept is fundamentally bad or the author lacks basic writing skills. The discretion to just say "nope, this isn't ready for review" would do a tremendous amount to keep the load down by allowing us to clear the chaff efficiently and give more attention to authors who already have the fundamentals down and are more likely to follow through on their articles.

Honestly I don't think this will multiply the workload on I and B that much because most of the authors who get shunted that way are likely to give up altogether, and I think only a fraction of them will end up back at the draft forum having worked the concept through (and those that do would be showing the kind of capacity for persistent self- improvement that we're hoping to see). In practice I think it would usually just act as a rubber stamp to let the critique team know they can pass on a thread, which would save us collectively a whole lot of time a d trouble.

I don't think that the first-time author rule is necessary - while we want people to use all the resources, if someone's really capable of coming in hot with a good draft, I don't want to make them jump through hoops. Just "nope"ing bad drafts, regardless of who they're from, seems like an easier and more efficient solution than checking the writer's history.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 29 Oct 2018 17:26

The discretion to just say "nope, this isn't ready for review" would do a tremendous amount to keep the load down by allowing us to clear the chaff efficiently and give more attention to authors who already have the fundamentals down and are more likely to follow through on their articles.

I'm good with this, though I felt that "go to I&B and don't come back until you have something that reviewers think is worth working on" is more courteous than "go work on your writing more and don't come back until your writing is worth reading".

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

fieldstone 29 Oct 2018 20:31

I very much agree that in the interest of maintaining a welcoming environment and giving everyone their best shot, we should frame it as "you need to take a step back and go from there" rather than just "you're hopeless." (The "nope, not ready" in the post above is shorthand for purposes of this conversation - we should always be polite with writers 🦋😀🦋).

This whole thing is kind of a tangent

Focusing more on whether an idea holds together conceptually makes sense anyway - I'd be thrilled to fine-tooth the grammar and spelling on a solid, well thought out article by someone struggling with (for example) dyslexia or ESL, but I don't think I've ever gotten that opportunity. Drafts that are really bad technically are usually pretty weak conceptually as well; there's enough overlap that it makes sense to just focus on the conceptual aspect since that's where we can do the most to help people grow as writers anyway. In practice, I expect that writers who are too young/inexperienced/unwilling to make effort/whatever to do basic proofreading are also unlikely to stick it out through the brainstorming process we're describing, whether we specifically address their grammar or not.

That said, I agree with soulless that it would be great to have a standard "here are some basic resources" package of links to throw in for posters lacking basic skills, but overall I can very much get behind "and by the way, there are too many basic errors in this for it to survive on the mainsite, you'll have to work on that independently if you want to be a successful writer" being only a footnote - personally I feel like a critique should never focus primarily on technical issues unless those are the only problems with an otherwise great draft.

I think we should be doing our best to help out anyone who has good ideas with whatever their technical problems are, so crit staff will have to distinguish between drafts that are flawed at the technical level vs. flawed at the conceptual level (even if 95% of the time, it's both or neither).

(edited for clarity _{and to remove extra "definitely"s and add butterflies})

Last edited on 29 Oct 2018 22:43 by fieldstone Show more

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

DrMagnus 03 Nov 2018 19:48

I think having a list of "Threads to be moved" for a free moderator to handle would be helpful here. Not just "This needs to be on I&B" but actually MOVING it to I&B

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 04 Nov 2018 03:43

Draft threads don't belong in Ideas and Brainstorming though?

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

DrMagnus 05 Nov 2018 02:36

True, but I mean as a "Back to the drawing board" step.

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

SoullessSingularity 29 Oct 2018 18:26

While I support outright rejection on the basis of not reaching a meaningful minimum quality, I feel we should acknowledge and establish that we have a meaningful minimum quality. This would mean we are raising the standards formally of what is an acceptable draft worth reviewing on the site. This would be a formal establishment that the site standards are high enough that sufficiently low effort/quality content will be summarily rejected, even at the draft level.

Yes, I agree this is likely what we may need to do in order to lessen the workload. But it is important to acknowledge what this will mean going forward as a fiction website and how we should establish ourselves and the sorts of writers we expect to attract and retain.

For the most beginning writers, perhaps we can have a list of reference material? Not just for Scp writing but I’m basic literary fiction writing…

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 30 Oct 2018 04:13

For the most beginning writers, perhaps we can have a list of reference material? Not just for Scp writing but I’m basic literary fiction writing…

I would be up for this. Providing people with a list of things for self-study that they need to address first may also help deal with another persistent problem. A fair number of authors see a bunch of draft-specific crit followed by instructions on how to fix the overarching problems, but then only address the specifics while ignoring the rest of the feedback that's ultimately more important than the small spot fixes (we had that happen literally a few minutes ago).

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Dexanote 30 Oct 2018 20:59

For the most beginning writers, perhaps we can have a list of reference material? Not just for Scp writing but I’m basic literary fiction writing…

What sort of references are we talking here? Works of fiction to read as an example of storytelling structure, or like, How Tos on how to not write bad fan fiction?

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

SoullessSingularity 31 Oct 2018 12:59

Classical short fiction to read, select chapters of Elements of Style, a basic grammar checklist/quick reference, the hero’s journey… and we can talk about what would make other decent beginner resources.

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

RJB_R 29 Oct 2018 21:51

Given that pretty much all of our forum people are in favor of this, I'm inclined to want to give it a try. They know better than we what would reduce the maximum pressure our system is always under. It may mean we have to shift our stance on how we approach new talent retention but we won't have any new talent retention if a system that constantly runs overheated inevitably falls to pieces.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

AdminBright 30 Oct 2018 19:58

I'm all for it. Makes sense on my level.

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Admin, SCP Wiki

Re: Writing Help Forums - I&B

Zyn 09 Nov 2018 07:25

Commenting on this again since discussion seems to have slowed down. By the looks of it, we have several options:

1. Implement a standard "this needs more work before it would be worthwhile to critique it in depth" staff response for the drafts of a certain quality.

2. Implement a standard generic cookie-cutter review for problematic drafts.

3. Teach more users to review the more error-strewn works quickly and briefly and ask them to help with the forums.

I'm interested in seeing how the critique seminars go before exploring the other options, and admittedly the forums have been looking much better recently (still a fair number of unanswered threads, but definitely less than 30) now that the initial flood of newbies has seemingly quieted down a bit.