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Story Swap: Open Beta and Planning

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
Hey everyone, so there's been some discussion on things that can be done to try and breathe a bit more life into this corner of the forums, with the low-hanging fruit being simply giving users more to do here. To that end, I actually talked a bit with @bobandbill about a reviewing game I'd seen used quite effectively in other parts of the internet, which you may recognize under various names, but for now, we'll call "Story Swap".

So to get right down to the nitty-gritty, Story Swap is effectively a randomized review exchange between a pool of entrant authors, with a distinct window for signing up and for completing reviews, with every entrant being guaranteed a review of at least 1 chapter meeting some minimum length (e.x. 250 words) from some other participant in the game. To that end, some sample basic rules would be:

• A 7-day signup window from when a game is first called, during which users may submit a fic from here on Serebii that is either their own, or another author's entered with said author's permission, with a 7-day window following afterwards for actually writing and uploading reviews
• As part of the signup process, entrants will be asked to provide a list of users who have fully caught up and reviewed their stories to avoid matching readers with stories they have already reviewed in full, along with any content that they are not comfortable reading as an opt-out (which applies to things covered specifically by content warnings, and not genres. As such "I don't want to read a story with heavy gore" would be an acceptable opt-out, "I don't want to read a ship fic" would not)
• As a specific quirk tailored to the present needs of this community, entrants will be allowed to make multiple submissions (capped at 1 additional entry for now) if they satisfy certain conditions before signing up that will tentatively be called "Participation Perks", aimed at encouraging participation in various activities on the forum (e.x. uploading new chapters, submitting nominations to the Fanfiction Awards, etc.) Players who exercise such perks will need to do 1 review for each submission they make.
• To enforce the "get a review, give a review" nature of the game, turning in all assigned reviews from a prior game is a prerequisite to joining future rounds, even if they are turned in late

So, what do you all think? Is the general premise something you would be interested in seeing and participating in here on SerebiiForums? And are there any potential revisions to the above proposal you'd like to suggest?
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
So like a "catnip" sort of event?

I feel like some of these stories being so long is awfully daunting. Like, I'd feel funny expecting someone to read Obsession given how old and how long it is, but at the same time it's my biggest story, y'know?
 

Virgil134

PMD Writer
So like a "catnip" sort of event?

I feel like some of these stories being so long is awfully daunting. Like, I'd feel funny expecting someone to read Obsession given how old and how long it is, but at the same time it's my biggest story, y'know?
Participants would only be expected to read a single chapter, so it doesn't really matter if the story is long.

If we're talking about the length of individual chapters though, I think that's something that can easily be resolved by the organizer adding in an additional rule that states that participants don't have to read and review past the first 10k words of a chapter (or whatever number the organizer of that particular round of Story Swap prefers).
 

Blackjack Gabbiani

Clearly we're great!
I see. That makes a bit more cohesive sense then.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
Good point on the length - I'd certainly support a word or chapter limit of sorts so people don't have to tackle a full blown fic to review as part of this. Better to keep things simple and not overblown to encourage participation.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
Good point on the length - I'd certainly support a word or chapter limit of sorts so people don't have to tackle a full blown fic to review as part of this. Better to keep things simple and not overblown to encourage participation.

I could've sworn that the draft proposal specifically mentioned that readers would only be on the hook for a single chapter, though a "first 10k words" cap should be fine for very long chapters. It's a relatively common constraint on similarly structured games elsewhere.

Though would it perhaps make sense to create an open draft of a more finalized ruleset / explanation and a template for a post to kick off a round? Since thus far, everyone has be broadly in agreement about the direction of this review game.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
Heya, sorry for keeping you all in suspense, got a bit slammed for availability in November. But I have an example beta template for both an OP post for Story Swap, as well as an example Round Template. Feel free to pick it over and leave some suggestions of things to tighten up, or else if it looks like something that would be workable for a game like this.
 
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