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?
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?