MOD State of the FanFic Address - February 2015

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State of The Fanfic Address​

For those who are newer around these parts, every so often we have a State of the Fanfic Address to sum up events that have happened here in Fanfic and things that might have happened around the boards that pertain to fanfic. We also let you know about things that we might have been working on behind the scenes. There's been quite a bit recently so we thought it was time for a new address.

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First off, the traditional, what your mods are doing in life post, that really doesn't mean anything but we think is kinda fun.

Mav - Mav has been getting her butt kicked at work recently, but is excited that she is scheduled to start doing PICU and NICU training late this winter. (Pediatric ICU and Neonatal ICU). She's super excited to be going to a wedding of 2 JCers in April and then immediately going to Celebration 7 afterward where she hopes to get to meet (or see again) many of you!


Bri - Bri is getting her butt kicked in university but is loving it and is loving living solo. She actually may have figured out what she is doing when she (eventually) graduates. She, unlike Mav, is stuck in a frozen tundra for the foreseeable future but is looking forward to 2 weeks of fanfiction-writing and Netflix-Binging and generally being a hermit while her city hosts the Canada Winter Games.

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Board Wide Info

Discrimination Policy
A discussion in Comms was started a while back about specifying the Sexism/Racism/Discrimination Policy for the boards. Previously, these things were not mentioned specifically, but fell under the catch all rule of "Users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful to themselves and fellow users at all times."

After a Mod Squad Discussion and unanimous vote, the following has been added to the rules:

Boardwide Rules/Policies Update
The admins have been working on updating the board wide rules and policies. Some changes have already been made/updated and more are forthcoming. Please see THIS comms post for more information.


Truncation Issue
Sorry if we got your hopes up, there really isn't any news on this front. There have been some major issues in trying to get this fixed, and like the past updates, we have no idea when we might have more info. But please know it hasn't been forgotten.

As always, reposts of stories that have been truncated are allowed (we just ask that you spread them out over time and label them as such), you can edit your old stories with the untruncated versions (but remember, if you make any changes between when it was saved on the boards a few years ago and now, it will revert to the saved version when the truncation is fixed. If it's exactly the same, nothing will happen), or you can link to an outside source of the story in the story thread so long as the entire story is TOS compliant where it is posted.





FanFic Info

Promoting Policy Update
We had a discussion on changing the pimping/promoting policy, which has since been changed after a discussion in resource. You are now allowed to post links to fics in certain threads in resource. Please see THIS thread for the complete rules regarding where you can and cannot link.


Spoiler Policy
With The Force Awakens coming up this year and more movies in the future, the Spoiler Policy for fanfic has been updated. You are allowed to post stories that include spoilers for the upcoming movies but it must be clearly marked in the subject line and the story. Otherwise anything that is considered a spoiler is not allowed in fanfic. Please see THIS thread for more information.


FAQ
We are in the process of updating and changing the FanFic FAQ. We hope the change will make things a little easier, with the most pertinent info up at the top in a concise manor, and further explanations and examples lower down. This is a pretty slow going process as it's a big overhaul, so please be patient with us.


Welcome New Users Thread
We've also been working on a welcome new users thread that give a short introduction to FanFic and with links to important places. This will be things that people will, for the most part, only need to look at once, giving new people a place to see the general idea of how things are around here which allows us to take some length out of the FAQ.


Awards
As you all are probably aware, the awards are underway and barring any nuclear fallout, the ceremony should be in March. See the Guide for more info and dates. We still could use some prizes, so please PM us any of your ideas for prizes.

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Volunteers Needed!
There are a few threads we think would be great to be restarted/started, but rather than have it be run by the mods, we thought maybe you guys would be interested.


Beta Readers Index
We feel that this is an important thread and with the current thread being so old and out of date, we think a new one needs to be started. If anyone is interested in starting such a thread, please PM us and let us know. (This could be more than one person)


Creche' Padawan's and Masters Thread
Once a bustling thread, after the move, use fell off. It was attempted again a while back, but with what hopefully will be more people coming with The Force Awakens coming later this year, we'd like to get this up and going again. If you'd like to be the host of this thread, please PM us and let us know. (We've had one volunteer, but if you are still interested in helping, let us know.)

Prolific Author's Index
This thread used to be a place for authors to hold the links to all of their stories here on the boards, but with the truncation issue, it's all but useless. We think it's a good idea to start a new thread and would like a volunteer to run it. As far as indexes go, this one is pretty low maintenance. (New Thread has been started, fine it HERE)


Pimp My Fic/FanFic Trailers Thread
It was mentioned in the discussion on the promoting policy that a 'Pimp My Fic' thread where authors could put a summary and a link to their fic. There used to be a FanFic Trailers Thread that was a lot of fun, where people would write a movie style trailer for their fic. We like both these things, but don't feel both are necessary, so we thought maybe someone would like to host a thread where people can introduce their new fics but in a creative ways (trailers, book covers, etc). Let us know if you have any idea and/or if you'd like to host the thread.


Plot Bunny Thread
This thread is a place where you can post your unused/unwanted plot bunnies you don't want to write yourself but would like to see written. This thread is very old and currently unmanaged, so we thought a new one might be in order. If you'd like to host this thread, let us know! (Volunteer has been found)




Last Words
Please always know that you guys can come to us with any issues you have here on the boards, be it with a post, another user, or just something you'd like to see done/happen. We try to be all over the place, but we can't always, so we rely on you guys to let us know. Sometimes there isn't anything we can do, but sometimes there is.

If this address is something you guys would like to see more often, let us know. It could also including things about the goings on in fanfic (new challenges, Indices, etc.) since we don't always have big rules updates to tell you about.

If you've managed to read this far, let us know you have by saying something along the lines of 'I've read this' here in this thread and in a week or so we'll randomly choose one or two people to get 48 hours of colors.

 

I've read it, and I will reread it in a few to see if I have any questions.

Oh, mandatory FIRST.

 

I like the amount of butts mentioned. Woo-hoo, butts, butts, butts; buttiful!

Anyway, my praise, criticism and suggestions:

There are two subtitles with the same typo in 'em.

Can't be any more thankful for how you linked to the new rules of the entire board, in light of many recent events.

I love the idea of a movie trailer-style fic pimp thread, to the point where I am wondering how much would one have to do in order to be running it etc. Interested! What's especially awesome about it is that it's hyperactive-writer-friendly and people who have only outlined ideas for something that may be written in, say, 2016, can tease those ideas and reveal only as much as they feel like revealing or only as much as they know so far; and see if there is any feedback. Perhaps somebody can make friends that way, too. Not to mention that the well-versed Photoshoppers and After Effect...ers could create a genuine trailer or poster. Creativity all the way!

I also love the Masters and Padawans thread, that's like the big sister/brother thing one sees in films and TV series. Could it potentially be a feature of the n00bs thead, so there aren't two? This Fanfic Orientation Thread has some amazing stuff in it, too!

Character threads for anything other than the most popular ship are a good thing to get people interested in things beyond two specific people in various states of getting it on, loving each other, missing each other et cetera; trying new things and advancing as writers.

Another index I would like to propose: an alphabetic index of alien species and fics where those species play a significant or main role. It could be an additional boost for those whose writings -some or all - are not human-centric.

I think that's it, sorry for the long post and for, well, having too much to say.

 

I've read through. Concise and comprehensive summation.

 

I've read it. I've thought about proposing a reboot of the plot bunny thread myself, so now seems like as good of a time as any to say that I'm willing to host it. It'll probably take me some time (a week or two) to get moving on it due to DRL, but if the mods are good with it then I'm willing to do it.

 

Read it. Plan to come back later and read it again just in case I missed anything...

 

Read!

 

AWESOME! Send us a formal PM whenever you have time (because mav and I WILL forget )

 

Maaaaaaan, I'd love the fanfic trailers thread to live again - because I'm just that type of obnoxious multimedia dork who wants to Shadows of the Empire every longfic I write.

 

Read it. It would be nice to see some of these suggested threads get some life again.

 

Can't say I liked the idea of replacing the catch-all "Don't be a dick" with an official "discrimination policy," (such changes rarely turn out for the better, in my experience), but there ain't nuthin' I can do about it.

Glad to hear the FanFic-specific stuff is going forward; I long since gave up on the truncation being fixed and "fixed" the story threads that needed it.

 

Read it, thanks mods!

As Mad-Indexer-In-Chief, I'm happy to host the Prolific Writers' Index if no one else wants to do it. I'll be in touch on PM soon.

 

I don't think it would be too labor intensive to run, depending on how you want to do it. If you do want to do it, send us a PM and we can all figure out how it will run. If you want, you can type up a first post draft with the rules, etc, but if you aren't sure we can work on it together.

That's exactly what it's like. It used to be a very popular thing, but fell off since we didn't have many new people coming in. Its basically someone who's been around a bit helping someone navigate the boards, be a fic cheerleader and sometimes a beta, though that doesn't have to be the case.

There used to be a charcter thread for just about every character and ship imaginable, but their popularity fell off in the last few years with the exception of a select few. This is a case of, if somone wants to give a character or ship thread a try, let us know. We'd be estatic if resource becaming the bustling place it used to be.

This is another case of, if you have an idea for a thread, PM us and let us know. Usually it means you have to be the one to host the thread, unless you know someone else that wants to.

 

Read. Thanks, ladies.

But could we please have discussion that doesn't include ****-baiting? See below.

Because shippers can be superb writers, too.

 

Indeed. Let's try to keep it civil here. This is fanfics, not a writing class; we do this for fun. To add to what Mav said, the ONLY reason why the L/M index and the OC index/discussion are really the only character indexes up and around is because the people who manage them WANTED to keep them around. I took control of the SRSJ long before I became a mod and if I wasn't a mod, I'd be more than happy to create and upkeep more character/shipping threads. It really boils down to, if you want to see something, ask to do it.

 

The Prolific Writers' Index is up: http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...writers-index-revived.50027002/#post-52125427

 

Thanks so much Chyntuck. I love it when old threads get revived. It makes me nostalgic for the days when we had pretty banners that changed every 2 months and when all the links actually worked (OMG, I am so old).

But seriously, thank you.

 

You shush now, Bri.

Thanks, Chyntuck!

 

Briannakin You know you're getting old when you lament about getting old. So just think happy thoughts, take the second star to the right, and keep going until morning.

 

Oh changeable banners, how I miss you!

On that note, it is possible to put a banner up in the announcement space (see it in action here in the FanArt fourm) if any of our more talented photoshoppers want to work on something like that.


And yes, thanks Chyn! I also added the link to the first post of this thread.

 

Read. Thanks for what you guys do.

I've been thinking about resurrecting a thread about the Old Republic. Ages ago, I started the 'Guardians of the Old Republic' thread, which Commander_DWH eventually took over when I became less and less fanfic involved due to personal reasons. Now that I'm back into fanfic, I'd love to have a thread where people can pop in, find fics (as they're written) about the era, and answer era-specific questions.

 

I personally think that would be awesome (before doesn't get nearly enough representation here). PM me and Mav and we can discuss either unlocking the thread or you creating a new one.

 

Please, do. Some of us are literally clueless about that era and now that I have seen how you write in the round robin, I want to read more of your stuff and more from that era.

I don't know what the bolded means (and it sounds kinda...yucky), but I did not mean to offend and I'm sorry that I upset you. Sorry. I ship a couple myself, so I'm not against shipping in any way.

Briannakin, did not mean to be un-civil in any way, I just have a tendency to get too comedic/bizarre in everyday writing. I can delete the strange sentence if you want me to; but in that case, two people who quoted me would have to remove it somehow as well; so the discussion doesn't take a weird turn.

mavjade, addressed most of these (banner creation, alien index and fanfic trailers) in PM, apart from...

I hope somebody will indeed want to give such thread a a go; as there are folks here who really are like helpful other siblings and have exceptional people skills. I can see how people who are intimidated by volume of all this could benefit from its existence.

 

****:

As defined by the site Fandom **** (no link because it's not entirely safe for kiddos, but you can Google it.)

Apology accepted, but I hope you can clearly see where some of us thought you were blasting a missile at a significant number of posters on this particular board. It's not about being "anti-ship," it's about the particular 'ship, and about the writers for that particular 'ship being accused of not "trying new things and advancing as writers" when nothing could be further from the truth.

Please accept my apologies as well - for a knee-jerk reaction, that came simply out of the fact that I've danced that dance and rode that rodeo before (and not that long ago, either).

(And now I'm really done discussing this, and I also apologize to mav and Bri for derailing the thread temporarily)