Please! Post anonymously! I really want to know!

[heidi]

Share this url! I really want answers here...

I was YMing with a friend yesterday about this beta thing we're working on for FA, in search of people who were going to have new fics to upload in the immediately future - like, the next week.

And she said that she knew a bunch of people who *were* finishing fics, but none of them would be submitting to FA.

So it got me wondering...

If you won't submit to FA, why?

Is it the grammar and spelling requirements?
Is it because you think your fic is NC17?
Or is there some other reason that isn't occuring to me right now?

Even if you hate FA and hate me (or even if it's one of the reasons I gave above), be kind for one minute and tell me why you won't submit to FA. Post anonymously. And I'm going to turn off IP logging for the next 48 hours so you don't have to worry that I'll somehow learn who you are. I won't, and nobody else will either.

edited to add: If it's partially the complicated method of submission, would an easier submission process help? Because we'll have one next month...

Comments

FA

[(Anonymous)]

I can't say I'm one of the people you've mentioned, but I see this happen all the time.

I think it might be FA's reputation. Come on, it is rather intimidating. We've got all these fantastic authors, they're a little daunting to be compared to. I, personally, would not want to see my fic in the index next to Barb's or Anna Milton's or yours, knowing that next to all these fantastic authors, mine's not even worth reading. A lot of people submit to ffn and shy away from FA because they think their work isn't good enough for FA's archives. Because FFN has lower standards and less quality fic to be compared to, it's not so scary to submit to, because you won't feel as stupid if your fic isn't a masterpeice.

~ Skye Black, not seeing the point of posting anonymously.

Re: FA

[irinaauthor.livejournal.com]

I think that, if anyone is nervous of posting to FA, it's because of what Skye said. I know that when I started The Rebirth, I had it on ffn for a while before I worked up the nerve to send it in to FA. Even then, I was sure it would be rejected. I have no idea why I thought that, since my grammar and spelling are good, and I had a plan for the rest of the story. I suppose it's because FA is where the most widely-read authors in the fandom post their stuff, which can be intimidating to a new author. People may think, "Why would anyone read my story, when these really popular ones are on the site?"

And now, eight months later, I'm a mod. Will wonders never cease?

Irina

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I didn't want to post to FA because of the tedious procedure of setting up author ids and posting to the review boards first before sending in fics to the mods. Well, that is the main reason I'm not so keen to post to FA. But then again, I ended up posting to FA due to several issues I have with TSTMNBN.

Oh, Heidi, forgive me for not replying to your owl. I have been very busy for the entire week. =)

Rhea Summers

FA's reputation

[til-midnight.livejournal.com]

I agree with Skye Black. The reason I'm hesitant to post at FA is becuase of it's high quality reputation. FF.net's standards are much lower and as a beginning author, I find it less intimidating to have my work hosted along side a lot of crap than along side the best fanfic there is.

Also, when I finally got up the courage to submit my work to FA, nothing ever happened. I got a automatic email, but that was it. I sorta lost my nerve after that.

But I think the main problem is FA's reputation. I think the spelling and grammar (and age) requirments are good, but they can be intemidating and no one wants their work rejected. We get attached to it.

ten miles til midnight

Re: FA's reputation

[owlman.livejournal.com]

If you are the author of 'What If' then your fic is in the queue to be uploaded to Schnoogle and should be uploaded later today.

I apologise for the delay - I ended up with a temping job this week and included in this was an 11 hour working day on Tuesday (which was followed by 3 hours of computer work for orienteering league updates) and a 9 hour working day on Wednesday (which was followed by a 3 hour meeting in the evening - connected with the orienteering league updates I had been doing on Tuesday). These meant that I had little free time for most of this week and only managed to have the opportunity to look at your fic a couple of nights ago.


Good luck with the test.


Simon

[thepiratequeen.livejournal.com]

For me it's all about the submission process, I'm glad to see that it's being changed. Are you guys switching to an auto-archive program? (just curious)

And while I personally am not daunted by FA's "reputation" I know many who no matter how many times you say it do not see it as an "all ships, all genres" friendly place. I think the whole thing's rather silly but then there are many people in the XF fandom who see Gossamer(the top XF archive) as only Mulder/Scully friendly when it in fact hosts whatever kind of XF-centric fic you could think to throw out it. Fandoms just get silly like that sometimes but I for one think you guys are doing a great job.

[bildungsroman.livejournal.com]

Meh, I actually was anxious to get my fic up on to FA for a while until it came down to it.

At first, I thought: "Hey! If there are all these great fics up here, and people see my fic next to theirs, then they'll surely read it!"

Then, when it came down to actually mailing it in, I had thoughts along the lines of: "What if they don't like me?"

It was all really selfish reasons for me. But then I mailed it in and have never been happier.

Skye, though, does have a point. Ff.net has lower standards and it's not as intimidating because of it's "brilliance". FA is can seem a little imperious at times; because it's so damn great. I can understand why some people may be a bit nervous about adding their fic to those listed in FA, but my question is Why the hell not? -- FA is a great place and I for one am proud of being archived there.

RamblerAt230am!Jen

FA's reputation

[thena.livejournal.com]

It's not a big surprise that I agree with what the others have said. I don't have trouble with why no one is submitting, actually I am going to submit a new fic and I even got that beta test group email.

But people don't want to submit to FictionAlley because it looks quite intimadating. There are so many well known authors on it. I think FA is the epitome of Harry Potter fanfiction sites. It's a high quality fandom site and that can actually make people think if they are worth being admitted. The submission process actually has reasonable rules but people still get the reinforced idea that FA is a too high quality for them. I don't think it's because it's complicated, you have a lot of dedicated staff who do their best for it in a fairly quick time.

It's just FA's reputation as a whole. It's one of the best HP fandom sites on the web. It's just an intimidation factor.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of my friends and fellow authors don't submit to FA because they feel that's it's too cliquey. One of them actually told me that she feels that certain authors get preferential treatment. I really don't know what to make of this, so I'll reserve judgement.

-A

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

Actually, I agree that certain authors get preferential treatment at FA - it's something I've noticed on my own, and from talking to others who aren't as much a part of the "in crowd." Unfortunately, with a site that's run and updated by human beings instead of automated servers, it's a bit inevitable that familiar fics by familiar authors will stand out in the minds of those dealing with them. It's not unheard of for submissions from unknowns to get lost in the general shuffle. I don't necessarily condone this, but I can see why it happens. It's harder to keep track of strangers than it is friends - unfamiliar names are simply more easily forgotten or looked over.

Ah well.

[castorandpollux.livejournal.com]

Erm, actually, I couldn't wait to get my fic up on FA back in August or so. :) The submission process *is* a little hard, but like you said, there's going to be something new for that soon... It's just a little confusing right now, anyway. I have lots of chapters up, but I *still* have to go to the "Submit" page to remember what sort of info I need to include in the subject and email body.

FA is a very cool place though, because of the diversity. I mainly wanted to submit there in the first place because I thought it'd be cool having my story up in a place where all sorts of other people had their stories up too. I saw it as FF.net, though with better quality and a more fan-oriented atmosphere...

--Gem

[morrigan-veela.livejournal.com]

I just had to tell you that I luuuuuuurve your icon. But I won't steal it, no I won't... *itches* ;)

[(Anonymous)]

From AIDAN LYNCH

This post is "anonymous" only because I am not an LJ user so presumably can't log in fully.

Plumeria (aome) mailed me the link to this discussion topic because she knows that I have twice tried to submit my novel-length fic UNTHINKABLE THOUGHTS to FA but have been overwhelmed by the submission procedure both times. UT is currently archived at ff.net, where it seems to have a pretty wide readership. I have not found ff.net to be as unreliable as some, and in fact I have logged on to find it down only 3 or 4 times in the 6 months or so that I have been writing UT, and only one of those times was it actually inconvenient. So I guess as I haven't ever really experienced the problems that must have existed before, I feel less need to boycott the site, which I am guessing (only guessing though!) was the initial reason for FA being established.

Two things need saying here.

One, I am an admitted technophobe, which in itself some may find difficult to comprehend, especially for all of you who have LJs and can put links in your text, and can IM, and know what HTML is, and how it differs from things which aren't HTML, and can design web pages, and dozens of other things which are a mystery to me. This is a source of *major* embarrassment, as other net users immediately assume that as I am an 18yo male laptop owner, I am obviously capable of hacking into the Pentagon. In fact I can't even do text messages on my mobile phone - preferring actually to talk - and the number of times my video machine has recorded the wrong TV show is laughable. The sad truth is that even submitting to ff.net had me worried for a while, and now they've altered that to a two-stage thing (supposedly as some kind of "help") I had to go and have a calming cigarette or three before I got my head even round that. When I first tried to go to FA, I went to the site and found it to be a really cool one, but was flummoxed by the terminology used, and gave up really easily. About a month later I had another go, and the flurry of email between me and Plu as I got more and more frustrated would probably have most of you laughing. But I was totally foxed: register for one thing, set up something else, post a board or a string or something (why? what are they?) then come back another time and do something more, OK, I can't really remember any of the details, but I can remember feeling hopelessly lost. And Plu, ardent champion of FA that she is, was obviously perceptive enough to realise that I am simply too stupid to get my head round it, and - bless her - has never mentioned it since. It must be frustrating for her to be such a fan of FA yet to have a fic she betas archived elsewhere, but hey, if she's willing to put up with that, it just gives me another reason to like her.

Two, when I first started writing UT it was really important to me that as many people as possible read it as possible. But now the writing is so important and personal that I am completing UT more for experimenting with the actual process of writing than for the aim of it being read. Now I know that seems strange - why bother to go to all that trouble (currently over 100k words) and not be bothered if anyone reads it or not? But there is a factor of time here. I am online for only perhaps half an hour a day, and not every day, and as it is I do not have enough time to correspond enough with all the people who have mailed me about UT from its being archived on *one* site; if it went to another site and the email load doubled, I would just sink under the strain. Hell, I'm supposed to be doing my A levels in four weeks. But I guess that's just an excuse for not having attempted FA submission a third time, because I'm pretty sure that if someone said to me, hey mail me all the chapters of UT and I will format them and submit them for you, while you sit back and smoke and get on with your exams, I would probably say yeah, cool, thanks.

In summary: I tried to get my head round FA submission, and I was found wanting. That made me think, a) I'm stupid, b) this site is stupid, and c) well, ff.net is good enough for me anyway.

Excuse the rambling, I can't help it. It's how I think.

Aidan Lynch
spitzbergen1234@hotmail.com

Three things..

[tobymalfoy.livejournal.com]

One: I'm going out on a limb and comment on your guess that FA was founded to boycott ff.net.. I'm not one of the people who made FA happen, but I have lurked on the sidelines since way before it was thought up. From what I've seen/read, boycotting ff.net was never an objective here. Yes, there were some things ff.net did that made quite a few people a bit angry, but that was only one reason to start FA. Many authors submit their fics to both. Other reasons included the very frequent downtime of ff.net during the first 8 or so months of last year and the desire not to be forced to click through tons of not-very-good stories full off spelling and grammar errors. I guess Heidi or one of the other FA people could go into more detail.
Two: You can see from the comments here, that you are not the only one having problems with the submission process. I don't know what Heidi and the gang are working on, but perhaps you could try again after they reworked the submission process.
Three: I love UT and I owe you a review. *shuts ears in oven* Need. to. let. people. know. that. I. liked. their. fics.

[stormy-lolita.livejournal.com]

Well, A's mentioned reason is partly why I won't submit to FA; I don't like the idea of being part of a mainstream clique. Also, it does seem like you tend to favor... but that's not really something I'm bothered by.

I like FFN because it's easy. All you have to do is click several buttons and your fic is online, no waiting required.. unless their bloody server's down again :)

[(Anonymous)]

Actually the first reason I stopped submitting was cause I got massive writers block. The second was cause I didn't want anyone to read the next thing I wrote... It was a bit confusing even when I read it over and would probably end up severely embarrassed. Should probably reminded to ask someone to pull off the rest of my story, anyway. The third reason I probably wouldn't post another fic there is cause I find the uploading system VERY v. v. v. v. confusing. It's impossible to understand. You've got like an entire page on how to do this. If you had done the entire thing point form and with quick, to the point directions, I wouldn't have stared at them for so long the first time and then went to ask both John and Simon, who could hardly help me themselves.

- Kim, who hardly cares about anonymously answering things

[shakespearessis.livejournal.com]

The main reason why I'm holding off posting to FA at the moment is time issues. I'm working on a novel-length fic, but the rate at which I get chapters out varies widely. It wouldn't be an issue except for the fact that, to submit to Schnoogle (where I'd like my fic to be housed), I have to combine 2-3 of my chapters into one document to meet the minimum chapter length requirements. It's a bit of a headache for an in-progress fic, so I'm just waiting until I'm done to mess with any of it.

And, to agree with others - FFN is my place of choice to post stories - as a site, it's below par, but the easy of posting is very convenient. FA takes more commitment to post to - but as a result, I'm seeing better fics there. There's also the fact it's easier for me to access my reviews, too.

Also, this is just a random suggestion - one thing that I would love to see at FA is perhaps a section of Schnoogle devoted to authors of merit - authors with consistently impeccable grammar, spelling, writing quality, etc. FFN is impossible to navigate when one is in search of fics for the lack of such a section.

:) Love Gordon

[morrigan-veela.livejournal.com]

Here's my story. I didn't consider even TRYING to post a fic on FA til after one of the Veelas was accepted. My biggest problem is that all of my fics, save one, are NC-17s. I've got a dirty mind, yanno. But I thought, what the hell, and submitted the first chapter of SitV. I was really amazed when it was accepted, although I was a bit daunted by all of the caveats I was given. It's not that I don't understand all the legality issues surrounding such things - I spent 3 years working at an internet co that did hosting and domain regs and spent a lot of time talking to lawyers. And I had one law class in grad school. *looks brightly at Heidi* I know you're impressed now. (yes, I'm making fun of myself) I know there has been some talk about an NC-17 FA, somehow, and I'd personally dearly love to be a big part of that if it ever becomes possible. But anyway, back to the point.

Some people have mentioned that FA is intimidating, or that it has a lofty reputation. Well, GOOD, says I. Any old plebe can post to FF.net. I want to be special. I sincerely hope that you don't make the submission process too easy, or that you stop having the fics read before they're accepted. FA is mostly quality, and I like that. I like to think I'm in good company.

And now I'm off to work on chapter 3 of SitV so I can finally submit it to FA, now that I have my comp again. Woohoo!

[nascosi.livejournal.com]

A few FFN friends I chat to on AOL sometimes haven't submitted anything to FA because the submission process is a bit confusing for new authors. I think that's actually a reason I hesitated before submitting to FA... Certainly not because of the intimidation though. God knows I'm far too arrogant to be easily intimidated ^^

-- Caly

Great comments. What would you change?

[queerasjohn.livejournal.com]

Hi folks, I'm John, one of the FA Admins. I'm currently starting a rewrite of the FictionAlley Submission Guidelines (http://www.fictionalley.org/submit.html) for ease of use, clarity and simplicity. So -- what would make it easier for you? What could we make clearer? What should we change? What should we leave the same? What would you do?

There's an LJ thread in my LJ (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=johnwalton&itemid=45958) or you can drop me an email at john@fictionalley.org with your reply.

Cheers,

--John

woobie

[covergrlgoddess.livejournal.com]

who could hate you?

To answer this: the reason I haven't uploaded is that I need to beta the hell out of my fic, because I wrote it when I first came into fandom, forgot about it, read it over a month ago and it sucked. Whenever I get around to betaing it or get a very loyal beta reader that won't kill me for all the mistakes, I'll upload to schnoogle.

love,
Mantha- who is lazy!

[resmiranda.livejournal.com]

Two reasons:

One, I am a brand-spankin'-new fanfic writer. I've been a member of the HP fandom for less than a year (I'm slow, so sue me), and only recently got into fanfiction, and only VERY recently (like, 4 days ago) decided to write a fiction for the first time in my life. I don't know if it's good or not, and FA's reputation scares me to death - being put up alongside Barb and Cassie and Rhysenn and Viola and Al and god knows who else with their own yahoo groups with 50,000 members and fanart is extremely daunting. I like that FA has this reputation - I know that I can always go there if I'm sick of clicking through FFn, but it's gonna take quite a while before I get up the courage to submit.

Two, it's VERY cliquey. I like this, it's more of an intimate, most-people-know-each-other, laid back sort of feeling. (I don't see any "Orwellian" aspects, so I don't know WHAT is going on with that sort of speculation.) But when you're a brand new member, it's easy to feel kind of on the fringes of things without knowing any of the jokes or past problems. There's no way to "fix" this, and frankly I don't want that to change. It's just another intimidating aspect of FA that discourages me (for now) from submitting a fic.

Res, submitter of vaguely unhelpful comments

[sincelastjuly.livejournal.com]

I second everything you say.
I've submitted a cookie to the cookie jar, but it'll be a while before I get up the courage to submit a long fic, assuming I could even be up to the task.
I'm happy just reading, right now.
And is is cliquey, and yes, that's can't be changed, but it is a bit daunting at first trying to get into the swing of things.

[datta.livejournal.com]

Complicated method...plus VERY low review to chapter ratio.

Fanfic

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, well, I've written a couple of fanfics, and I had one in the works, but I've never posted at FA for a couple of reasons. I don't really understand everything that I would have to do to set up a comments system and all that just to post my story. My stories aren't really that good, and there's such a tradition of excellence that I don't want to ruin that. I haven't worked on any fanfiction for a while because I've been working on a novel, and that along with school and band and attempting to sell our house, that just takes up most of my time. I probably won't ever post something to FA, because fanfiction was just a way of warming up my writing juices until I could start writing something original.

I stayed on topic for the most part - it starts out slow but I get somewhere.

[someisa.livejournal.com]

I haven't been in the FA community very long, I admit. I came in before you moved the boards. I kind of looked at it as a nice relief from the video gaming and web design community in which there's nothing but stupid fights over mindless nonsense, there are certain things you can't say and can say, certain people are worshipped over excessively and you get flamed for saying a suggestively unworshippy opinion about one of them, wars occurred daily, and your true friends were the ones who recognized the insanity and elitism of the all of it. Unfortunately, after hanging around FA for quite a while, now I'm beginning to think that even though the focuses might not be the same, I really didn't leave the video gaming and web design community at all. I agree that FA is very, very "cliquey," and that there is a strong amont of favoritism and bias amung the more popular authors and the admins of the Park and etcetera. As Gambalerina pointed out in an IM she and I had a while back -- she remembers Jedi Ginny when she was a Newbie, now she's a Mod. She's also pointed out how Rex caused trouble before he was a Mod numerous times, which is an interesting history for a Mod, and brings up the question of "why?" which further down the line points to favoritism. Nostry was afraid of no one reading the first three chapters of his fanfic because Draco Vertias was placed smack first at the top of the updates (then he remembered his story would be shown in the next days updates but that's not the point ;pp). Obviously, there's some favoritism there, and the whole "Staff and Favorites Fanfics Go First" thing is kind of.... elitist. All of FA is also pretty much biased and in total favortism and bum kissing of one another, there's even such petty battles between the House Elves. In example, Stacey mentioned that all songfics are alike, but if someone else she favored wrote a songfic, suddenly it wouldn't be alike all other songfics. As for the main topic, why wouldn't you want to submit to FA - the submission *is* confusing when you look at how it's written: it's kind of discouraging almost to think you're not good enough for even the submission process. I'm not calling anyone stupid, or saying that you didn't explain it better, but FF.net's uploading system is a lot more convienent since it goes quicker. Also, if a person with a short, general, non-romantic, not so humorous and non-romantic fanfic were to submit to FA, they'd probably be discouraged by the fact that the Four Houses house the former mentioned; you might want to think of mentioning shorts that have no real focus are welcomed to the Dark Arts, or allowing them to Schnoogle? Also, some people might not just discouraged by FA's submission and selectivity, but rather, the amount of "uber-fics" that're there.... it's kind of a psychological thing: "why should I submit there when they already have all those much better fanfics there and mine would just get ignored and left to rot?" A lot of authors also think their fanfics are crappier than the ones currently at FA, so there's the whole "reputation" thing too. Anywho, whatever. I gotta run.......

Someisa
Honest Bitch Forever

Re: I stayed on topic for the most part - it starts out slow but I get somewhere.

[queerasjohn.livejournal.com]

Someisa wrote:
the whole "Staff and Favorites Fanfics Go First" thing is kind of.... elitist

We added that in as a stop-gap measure a while back. Since we cut out the "Ratings" system, and haven't got our plans for a replacement system sorted yet. I'm honestly surprised to see placing the most popular fics on the site (many of which happen to be written by various people involved with FA) first on the uploads counted as "elitism" -- surely it's actually helpful to people who come just looking for those stories to let them find them faster? What would your suggestion for an alternative be? We're trying our best to avoid these elitism claims -- please do let us know when something looks like that. :)

Stacey mentioned that all songfics are alike, but if someone else she favored wrote a songfic, suddenly it wouldn't be alike all other songfics.

Hon, I don't think that's fair. All songfics are put in the same place (see the submission guidelines), regardless of who writes them.

Also, if a person with a short, general, non-romantic, not so humorous and non-romantic fanfic were to submit to FA, they'd probably be discouraged by the fact that the Four Houses house the former mentioned; you might want to think of mentioning shorts that have no real focus are welcomed to the Dark Arts, or allowing them to Schnoogle?

You have a good point here -- the "catchall" house is TDA, but we haven't made this clear in the submission guidelines. It's certainly in my current rewrite.

Could you elaborate more on the bias, bumkissing and staff favoritism? I really do want to know what the perceptions are from users. As Ombudsbeing, it's my job to make sure we crack down on this sort of thing, but I can only do so when it's reported to us.

Thanks, Someisa, for your comments. They've been very useful indeed.

--John

*nod nod*

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know what I can add to this exsept for a nod and a general 'it's true.' The reasons that I haven't subimitted to FA is because I'm afraid that my fics are not up to the standerd. A tough submittion system is a good thing I think (though you should work on the clarity of it, the last time I submitted something I just gave up because I was just to damn confussed on how to) that's what keeps the quality of the fics at FA so good. I don't remeber reading anything at FA that I didn't was quality work. I like the grammer and spelling requirments, they keep me on my toes. People who are being scared away from putting the work up on FA are to me eather A)not that active in the comunity of FA/FAP B)a newbie to FA/FAP c) aren't in the 'in' croud at FA/FAP.
Yes, there is a LOT of favoritism, and the odd thing about it is that it changes so often you can't keep track of it. Like the exsamples Som gave and many others I don't feel as it is my place to name, the relationships in FA change and it's a bit intimadating to a newbie or a non-active fic writer who's just looking for another archive. *shrugs* just my 2 knuts/:D
RoccRose de los wonderful, who STILL doesn't understand this anonymous thing.

Re: *nod nod*

[queerasjohn.livejournal.com]

RoccRose said,

Yes, there is a LOT of favoritism, and the odd thing about it is that it changes so often you can't keep track of it. Like the exsamples Som gave and many others I don't feel as it is my place to name, the relationships in FA change and it's a bit intimadating to a newbie or a non-active fic writer who's just looking for another archive.

As I said to Someisa, can you be more specific about the favoritism and how it changes, and what's intimidating? Even if you want to email it to me at john@fictionalley.org (totally confidential, my eyes only).

And cheers, hon -- your comments are really helpful!

--John

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OOO. You're updating the submission process? Groovy. :) That's what really wigged me out when I was ready to submit my first story way back when. I understand the need for quality control, but speaking as a ff.net veteran, the list of guidelines was kinda scary. Even now I wonder if I screwed something up, but that's just my inner worrier speaking.

Let's see...what else... Like other people have said, some aspects of FA strike me as a bit in-crowdish. This hasn't affected me personally, but I've been around for gripes and whatnot, and I'm starting to think that this may also be a reason why people (especially newer authors) are afraid or unwilling to submit their fics. The fact is that with few exceptions, the mods on the FA Park boards also tend to be the people who publish the popular fics and yes, people can find this extremely intimidating and view it as very "cliquey". I'm not really sure how this can be corrected, but I think it's worth looking into. Efforts like this -- to ask the general FA population for ideas and for constructive criticism -- are definitely a step in the right direction. :)

And yay again for a new and improved submission process! Woo hoo!

Lisse

About the mods' fics on top of the blog

[yen1703.livejournal.com]

It was my idea, so the blame for it will have to aimed straight at me, okay? I want to set everything straight.

The reason why I came up with the idea is because the mods really put a lot of time and energy into maintaining the site, and I thought that it would be nice if they get a little special treatment in return. Since I take care of the blog, I thought why not put the mods' fics on top of the blog on each update. It's similar to us having customized titles at the boards.

I'm not going to cite examples, but being a FAmod is not easy. As a mod myself, I know first hand how tedious being a mod is, and everytime I recognize a fic written by a mod while doing the blog, I want to put it on top of the pile simply because FA wouldn't be without the people who created it and kept it going.

I realized, even then when I thought of it, that people would see it as favoritism; however, at the same time I thought the blog is updated quite constantly (as constantly as I can manage it). Plus, I realized that the authors whose names begin with the letter A B & C have an advantage over the authors whose names begin with X Y & Z. I've even thought of reversing the order to be fair before finding out it would take longer to do the blog update in reverse.

I also came to the conclusion that whether fair or unfair, the mods deserved a bit of pampering. I repeat. It's not easy being a mod. The time we spend doing our FA duties means time spent which could have been used doing something else (like writing our own fics for example). Plus, the blog is something FA could have done without.

We already have the:
http://www.schnoogle.com/authorLinks/New
http://www.astronomytower.org/authorLinks/New
http://www.thedarkarts.org/authorLinks/New
http://www.riddikulus.org/authorLinks/New

We have the ChapterOwls. Readers can get special notices if they subscribe to their favorite stories' forums. The blog updates are like icing on the cake, simply to sweeten the whole process of submitting, assigning boards, coding, uploading, linking and announcing stories. It's the last and least important step.

How about we just simplify things? Just announce that there are new stories and just link to the four URLS above. I won't need to assign fics as completed, wips, new stories, new authors and as mods' fics. By the way, the completed and wips were also my idea. Guess how I came up with it? I noticed that new authors were given special mention in the chapter owls so I decided that completed fics should also be given special mention. And then, while I was at it, I decided to label wips and new stories as well. The last thing I thought up of was separating the mods' fics from the bunch and putting them on top.

And you know what finally gave me the nerve to suggest it to the other mods? When I could no longer stand not acknowledging the work they have done for FictionAlley.

[nostrademons.livejournal.com]

Well...quite a few issues on the table...I think this'll be a pretty long comment.

I guess the reason I didn't put my fic up on FA until after I became a mod was, as others have mentioned, that I'm paranoid about it not being good enough. On ff.net, everything sucks. I didn't really have to worry about it not measuring up, because it was still better than 90% of the fics there. So I just tossed up my rough draft, got very few (but generally positive) reviews, and forgot about it.

With FA's more complex submission process, there's a lot more investment in putting a fic up. You've got to go through the whole boarding/headers/mailing process, and then you know that the coding and upload elfs will have to spend time fixing all the formatting, setting things up, and uploading. Since so many people have to put so much time into your submission, I felt like the fic better be good enough to make it all worthwhile.

Plus, on ff.net you're just a click away from the "edit & reupload" button. If there's a typo, just fix it and reupload. If you forget a plot point, fix it and reupload. If the formatting gets stripped and the fic looks all wonky (*glares at ff.net*) fix it and reupload.

You don't have that luxury on FA. Once the fic is up, it's essentially set in stone, and it's very difficult to change it. You've either got to re-download it and edit the HTML directly, then resubmit, or you've got to tell a FA coder (upload elf, really, or someone that can pass it on to them) what changes to make. Even though we don't expressly forbid them, it seems like people feel guilty about putting the upload elf through the hassle. Rather than take up their time, a lot of people just go to ff.net.

...which brings me to the submission process. Being a techie-type person, I had no problem following the directions. But for a lot of people, there're a lot of steps one has to follow, and it's easy to get confused. Boarding, for example. Not only do you need to have a header section, but you've got to post much of the same information on a thread somewhere, and then wait for the board to be created. Posting itself generates its share of hassles - you've got to register on the boards, which involves all the COPPA stuff and a big long form. Compare that to ff.net, where you have to fill in 4 fields and click a checkbox, and you're done. You can do all the profile stuff later, or ignore it if you want.

Now, this doesn't mean I want to make things as simple as ff.net. One reason they suck so much is that anybody can upload anything there. People whip things off in 5 minutes and post it to ff.net (*remembers the Percy/James' corpse fic and shudders*). Since people have a higher investment in posting their fic to FA, they at least put in an effort to make it good. But some steps in our upload process - the boarding phase, for example - are just a hassle, and others - registering, perhaps - might be simplified. At least put all the steps on one easy-to-follow HTML page, so you might click "Register" and it takes you to that page, then click "Set up review thread" (if we can't eliminate that entirely) and it takes you to a "post reply" box for that, then click "submit fic" and it takes you to the super-secret-project-being-alluded-to ;-).

I've got a whole bunch of other ideas bouncing around about our submission process, data storage, and general site design. 'Course, if I were to post them all here, I'd probably run over some LJ length maximum or something. The general gist is that I'd like to centralize all the fic data (but not the fic texts! ff.net made that mistake...) in an SQL database, rethink the submission process in terms of what information we need from users, solicit input from users on the site design (not the graphics and stuff, but the whole way we have people search for fics - Mack had some good ideas when I first joined the mod squad), and then automate everything but the approval process. See why it's too long for an LJ? ;-)

I still have a whole lot to say about the whole cliquish/in-crowd thing, but this comment is coming up on a page, and I don't want it to be too intimidating. You don't mind a double-post in your LJ, do you Heidi?

[-irresistible-.livejournal.com]

The reason that I don't want to submit my fics to FA is that I personally think they're not very well written, and the plots are stupid.
When/if I do re-write my fics, I will post them at FA, but I really can't be bothered re-writing them, seeing as they're all Lily/James fics, and I don't even like Lily/James fics anymore. And if I don't like what I'm writing, the result won't be very good, will it?
But if I ever do write a fic, and I do think it's well written, then sure, I'll submit it! :)
-Bambi.