Mod Post;
Hey writers and readers!

Spring has arrived and we mods are pretty excited about the new fics we’ve been seeing around! But it reminds us of the Secret Mars Santa of 2007 . . . We’d been hoping to see a few more authors come out of the woodwork to begin posting, and can’t help but wonder why it hasn’t happened. We know there are a good handful more of writers that are members of/watching the community, and we understand Real Life Obligations™ can get in the way of even the most devoted writer.

However, recently it’s been brought to our attention that many people have the wrong impression of our community’s conceptual makeup. That is, people think we’re more strict than we really are.

For starters, we’ve heard that people think we, as mods, decide what will be posted based on the plot or the author. This simply isn’t true. Nowhere in our rules or userinfo does it imply that we would ever reject a post because we don’t like the author or the subject matter. We love fiction of all styles and genre and will never try to cramp someone’s writing. It says, plainly, that we will reject a post riddled with errors. This is true. And it’s only happened once.

We’ve also heard that people believe that we insist betas must be used in order to have submissions accepted. This is also untrue. Betas are not mandatory. They’re encouraged, because we know that everyone makes mistakes. I know that I, as a writer, have had my fair share. I don’t use a beta simply because I prefer not to, but I’m not above receiving comments pointing out errors of any kind (please note that in the userinfo, we also encourage constructive criticism). We understand that people don’t necessarily get along with betas through a business angle—whether because they don’t see eye-to-eye on mistakes made or they think a beta won’t do what they’ve been ‘hired’ to do. We’re not going to force someone to do something they don’t want to do, and if that something happens to be getting a beta, then that’s fine. That doesn’t mean we’re going to try to stop them from posting, or that we’ll reject their submission.

Another misconception is that we have an application or “screening” process for posters or members. For those of you that are current members—all 134 of you, holy crap, we love you guys!—you’re all aware that we have no screening process for becoming members. For those of you that post, you’re aware that there’s no application to fill out to gain posting access of any kind. In fact, several of you can vouch for us when we say that we grant unmoderated posting access to frequent posters with little to no stipulations. This is a new thing we began in January of 2008, and it really doesn’t take much to gain at all.

We know people make mistakes. No one’s perfect. We simply want posts as error-free as possible. Obviously one post that has the word ‘the’ spelled as ‘hte’ just once halfway through the story isn’t cause to reject the entire post.

. . . Wow, I certainly know how to ramble, don’t I?

The point of all this, guys, is that we simply hope that those of you that are writers that don’t currently post don’t feel that we might reject your posts ‘just because.’ We will always have a reason, and we’ll always give you that reason if or when we do. We love seeing and reading new fics, and I believe I can speak for Modsaurus seasidh when I say that we both certainly love getting a ‘moderated submission’ alert in our emails.

You will never be discriminated against. You will never be singled out. We will always treat you politely and maturely and, most importantly, objectively if or when we ever reject a submission. If you ever have a question about anything, whether you’re uncertain about posting a fic, or if you’d like to find a beta, or if the rules at any time seem unclear, or anything, it doesn’t matter what: Feel free to email us! Our emails are located at the bottom of the userinfo; simply copy, paste, and send!

We love you guys! Bring on the fics! ;)

—Your friendly neighborhood mods,
karasaurusrex and seasidh

P.S.

Let us not forget forthefantasies! A prompt challenge community not dissimilar to trinity_dare, forthefantasies offers graphic, song, quote and word prompt challenges to inspire you to write and/or make graphics! We gladly welcome cross-posted entries from that community so long as they meet all of the requirements of each!

click the banners to be led to the communities' profile pages!