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McKay/Sheppard Slash - Admin: Rules Amendments
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Admin: Rules Amendments
As promised, we've reviewed the results of the poll we put up last Tuesday. Where possible, we've come up with a compromise approach, so that the views of significant minorities as well as majorities are considered in the new rules.

Minimum Story Length

Most people (around 60%) didn't want to impose a minimum story length. However, 40% is rather a sizeable minority, so we also looked at the minimum story lengths that people were suggesting, which had a clear majority for setting any minimum at not more than 100 words.

We've therefore come up with a compromise solution.

All fiction posted here in a separate post should be at least 100 words long. However, members are welcome to post shorter pieces provided that:

- any shorter stories are not announced individually but in a combined announcement; and

- the combined stories have a minimum word count of 100.

Shorter stories (of less than 500 words) are also welcome at [info]mcsheplets and we will link to this community in our user profile, just as that community links to us for longer pieces.

Frequency of posting

Again, this was a close run result, so we looked at the frequency that most people were happy with, which fell firmly in the 'once a day' category.

We've therefore compromised again, and the rules will now state that:

- members are also asked to combine their posts to save other people's flists, for example combining story announcements into one post if a number of stories are being announced at the same time

- different parts of the same WIP should not be announced in different posts on the same day but in one post, linking to all new parts (updated throughout the day if necessary)

- members are asked not to post more than once a day. Furthermore, persistently posting more than five posts in a week may be considered spamming and, if continued indefinitely, may result in posting access being temporarily restricted until a reasonable compromise is reached with that member.

We feel that, given the results of the poll and other opinions provided to us, these compromises will balance the needs of the majority of members, no matter how they express their fannish love. We will be updating the rules on the main page to reflect this shortly.

We'd also like to thank everyone who took the time to fill out the poll or provide other comments, all of which we considered carefully in reaching these decisions.
Comments
lucitania From: [info]lucitania Date: February 3rd, 2008 10:50 pm (UTC) (Link)

Just to clarify...

Supposing your finished story was too long to fit in a single post. Could you post all the parts in one day or would you have to post one each day under the new restrictions, i.e. if your story spanned more than five posts you'd have to wait to post again the next week..?

alyse From: [info]alyse Date: February 3rd, 2008 10:53 pm (UTC) (Link)

Re: Just to clarify...

We did consider putting this in the rules but thought it might complicate things too much :)

Most people seem to post their stories to their LJs and link in here - in which case, you'd have one post with links to the parts on your LJ.

If, on the other hand, you're one of the authors who prefers to post directly to the community, and your story is too long to fit into one post, then it would be fine to post however many parts you had until it was all posted. It would be pretty exceptional to have long stories like that posted here, so we'd be reasonable about it and wouldn't consider it spamming (unless you were posting it in 100 word chunks, of course :).

The only thing we'd try and discourage is posting a lot of stories like that in one day. Then you might want to space out stories rather than parts of the same story.

Edited at 2008-02-03 10:54 pm (UTC)
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telesilla From: [info]telesilla Date: February 3rd, 2008 10:56 pm (UTC) (Link)
Lovely, but you know? You never answered my question/comments about authorial intent so let me state it again here as simply as possible.

Do you intend to continue to ban people and delete their fiction based solely on what you the mods think the intent of the author is. If so, will this be put in the rules and, to make things easier for all of you, will people have to state their intent--why they wrote the fic and why they posted it--when posting a story.



Edited at 2008-02-03 10:58 pm (UTC)
monanotlisa From: [info]monanotlisa Date: February 3rd, 2008 11:13 pm (UTC) (Link)
So I can write a short-short, I am just not allowed to post it here?

Because this is what this rule effectively means for everybody *not* in the habit of writing pieces shorter than 100 words regularly. Which comprises roughly 99,9% of the McKay/Sheppard fandom.

I'm sure there are people who will gloat now, but I for one am sorely disappointed. Lone voice in the wilderness? Maybe, yeah.

But considering the fact that not one but two minorities (word limit folks as well as regular posters of short-shorts) have been favoured over a majority of 60%, I think my displeasure doesn't come as a a huge surprise.

I'm all for compromise: Ask people to aggregate, sure; add this to the user info. Make it a guideline. But a rule, which the "should" as well as the firm condition for posting implies?

Now, I'm not fourteen any more, so I won't flounce off; this community makes me smile too often, and my scroll button works exceedingly well.

But yeah, that's quite a let-down for me as someone who believes all forms of verbal expression can be art, amazing in their own right.

(Mock away, kids; I've said my piece.)

ETA: Outsourced an explanation here.

Edited at 2008-02-03 11:51 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous) Date: February 4th, 2008 04:11 am (UTC) (Link)
Umm.

Why can't you post your stand alone once in a blue moon short-short in your next post?

Why must short-shorts be posted "together" in your mind.

You can post a short-short with a link to a long fic, too. Or, you can post a short-short with your latest icon batches. Or, whatever.
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astridv From: [info]astridv Date: February 3rd, 2008 11:21 pm (UTC) (Link)
Sounds like a good compromise to me.
scoob2222 From: [info]scoob2222 Date: February 3rd, 2008 11:57 pm (UTC) (Link)
I think these are great new rules, wonderful compromise. As a comm mod myself I know how tough it could be and I just wanted to say I thought you handled this wonderfully, its a great comm and I'm glad things were settled for the best.
telleer From: [info]telleer Date: February 4th, 2008 12:12 am (UTC) (Link)
Personally, I'm not very happy with any of these rules.

Firstly, your poll results were seriously skewed. You first asked people if they thought there should be a minimum word count. Then you asked the same people what that word count should be, and specifically requested people who'd said "no" to the first question also answer the second one. Logically, all those who said "no" to the first question, voted on the shortest fic length available in the options for question two.

Secondly, everything I said before still stands - it's not the quantity, it's the quality. Believe me, I'm all for keeping this community on a level higher than Fanfiction.Net, but - well, the way I see it, the McShep shippers are a pretty clever bunch. Despite the fact that this is a very big community, it has high-quality fic, in general.

Also, this is not a fiction-only community, is it? If someone were to post one screen shot per day, that would start feeling like spam very, very quickly. On the other hand, we can hardly put limits to how many pictures there should be in a screen-shot post, because often the pictures that are posted individually are such things of beauty.

I think it would be better to encourage people to use common sense when posting in the community. Should situations like this arise again, they could be delt with individually, since they are few and far between. I think making sure these rules are followed is going to be more work for the mods than keeping a casual eye out that no one's enthusiasm gets out of hand so that it starts becoming annoying.

In any case, I do appreciate the time and effort you are putting into the community.

Edited at 2008-02-04 12:16 am (UTC)
breakfastserial From: [info]breakfastserial Date: February 4th, 2008 12:36 am (UTC) (Link)
If you support enforce posting limits on case by case basis, wouldn't it be easier for the mods to make a rule about it so they don't have to be on here 24/7?

I don't mean to sound antagonistic or anything! Sorry if it comes off that way, I just feel like the mods do so much for us already.
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mklutz From: [info]mklutz Date: February 4th, 2008 12:22 am (UTC) (Link)
I'm really happy with these revisions! Thanks for the hard work!
breakfastserial From: [info]breakfastserial Date: February 4th, 2008 12:22 am (UTC) (Link)
Great work! Fantastic compromise.
xaveriijade From: [info]xaveriijade Date: February 4th, 2008 12:35 am (UTC) (Link)
I don't post often to this comm, but if I were to write a fic of less than 100 words, and it was the only fic I posted all year, would I not be allowed to post it?
monanotlisa From: [info]monanotlisa Date: February 4th, 2008 12:57 am (UTC) (Link)
I hear you. There's you and undoubtedly others with lesser amounts of time, energy, or inspiration but the same base line of talent. See my comment.
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patorisha_4 From: [info]patorisha_4 Date: February 4th, 2008 12:48 am (UTC) (Link)
Well you cannot please all the people all time, so I think the suggestion of using another comm is a good one, a comm I personally had no idea existed so thanks for the heads up!

I can however see some being unhappy as you are now basically saying they either need to wait until they have multiple fics (of word counts equalling 100) before posting to this comm.

I still support no word count limit but I also support only posting once a day. So yeah as compromises go this is not bad. And as they say on the forum I am on, if you don't like the rules you can always leave ;) pity if it did come down to that though.
delphia2000 From: [info]delphia2000 Date: February 4th, 2008 01:27 am (UTC) (Link)
Thank you to the mods for your hard work! I think the rules are clear and reasonable.
sammymc From: [info]sammymc Date: February 4th, 2008 01:37 am (UTC) (Link)
I think these rules are a good compromise. They set limits that seem acceptable. I do have a few questions.

If you are only allowed one new post per day, does that extend to everything. For instance could someone post a discussion question, a fic, and a screencap post all in one day or would that be considered against the rules? Is the one a day posting limit only for fanfic or is it in general?

As for the Drabbles.. I quite like them. And while I agree that 100 word drabbles are a good baseline for fic posted here, considering there is mcsheplets for anything smaller, I do understand the angst of those who frequently write fix too short to qualify. I wish there was a way to make everyone happy. But sometimes it's impossible.

I thank the mods for trying to make this as fair as I think was possible. I will however be joining mcsheplets just so I don't miss the short short fics that are so quick and easy to read that I'll be missing out on here now.

I agree that there had to be rules made. We don't want to have someone new join the community, do what some would be considered spamming and then feeling smacked around when they get jumped on. Sometimes rules have to be established and made concrete so that newcomers aren't completely clueless.

In other news, I'm currently trying to gather together enough courage to post my first mcshep fic here soon. It's being betaed right now. And I'm glad to know the clearer posting guidelines before I do so. :)
temaris From: [info]temaris Date: February 4th, 2008 08:15 pm (UTC) (Link)
I think we're going to have to see how that goes. For now, the length only applies to fiction posts, and as to frequency, we would probably monitor on a case by case basis -- some weeks there is a huge influx of posts because of a particularly mcsheppy episode, and we don't want to be literalist and thereby spoil the happy! We want to be able to have a more nuanced approach on this, which is why the revised rules are phrased as 'may be', and we hope that mostly, common sense will prevail.
elayna88 From: [info]elayna88 Date: February 4th, 2008 01:40 am (UTC) (Link)
Works for me! Let's stamp this puppy done and get back to enjoying the smutty McShep. :-)
adafrog From: [info]adafrog Date: February 4th, 2008 01:40 am (UTC) (Link)
Sounds very fair. Thanks.
diamond_raven From: [info]diamond_raven Date: February 4th, 2008 02:41 am (UTC) (Link)
I'm very happy with the compromise that you guys have reached. You guys work so hard and do such a super job with this comm and Wraithbait and I just wanted to say thanks for all that time and effort! Really this whole thing shouldn't have become such an enormous issue, but now that we have firm rules, we can hopefully return to normal mcsheppy goodness.
nudaydreamer From: [info]nudaydreamer Date: February 4th, 2008 05:48 am (UTC) (Link)
Just a quick question, since I don't always (or even often) put a word count in my headers -- will you be requiring people to include one, or just assume that my story is above 100 unless I say otherwise? (I can't figure out a way to ask that doesn't sound a little snarky, but I really am just curious.)
mf_luder_xf From: [info]mf_luder_xf Date: February 4th, 2008 11:19 am (UTC) (Link)
Good question! I never include one, and while I've written maybe five drabbles in my life with everything else around 20,000 words, this should definitely be addressed.
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flubber2kool From: [info]flubber2kool Date: February 4th, 2008 07:11 am (UTC) (Link)
I am not planning on leaving this community but I am beginning to feel that this is getting rather rules heavy. Also, as I do not have regular access to the internet and did not see the poll I feel that this is being imposed on me.

As for the rules themselves, while I can understand and agree with the idea of a minimum word limit, I am not happy with some of the other rules.

As someone who struggles with the LiveJounal I have not yet worked out how to get links to works. I know that this is my problem not yours but, as we are only allowed one post a day, until I find out what I'm doing it will make posting anything other than one shots problematic. And I will have to post my fic in one long piece as I have a tendency to write long stories.

Also I think that you are being rather heavy handed saying that if you post more than five times a week this will be considered as spam. I am in several fan-fic communties and this one is the only one that has this as a rule. Personally I don't write nearly enough fic to post seven times a week unless I am writing a WIP. However, I think that this should be the choice of the author not the choice of admin just because it seems to annoy people.

I would also be interested to know what the percentage of of respondents was in terms of the total number of members of the communtity.

I know that this post does seem a little bit petty but this is the way that I feel.

As I have said, I will not leave this community as I enloy reading the fic, but with these rules and regulations I am not sure that I will be posting anything here.
lauralaitaine From: [info]lauralaitaine Date: February 4th, 2008 06:46 pm (UTC) (Link)

How to make links work

Like many things in life, links are easy peasy... when you know how. To put a link into a post or a comment just type:

<a href="$$link$$">$$link text$$</a>

and replace $$link$$ with the url of the link and $$link text$$ with whatever you want the link to say.

For example, if I wanted to link to this post I would type:

<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/mckay_sheppard/2020819.html">McShep Comm rule revisions</a>

and it would look like:

McShep Comm rule revisions

I hope that makes sense to you, please feel free to ask if it's not clear or if you have more questions :)
(no subject) - [info]temaris Expand
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flubber2kool From: [info]flubber2kool Date: February 4th, 2008 07:17 am (UTC) (Link)
Looking at my last post I should have added the following at the bottom.

I hope that this doesn't cause offence and I do enjoy coming to the community. I appreciate the work that the admin do and I know that you put in a lot of hard work to keep it going.

I just have a problem with the new rules!! Sorry!!!
temaris From: [info]temaris Date: February 4th, 2008 08:21 pm (UTC) (Link)
It's not a problem. We're very aware we can't please everyone, and I hope you'll allow us some time to see how the changes work out in practice.
from_the_corner From: [info]from_the_corner Date: February 4th, 2008 10:20 am (UTC) (Link)
In my opinion - and I'm exclusively a reader - is that I'm not actually happy about the rules. Not only because they are actually not the effect of the poll.

This community is one of my favorite, because it was the only one allowing all-McShep related works. No matter what they were. And it's a fantastic thing, because the creativity of people posting here is amazing. Right now it feels like this creativity is being censored.

I never felt spammed here.

And really, scroll button is so easy to use. Not to mention the fact, that there is ni obligation to read everything that's being posted here (and authors do use LJ cuts).
nightspring From: [info]nightspring Date: February 4th, 2008 12:55 pm (UTC) (Link)
I have to admit that at times during this poll and discussion, I've also felt that imposing limits, especially on word counts, feels a little like censorship. However, as a reader, I've put both [info]mckay_sheppard and [info]mcsheplets on my flist, and most of the time, I don't even notice which comm a fic comes from, I just read and enjoy them as they pop up on my flist. So I get to have my fix of short and long fics, and those who dislike short fics can "opt out" from them by not friending [info]mcsheplets. While I'm saddened by the level of almost vehement dislike of short fics voiced by some in the course of this discussion, I can't change the fact that some people feel this way. Given this situation, dividing up the fics among these two comms based on their length seems to me an acceptable compromise that hopefully will provide maximum benefits to all concerned.
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ladycat777 From: [info]ladycat777 Date: February 4th, 2008 04:40 pm (UTC) (Link)
For the record: I'm not particularly thrilled with this result either. Most people aren't, in a compromise, but my personal opinion is that this is going to have a lot of repercussions for M_S.

That said.

You said:

That said I would never want the community to adhere to my preferences as lets face it most people aren't going to be as picky as me

and

In the end we all have a choice, if you don't like something, don't read it. If you don't like a community, leave it.

The same holds true today just as much as it did then.

And as far as this: Also this list currently doesn't have a rule against being rude, flaming, or generally nastiness to others. So under the new system, I can post only once a day, no more than five times a week but I can be as foul as I want to others? This needs addressing.


You know what? Those posts weren't rude. The implications were (potentially) rude, yes, and hey guess what -- they got squashed for it! I really don't think adding rules about common decency is going to make this comm better. In fact, I think it's going to make things worse.

I'm all about being bitter, but that was just a really low blow at the mods.
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the_cephalopod From: [info]the_cephalopod Date: February 4th, 2008 03:04 pm (UTC) (Link)
I just wanted to say a very heartfelt thank you to the mods for all their hard work on this fabulous community. I think the suggested amendments to the rules are both clear and reasonable and hope we can all now get back to the fics, pics and all other variations of McSheppy fun!
janusglance From: [info]janusglance Date: February 4th, 2008 03:32 pm (UTC) (Link)
Thank you for this, which I think is a fair compromise. It's unfortunate that not everyone can be satisfied, but to leave things unchanged as some people desire would have solved nothing.

That said, there's been a 100-word minimum at Wraithbait for some time now, so this new rule is not really new or unheard of, and it certainly isn't censorship.
emeraldsword From: [info]emeraldsword Date: February 4th, 2008 08:45 pm (UTC) (Link)
I think this sounds like a workable compromise. Combined posts are a good thing, I think - no one wants to have their friendslist full of 7 new chapters of some incredibly long WIP, after all.
nightspring From: [info]nightspring Date: February 4th, 2008 08:52 pm (UTC) (Link)
As I've already said, I find the new rules to be an acceptable compromise. However, I do feel the need to say that the characterization of the 100-words and once a day limits as "a clear majority for setting any minimum at not more than 100 words" and "the frequency that most people were happy with" to be problematic, since logically speaking, it seems to me that most of the people who voted for no limits would go with the minimum limits included in the poll. I feel it is reasonable to think that, for instance, if the option for a word limit of 50 words and twice a day had been included in the poll, then those options could have gained the greatest plurarity of votes.

Selling a compromise always difficult. And in the end, where the compromise line is comes down to the mods' gut reaction as to what is right for this community. I fully respect and accept that. It's just that, when I first read this post, my first thought was, "But that's not what the poll results said." And frankly, it made it a little harder for me to accept the mods' decision. Personally, I would have prefered the mods to say, these are the limits we as mods feel comfortable with, so this is what we are going with. But maybe that's just me.
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