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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)
Re: Just to clarify... - [info]lucitania Expand
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)
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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.
tuuli1109 From: [info]tuuli1109 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)
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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?
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