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ADMIN: Using Wish and Skip Lists

So you've decided that you want to review stories for the MEFAs this year. You've received your login and password. You've visited the site. You're excited about the possibility of discovering new stories and brightening the days of the authors you review.

Then you click on the link to browse all of the nominated stories. And there are 566 of them.

Clicking through even just a few pages of them can quickly become overwhelming. You find a story you've never read before and the summary sounds great--but it's a novel, and so you'll have to take a look at it later. Or you see a story that you know and love and plan to review it, but you were really looking to read something new. So, next time, will you have to wade through all 566 stories to find these two again? Start a file and keep notes of titles, authors, and URLs? How do experienced MEFA reviewers possibly manage such an enormous volume of stories when planning their reviews each year?

The MEFA website offers two tools that make the reviewer's job immensely easier to organize: wish and skip lists. The wish list allows you to compile a listing of stories that you'd like to review and store it right on the MEFA website. The skip list allows you to mark stories that you don't want to appear in the complete listing or in your search results.

Adding Stories to Wish and Skip Lists

Adding a story to your wish or skip lists is easy. After logging into the MEFA website, will be directed to the main page. About midway down the page is a link to Browse All Nominated Stories. Click this link and a listing of all stories will appear ... all 566 of them.

If you take a closer look at the story listing, you will see that it is organized into five columns. The right-most column is called Actions and, in that column, for each story on the list, are a list of actions that you, as a reviewer, can take with the story. You will see three links: Skip, Wish, and Enter New Review.

If you want to add a story to your Skip or Wish lists, you need only to click the appropriate link!

Viewing Your Wish and Skip Lists

Of course, these lists don't do much good unless you can see all of the items you've selected. Imagine that you've created your wish list, so now you'd like to start writing some reviews. How do you access the list that you've created?

Log in and start again by clicking Browse All Nominated Stories. You will see that intimidatingly long list of 566 stories ... or whatever the count has increased to since you last visited. Just above the start of the story listing, there is a link: >>> Show Filter

Clicking this link will open the story filter. Larner will be writing next week about how to use the story filter but, for now, you can find your wish list (or your skip list) by choosing the appropriate option from the Review Status drop-down box (about midway down the filter). Click the button at the bottom that says "Display selected nominations," and your list will appear. That's all there is to it!

Remember, too, that stories you add to Skip won't show up on any of the listings unless you use the filter to view your skip list. Stories that you add to your wish list, on the other hand, will be visible on the complete list as well as in any search results.

Who Can See My Wish/Skip List?

Imagine you're perusing the complete list of stories. You see one by an author whose work you enjoy, but this particular tale isn't to your taste. You know that you're highly unlikely to review this story, so you'd rather not see it again in search results.

But you know that no one wants to imagine her or his work on someone's skip list. Will the author know that you've chosen to skip her story? What about wish lists? Will you leave your friends worrying and wondering why you've chosen not to include some of their stories on your wish list right away? Who can see these lists besides you?

Only a few of the most senior volunteers can view your lists besides you. Other participants have no way of knowing what you've added to Skip and Wish. These lists are a tool for your personal use only.

Removing Items from Wish and Skip Lists

I usually begin my MEFA reviewing season by adding any stories I've written to Skip (since I can't review my own stories, even if I wanted to) and then constructing a wish list. Anything that sounds remotely interesting gets tossed into the basket, with the result that I sometimes end up with a wish list with hundreds of stories on it. While some may be up to the task of reviewing that many stories, others will find it only slightly less overwhelming as the original 566. Is it possible to remove stories from your wish list once you've added them?

Stories are removed from the wish list in two ways: They are removed if you enter a review for the story, or you can choose to remove the story without reviewing it.

Remember that Actions column in the story listing? Filter out your wish or skip list and look again at that column. Now you will see that the links to add the story to one of your lists have been replaced with links to remove the story from the list on which you've placed it. A click of the mouse, and you're done!