Okay, so most people on here know I own and maintain Dragonfayth, the only (as far as I know) archive for Seto x Anzu (Azureshipping) fic on the web. I honestly wish more people would host there stuff on there (namely some certain someones here on LJ! you know who you are, right?), but that's not the rant for today.
While it's great to have submissions at all, I notice a lot of them are leaving a lot to be desired. And I thought the Submission Rules I had were enough, but apparently not. People are making BASIC mistakes and submitting... well, trash. I'm not FFnet; I don't intend to post things that are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, bad formatting, etc. Even OOC comes into play, though I suppose to a degree, that's subjective.
But mine IS a private archive. I don't HAVE to accept every damn thing that comes my way. I am willing to post someone's fanfiction in an archive EXCLUSIVE for that sort of fic (as opposed to FFnet, where one good fic is buried under tons of horseshit), if people are just willing to respect the rules.
So where do I draw the line? I don't want to feel guilty about rejecting stuff, but I don't want to have to rip someone's story apart fixing every last error, inconsistency, or frankly, lousy scrap of writing there is. I can only beta-edit for simple spelling and grammar fixes when I have time. Which is not often, if you get my drift.
So I was thinking of developing some "Standards of Quality" for Dragonfayth that are much more explicit than just the general submission rules. These would go beyond just saying "no spelling, grammar, and formatting errors," because even with a spellchecker and a beta-reader, I still catch misuses of words. I can correct those, no big deal. I don't get mad about those.
But when people:
a) don't bother to accent Téa's name (and YES, this pisses me off ROYALLY. It's NOT hard to do, NOT hard to look up and learn if you don't know how, and I DO NOT accept excuses)/mix and match/mangle names (also pisses me off royally. DO NOT DO IT!)
b) Have "conversations" with their "Yami" or with Seto and Anzu at some point before/during/after the fic
c) Have non-summaries that don't tell me anything about what the story is about
d) Have fics that aren't really "stories" at all, but more like blurbs (and I don't mean oneshots/shortfics; I've seen plenty of those that are prolific enough in 100 words or less. I mean stuff like "So and so hated so and so. So and so got into a fight! They kissed! The end." YES, I have seen those on Dragonfayth!)
e) Have grossly OOC characters (and I mean Seto waxing eloquent and poetic, usually)
f) Can't remember to format dialogue like so: "I thought you said we'd have macaroni," Téa cried. and instead use periods before the quote, or no punctuation at all, or capitalize the attribution (if it's not a name) after the dialogue
g) Use fangirl Japanese that has a PERFECTLY ENGLISH EQUIVALENT WORD (such as "Hello?" and "Mother" as the most recent examples I came across)
It just drives me BATTY!
I can't just whip up rules and apply them to fics sitting in the queue (as they have been for months). That's not fair. But honestly... I don't think these fics are good enough, and going into acute detail in the rejection letter seems ridiculous.
Maybe I need a co-mod for the Submissions Queue so I can easily say "This isn't good enough. This is meant to be a QUALITY archive, and this fic just doesn't hold up." That's why I built Dragonfayth in the first place-- to be something DIFFERENT from the C2s on FFnet, and to have better fics than just ONE author's favorites list, or ONE attempt at searching for "Seto x Anzu" in FFnet's search engine.
There is some DAMN good Azureshipping fic out there-- by
atlantian_magic,
praiseofshadows,
wickeddawn,
guardian_kysra,
rhapsody_dragon,
svelterose,
geniusgirl,
akavertigo and countless others. I just wish more of that "DAMN GOOD STUFF" would make its way off LJ/FFnet and onto Dragonfayth, where it can bask in all-Azureshippy-glory! Because all this frankly badfic makes Mer sad. ;_;
I dunno, any suggestions guys?
* Is having "Standards of Quality" going too far?
* If not, what would be good expectations to have of fics PRIOR to them being submitted to the queue?
* Does anyone wanna help co-mod the queue anyway, just so I don't end up angsting over all these decisions on my own?
While it's great to have submissions at all, I notice a lot of them are leaving a lot to be desired. And I thought the Submission Rules I had were enough, but apparently not. People are making BASIC mistakes and submitting... well, trash. I'm not FFnet; I don't intend to post things that are riddled with spelling and grammar errors, bad formatting, etc. Even OOC comes into play, though I suppose to a degree, that's subjective.
But mine IS a private archive. I don't HAVE to accept every damn thing that comes my way. I am willing to post someone's fanfiction in an archive EXCLUSIVE for that sort of fic (as opposed to FFnet, where one good fic is buried under tons of horseshit), if people are just willing to respect the rules.
So where do I draw the line? I don't want to feel guilty about rejecting stuff, but I don't want to have to rip someone's story apart fixing every last error, inconsistency, or frankly, lousy scrap of writing there is. I can only beta-edit for simple spelling and grammar fixes when I have time. Which is not often, if you get my drift.
So I was thinking of developing some "Standards of Quality" for Dragonfayth that are much more explicit than just the general submission rules. These would go beyond just saying "no spelling, grammar, and formatting errors," because even with a spellchecker and a beta-reader, I still catch misuses of words. I can correct those, no big deal. I don't get mad about those.
But when people:
a) don't bother to accent Téa's name (and YES, this pisses me off ROYALLY. It's NOT hard to do, NOT hard to look up and learn if you don't know how, and I DO NOT accept excuses)/mix and match/mangle names (also pisses me off royally. DO NOT DO IT!)
b) Have "conversations" with their "Yami" or with Seto and Anzu at some point before/during/after the fic
c) Have non-summaries that don't tell me anything about what the story is about
d) Have fics that aren't really "stories" at all, but more like blurbs (and I don't mean oneshots/shortfics; I've seen plenty of those that are prolific enough in 100 words or less. I mean stuff like "So and so hated so and so. So and so got into a fight! They kissed! The end." YES, I have seen those on Dragonfayth!)
e) Have grossly OOC characters (and I mean Seto waxing eloquent and poetic, usually)
f) Can't remember to format dialogue like so: "I thought you said we'd have macaroni," Téa cried. and instead use periods before the quote, or no punctuation at all, or capitalize the attribution (if it's not a name) after the dialogue
g) Use fangirl Japanese that has a PERFECTLY ENGLISH EQUIVALENT WORD (such as "Hello?" and "Mother" as the most recent examples I came across)
It just drives me BATTY!
I can't just whip up rules and apply them to fics sitting in the queue (as they have been for months). That's not fair. But honestly... I don't think these fics are good enough, and going into acute detail in the rejection letter seems ridiculous.
Maybe I need a co-mod for the Submissions Queue so I can easily say "This isn't good enough. This is meant to be a QUALITY archive, and this fic just doesn't hold up." That's why I built Dragonfayth in the first place-- to be something DIFFERENT from the C2s on FFnet, and to have better fics than just ONE author's favorites list, or ONE attempt at searching for "Seto x Anzu" in FFnet's search engine.
There is some DAMN good Azureshipping fic out there-- by
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I dunno, any suggestions guys?
* Is having "Standards of Quality" going too far?
* If not, what would be good expectations to have of fics PRIOR to them being submitted to the queue?
* Does anyone wanna help co-mod the queue anyway, just so I don't end up angsting over all these decisions on my own?