# Is the critique thread past the point of usefulness?



## M. LeRenard (Nov 14, 2010)

I haven't addressed this in a while, though I probably should have a long time ago.
SSJ3 and I have tried a variety of things to keep people happy with the critique thread and how it operates, from updating it bi-monthly to requiring that people give critiques before requesting them, adjusting and clarifying the guidelines when questions come up, etc.
Clearly, all it's served to do is kill the whole idea altogether.  That thing's been up there for weeks now with a message saying that the first 2 critiques for this one are freebies; no prior critique needed, since there were none to be carried over from the last thread.  And we got one taker, and that's it.
So can I just call it and say the critique thread idea just doesn't work?  Because I don't think it does.
I'd like to bring a little life back to this forum.  I keep having this nagging feeling that everything I've done to clean it up just ended up killing it off for most people.  I want it to be a resource, yes, but I also would like people to feel like they're allowed to post here without threat of repercussion.
So here's what I'm proposing now: the critique thread dies, and we let people start separate threads for critique requests again.  We'll still ask that people don't post their works in their threads, and instead link to the work on FA or wherever else it might be posted.  This will allow people to critique non-FA works more easily, as they can just post the critique in the specific thread, while leaving the option open for people to post the critique on the page of the work itself if they so desire.  And most importantly, we'll get activity here again.
Take's thread for self-advertisement stays, since it still gets activity and is a better resource for that kind of thing anyway, since it's a permanent list right at the top of the forum (rather than a bunch of single threads that get pushed away over time).
All the other rules (about critique behavior, shitposting, etc.) pretty much fall under the ToC of the forums anyway, so those stay as well.

Sound good?  Argue with me if you still think the critique thread is a good idea, but keep in mind, you're going in the face of evidence.  I'm tired of seeing its dead body rotting away up there.


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## Daisy La Liebre (Nov 14, 2010)

I was pissed off the last time I left a critique, because it got deleted because you wanted two critiques.


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## TakeWalker (Nov 14, 2010)

I am with this.


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## sunandshadow (Nov 14, 2010)

I like the "give 2, get from the next 2" rule a lot, because it's perfect for me who only wants something critiqued about once a year.  I really like the similar system that exists for lyrics critique at Muse's Muse.  I just think this forum doesn't have the population to make trading critiques work, unfortunately.  It doesn't work at Literotica either.  (They have a similar system, although they put up one piece for critique every week or every two weeks.  I don't like that as well, because I want to give and get critiques on my schedule, not wait.)

I don't even try to have official or scheduled critique at Gamedev (I moderate the writing forum there) because I know there aren't enough people interested in participating.  There I allow people to post short pieces of writing (rated R/PG-15 or less) in their own threads, or link to writing hosted elsewhere (adult allowed if marked), and ask for suggestions.  If I want to do something for that forum as moderator, I instead put my effort into a tutorial or a game activity for forum members (e.g. everyone take a turn to contribute on idea and the ideas add up to the outline of a story, or in one paragraph take a well known story and twist it to appeal to a totally different audience).  I don't get a ton of participation there either, but I took a survey and tutorials/workshops were what the forum members were most interested in me providing. *shrug*


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## M. LeRenard (Nov 14, 2010)

Thlayli said:


> I was pissed off the last time I left a critique, because it got deleted because you wanted two critiques.


It's kind of what I'm suspecting, that people are just getting turned off by... you know.  Having to follow the rules.

I mean, here's how it's worked.  We start off, and we get loads of requests for critique.  Great.  Then people start complaining that no one is responding to their requests, and that critique turnout is low.  That's bad, right?  So we make it mandatory that people give critiques before they can request one.  So what happens?  Everybody just stops requesting to have their works critiqued, because guess what?  Still nobody is wanting to give critiques.  So it didn't solve anything at all.  It just proved the point that people here on this forum want their work critiqued, but don't have the enthusiasm necessary to give critiques to others.  Which we already knew.
So that's it.  Experiment over.  We'll just go back to the way things were and give this forum at least some semblance of a reason for existing.

Take agrees.  I'll come back tomorrow and see what anyone else has to say.  Other ideas would be welcome, of course, if you can think of a better option than either of these.


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## Fiesta_Jack (Nov 14, 2010)

I think most people in this sub-forum are rather absorbed in their other projects. It's difficult to spare time on someone else's work, since writing is such a highly solitary affair. 

In any event, it's safe to say it's not working as-is.


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## Xipoid (Nov 15, 2010)

Since FA is not a writer centered/heavy community (not that it should be), I feel this place should be somewhat inviting towards writers that happen to stumble into this subforum. There aren't a great deal of writers on FA and even less make it to the forum. It must be incredibly discouraging to them to find an 'official' community/board for writers on here only to have the first response to their thread be its deletion or locking. Now having said that I just want to be clear that I don't mean to give the impression that this is somehow the fault of the moderators here. It's just that the good-in-theory policy didn't work as intended.


Having a bunch of individual "look at my work" threads isn't ideal, but I suppose that's better than no threads. I'm currently at a loss for alternate solutions.


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## Sinaqui (Nov 15, 2010)

I feel that the 'give to get' rule could be viewed as being a discouragement, even though it's intended to encourage the thread to fulfill its actual purpose. If, for instance, someone who is just starting writing wants others to tell them how they've done, they may feel lost when asked to critique the works of others, they may feel that they are not up to the task. I can't simply imply that this is the general case, though. It might be more a direct result of the lack of critique responses has resulted in a loss of enthusiasm, leading people to look elsewhere for critiques, or to simply post their works and hope some of the comments on the submission are of value.

If it were something I'd want to approach, I'd want to implement this kind of idea on a page of its own, outside the forums, as unfortunate as that is. I'd have it built like the meta-moderation function at GameFAQs, where regular users are directed to a random post that had been flagged for moderation, so that they can support or oppose the flagging and give reasons why. Which is to say, I'd want to have a page where writers post their work, and any user, writer or not, can get sent to a random piece to read through. At the end of the piece they'd be given a chance to rate it on a 1-10 scale, and offer commentary, giving the reader suggestions for topics like emotional response, clarity, and structure. To take it further, if possible, I'd love it if there were a program that lets you highlight words, phrases, or paragraphs within the actual work, so that when the writer checks his responses, they would have a reference created by the reader that lets them see areas where that person had issues with the writing, cross-referencing the comments given.

That, though, is all something that I believe wouldn't work on a forum, which is the hard part of it. I guess the way I feel is that a forum simply isn't an efficient place for criticism where full works are concerned. With the rules, you have a lack of responses and a resulting lack of postings, without them you have a surplus of postings and a lack of responses to them. The problem with simply letting people make their own threads is that it runs the risk of drowning out threads on other topics. I'd almost want to suggest creating a board specifically for criticism, but I can't say that there's enough merit in it for an entire board. Mixed feelings, all around.


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## quoting_mungo (Nov 15, 2010)

I can't speak for anyone else, but I honestly didn't parse the "these are freebies," if it was there last I checked the thread out. First time I looked at the critique thread, there was one piece up for critique and the thread stated you needed to have given two crits to post. _That_ more than anything I found discouraging. I think crit-to-be-critted is a good system overall, and prevents the "HEY LOOK AT ME" type flood of threads that can otherwise crop up. Letting people post in separate threads _does_ carry with it the advantage, as you say, of letting people post responses in the threads and therefore not limiting writing to FA (which isn't the best reading environment out there, let's be honest), so there are good and bad points about both.

As for a possible tweak to the rules, which would require some bookkeeping so might not be helpful to you for that reason, a "first hit is free" policy could be implemented; first time someone asks for a critique they don't need to have left any before, but if they go back and want more, they have to crit others' work first. That might prevent the drought of material that might otherwise crop up (I'd say ideally if you require two critiques you want at least three stories up - less and you're not giving people an out if they'd _really_ prefer not to comment on a given story).


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## Poetigress (Nov 15, 2010)

As has already been said, the concept hasn't worked well in any incarnation because enough people aren't giving crits, for whatever reason. Whether that's because there aren't enough people interested, they're too intimidated, too inexperienced, too lazy, whatever, doesn't really matter. If that doesn't change, no system is going to work. 

One thing I think more new writers need to understand, though, that this whole idea of "I'm not qualified to critique; I don't know enough about writing" is a fallacy. If you read, you can crit. You don't have to be able to tell the writer how to fix things; you just have to tell them whether something worked for you or not. And I know I've said this a lot, but I'll say it one more time: You learn even more from critiquing than from having your work critiqued. So "I don't know how to critique" isn't a valid excuse.


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## TakeWalker (Nov 15, 2010)

Suggestion: Each user gets their own thread. When it's updated, that means forum-goers know there's a new piece to critique. Suggest that users leaves crits on the submission rather than in the forum, but don't shut them down if they respond here. That way we don't have three million threads about every single chapter of ButtWolf420's latest epic porn adventure. Also, a critique 'rules' sticky that mentions that there is no longer an expectation for critiques to actually be filled, so no whining if you aren't getting any.

Me, I think that's how I'll do it, just one thread for all my works that need critique, love 'em or leave 'em. :V


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## Xipoid (Nov 15, 2010)

TakeWalker said:


> Suggestion: Each user gets their own thread. When it's updated, that means forum-goers know there's a new piece to critique. Suggest that users leaves crits on the submission rather than in the forum, but don't shut them down if they respond here. That way we don't have three million threads about every single chapter of ButtWolf420's latest epic porn adventure. Also, a critique 'rules' sticky that mentions that there is no longer an expectation for critiques to actually be filled, so no whining if you aren't getting any.
> 
> Me, I think that's how I'll do it, just one thread for all my works that need critique, love 'em or leave 'em. :V


 

If that was implemented, I think that there should be a subforum under the writer's bloc called something like "critique corner" or whatever where you can find all the threads for each writer. It would be nice to separate the critique threads from the discussion threads I feel.


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## M. LeRenard (Nov 15, 2010)

I can ask about getting a sub-sub-forum or something like that, but the problem with programming changes is that by necessity they take a lot of time to be implemented, so even if I propose the idea, it might just get pushed under the rug and forgotten about in 6 months.  People request things like that all the time, and I don't know how the admins prioritize.
So for now we just need to work with what we have.  In which case, I like Take's idea.  It can be a bit like the Black Market's system for advertising commissions and whatnot.
So the only thing is, I don't know what to do about flooding out other topics.  To start, I doubt it will have much impact, but once things speed back up, yeah, it'll become a problem again.  That is the reason we made the critique thread in the first place, after all, was to allow more interesting topics to stay on the top longer.



			
				Poetigress said:
			
		

> So "I don't know how to critique" isn't a valid excuse.


Nope.  But people use it nonetheless.
I can address some of this stuff in the updated Bloc rules, too.  Not that anyone ever reads those.  But at least then it would be there.


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## Xipoid (Nov 15, 2010)

Well there you have it


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## Arshes Nei (Nov 15, 2010)

Well oddly enough I was gonna ask Renard about this the other day (but ahem other issues came up).

The reason for this was that the Critiques forum looked like a general forum for all 3 (literature, music, visual) however it is more flooded by visual arts. 

I re-arranged it so you have your own subforum. In addition I moved the old Critiques to Palette Town since it's pretty much used by visual. Do not know if Blues notes needs critiques too.

In addition I re-arranged the order. I put Black Market at the bottom because I don't think the art shack should feature "one big freefroralladvertisement forum" as the first one. I pushed yours up to top because I think it should be seen more often and is under-appreciated. Palette Town is gonna be active since it's the majority of users anyways. Blue Notes is still developing and I'm sure when it comes onto its own we can move it above Palette Town.


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## M. LeRenard (Nov 15, 2010)

Well, there you have it, indeed.
Thanks very much, Arshes.  
I guess I'll post some guidelines for the new subforum!


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## TakeWalker (Nov 15, 2010)

Having but four stickies makes for a much cleaner forum.


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