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No. 118224
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To OP and everyone else here: If you haven't yet read >>92985, please do, as well as the rest of that thread. It brings up a number of weaknesses in the current system, and a number of good proposals for what the site could/should include.
One of the points brought up repeatedly is that stories should be compelling enough to be posted. An issue of "this is really great and needs to be posted" instead of "I can't find anything wrong with this so I guess I'll post it". As such, I like the idea of crowd-sourcing a solution. Everyone here knows their personal favorite stories, or criminally under-read stories, so let's start there. Stories come in via referrals, rather than self-promotion. This hopefully helps with the incoming volume issue. EQD rejects about 80% of the fics sent its way, according to that table they publish. If this blog were to receive that volume, then by definition it would reject even more fics, which wastes both the reviewers' time and the authors' time. If a fic has to be so good that another individual takes the time to submit it to this blog and even write up a few sentences on why it deserves to be there, then that saves the reviewers a lot of time.
>Flaws: Very popular writers are nearly-guaranteed to have fans submit their works. Under-read authors are, by definition, under-read, and unlikely to be suggested by anypony unless the reviewers themselves discover their work. Some authors might have a crony who recommends all their work no matter how awful, and/or the author might pester all their FimFic readers to submit to this blog, but the reviewers still have it within their discretion to reject any fic sent their way.
The most common complaint about EQD prereaders is that standards are an inconsistent crapshoot. That complaint is followed closely by that some fics that are posted do not meet my minimum standards (which are, of course, what everypony's standards should be). My suggestion is two-part: remove anonymity, and have at least two reviewers review each story. By remove anonymity, what I mean is having a static handle. It doesn't need to be tied to a public email, and it doesn't need to be the same as your author handle. So whether you want to be Reviewer Pav Feira, or Reviewer Twilight Sparkle, that's fine. But have a handle. Be an entity. When a story is accepted, it's made public that Pav Feira and Twilight Sparkle accepted it. When a story is reviewed, it is reviewed by Pav Feira and Twilight Sparkle, preferably in a script format, like how zines/websites sometimes present interviews. Pav spent a few paragraphs talking about how the characterization felt off. Twilight Sparkle agreed, but countered that the world-building is quite ambitious, and both of them agreed that the comedy is nonpareil, thus it's still worth a read.
The reason for this is simple: reviews are built on trust. No one will ever see eye-to-eye with you on every piece of entertainment, let alone equine fiction. Every potential reviewer will like one story you hate, and hate on the story you consider to be the pinnacle of the fandom. As such, recruit reviewers who have sound opinions and good judgment, but don't fret over it beyond a certain point. Much as how sites like Yahoo News, IGN, etc host articles written by contributors, so should this blog. By having a static handle, people can make their own informed opinions about each reviewer. I personally think Pav Feira is too easy, but he at least gives detailed feedback. I personally think Twilight Sparkle can read my mind when it comes to romantic comedy, but her opinions on sadfics are shite. Everypony will have their own opinion about how much/little they trust each reviewer, and they can use this to make informed decisions. Of course, if visitor feedback overwhelmingly states that Pav Feira is too easy all of my exes agree then the site admins can pass that feedback to the reviewer, or even replace the reviewer if they're not up to snuff (thereby fixing a stagnation issue that the EQD PRs bring up on occasion).
>Flaws: Hatemail hatemail hatemail. This probably promotes the need for obscured handles like Twilight Sparkle rather than used-elsewhere handles like Pav Feira. But as mentioned, it's okay to not like things but don't be a dick about it, and said hate may be useful feedback. I'm not sure that a few vulgar emails is a sufficient deterrent, especially if it's restricted to one central feedback email address.
Reviewers could even specialize, if done carefully. Maybe Daring Do only does adventure and longfics. Cranky Doodle Donkey only does old, under-appreciated fics. I say "if done carefully" because of the above point about trusting individual reviewers. You wouldn't want Lyra and Bon Bon to do all of their reviews as a static tag-team, because what if someone doesn't trust either of their reviews? You'd want review groups to be shuffled a bit, so that even if I don't trust Lyra's reviews, maybe she'll get paired up with someone I trust more.
On the note of "this is really great and needs to be posted" fics, I don't think there's a particular obligation to maintain a queue like EQD, where every story is guaranteed to get a look over. It should be more treated like an ask-pony tumblr, wherein you're welcome to recommend fic X as much as you'd like (although like EQD, a 3-strike system would save everyone the heartache of repeated prompts for fic X), but I'll ignore those recommendations if it doesn't look interesting. If you wanna increase the odds of me reading it, then sell me on it when you recommend it to the blog.
I'm kinda getting psyched on this idea. Since efforts were already put underway on Pegasus Quill and Solar Flare, is there any interest in reviving those efforts (rather than building up a third spec from scratch)? Filler? Eustian? Anypony?
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