I'd love, in fact, to see a rec thread for some of the older fic on the Archive. The stuff that nowadays gets missed just because of the length of time it's been there, but deserves the recognition.
I would too. I love the older stuff, even those of people who've been gone for a long time. Gorn anyone? I think a lot of the newer people would love it too if they knew it was out there. The fanfic quotes games might give them more exposure. I know both authors I refer to are ones who wrote some of the foundational stories on the Archive. But a rec thread is a great idea.
But please, lets not get into lobbying for our personal favourites.
That can leave those not mentioned feeling ... well ... a tad like chopped liver.
I can sort of see your point here, Carol, which does leave me a little torn. On the one hand, I do like recs. I'll be honest and admit that these days I tend to only read stories someone I trust recs to me because of time concerns. Also, reminders of old stories I liked lead to me rereading.
On the other, I do realise that some authors are extremely close to their work and really do get hurt when people don't talk about it. I personally don't deal with this, but that's probably because I've got a whopping total of two stories up and can't realistically expect to be cited with that number. Also, I've looked up to some authors for a substantial chunk of my life. Even if I had a lot of great stories to cite, I'm not sure I'd be upset by their omission from a list just as I'm sure T.S. Eliot never felt slighted when Shakespeare was mentioned while he himself was omitted while Marlowe definitely did have that problem.
Do you feel it would be less of a touchy subject if we were talking about the older fanfics rather than new ones/new authors? I just wonder if older fanfic writers might be more immune to that sort of feeling? I wouldn't want to make people feel badly, but I also see the value of suggesting stories for people to read. What a conundrum.
