Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Tank Endings: To Warn, or Not To Warn?

EDIT: i've lengthened this post, adding an example for clarity and a couple paragraphs at the end. nothing major, just pointing it out in case yvonne decides she doesn't agree with some of what i've retroactively added or something.

most of what i want to say has already been said. i think the important thing is to make as many people happy as possible. imo, that means putting warnings to the side for those who don't want to see them, but making them available for those who do. so it's a bit of work. i don't see the problem.

you have it at the top of the fic section. one click, glance down, and you're done. yes, it means you actually have to click something before you can read the story parts, and you have to look/skim through the post. but wait a second. isn't that what you have to do when you open the fanfic folder in the first place? you click, you skim down to see what's new, maybe sort out which stories you're reading and which ones you're not, and decide what to open next. so, one more step. takes 5 seconds.

so, just to be absolutely clear, let's take two hypothetical readers (and to be gender neutral, i'll randomly make one male and one female) and look at their usual routine when looking through the boards.

reader A likes to be surprised by TEs. she opens the boards, and glances through the sections she regularly vists to see which ones have new posts. at some point- first, last, middle, whatever- she opens up the fic section. at the top of the fic section is a post created by the moderators that always remains at the top, just like the picture posting FAQ and the how to make TOCs FAQ. she ignores it. instead, she glances through the new posts to see which ones interest her- which are new parts to stories she reads, which are new replies to comments folders she's interested in, etc. she picks what she wants to read (and what she doesn't) and gets to reading.

reader B does not like being surprised by TEs (enjoys reading with advanced warning or wants to avoid them entirely). he opens up the boards and looks around to see where there are new posts. at some point- first, middle, last, whatever- he gets to the fic section. at the top of the fic section is a post made by the moderators. he opens it, skims through, and learns that the newest part of one of the stories he's reading, "all's wells that ends wells," is actually a TE. he hits his browser's back button, thus returning to the fanfic topic list. he skims through the posts there, picking out the ones he wants to read and the ones he doesn't, and then gets to reading.

to be really clear, i've the difference in their respective routines in bold (my dad's a pediatrician. over the past few decades, he's become used to talking to distraught mothers of sick kids. he now always speaks in triple redundancy. this has, to some degree, rubbed off on me).

now, it doesn't look like a huge inconvenience to me. it certainly doesn't look like reader B has to go "a mile further" than reader A.

am i missing something here? is this actually a big deal for the readers who want to be warned about TEs?

now, it is a bit more effort for the author, who has to drop an email to the admins and then wait for them to edit the post and add the line "part 8 of 'alls wells that ends wells' is a TE" before posting. then again, the author has also gone through all the trouble of writing a seperate TE, not to mention the rest of the story. i think it's fair to say that just as chefs can put hours of work into a meal that's eaten in 20 minutes, authors put a lot more time and effort into creating stories than readers do in reading them. with that in mind, i wouldn't think one extra email, sent 12-24 hours in advance, would be a huge deal.

nor would i particularly consider it a huge deal for one of the mods to get an email, go over to the boards, edit the post, and add in one line.

seems to me this is a pretty good solution, assuming enough people want to be warned and that enough people understand the system.

Paul

Works for me, Paul.

[Edit]
Still works for me, Paul!

Yvonne

I don't plan to get into the debate on the merits of 'to surprize' or 'not surprize'. I have my opinion on that, and I respect the rights of others to have differing ones.

But I think that we're being short-sighted to restrict this discussion to TE's alone. If it is felt that a warning of some sort is needed in the case of TE's then wouldn't that also be true in the case of all general warnings?

There are many on the boards who don't enjoy, or won't read stories that contain an intense physical or emotional wham, or the often mis-named deathfic. Perhaps, rather than create a separate thread or folder to house TE warnings, it could be a more generalized warning folder. If a writer is creating a post that she/he considers could possibly be offensive or unwelcome to the tastes of some of the gentle readers they could post an explanatory warning, along the lines of: Warning, part 666 of 'Lois Gets a Haircut' contains scenes of extreme physical violence which some may find distasteful. Or; Warning, part 23 of 'Lois Gets Another Haircut' contains a Tank Ending.

That way a reader can be warned that something they might not like could be in that part without giving away too much. And for those who like to take their fics 'as they come', they can ignore the thread all together.

This does put the onus on the writer to make a judgement and be courteous enough to actually post a warning, but I think that if it becomes the practice, it will become second nature. And those writers who may have shied away from something controversial in the past might find themselves being a bit more daring. (Even if it will cost them some readers)

Tank (who wouldn't have to worry about such things if the gentle readers would have just let him stay retired)

Weighing in here ... as an Admin, I heard of Pam's suggestion before she posted it here, and as someone who doesn't always like TEs (I love the ones that are short, obvious and absurdly funny, but I hate the ones that trick me into thinking it's a real story part; totally ruins the story for me), I was initially skeptical of her solution because I thought it made the people who want to avoid TEs do too much extra work.

However, having read through this thread and now being able to picture exactly what I would have to do, I have become convinced that this is a workable and creative solution to the problem.

Is it perfect? No. But as everyone has been saying, it is impossible to satisfy both sides completely, and this is the best we have come up with so far. And I appreciate the willingness of the Admin team to come up with compromise suggestions.

I especially think the idea of having the TE folder stickied to the top of the Fanfic folder is a wonderful idea, since those of us who prefer to be warned in advance (in my case, so I can enjoy them more; in Phil's case so he can avoid them all together) can see whether we need to check the thread with a mere glance. Now that I'm able to picture exactly what I would have to do to find the warning, I don't believe it would be much extra work at all.

Kathy (who thinks Tank's suggestion of broadening the folder into a general warnings folder is also quite interesting)

WOW,

S (who just like to read albeit no TEs )