And by classic, I mean old. <g> This is prompted by an email I received this morning from someone requesting that I repost some of my very, very old nfic romps from years ago (Moving the Earth, Challenge Clark etc) here in the nfic section of the mbs.

Well, I have no real objections to that plan, but I'm not sure this is needed. I mean, I understand what I get out of it. Hopefully more feedback. And the same for other authors who could also fit into this repost category.

But I'm not sure I see what benefit readers would get. These stories were first posted many years ago on one of the earliest messageboards and they are currently able to be read at Annesplace for anyone interested in checking them out, as is most of the fandom's nfic, classic or modern. So it's not as though they've vanished from view and aren't online somewhere any more.

And if anyone wanted to offer up feedback on these old stories now, my eddress isn't hard to find. (And, no, I really, really don't mind anyone mailing me now with feedback on a story written years ago. Trust me on this one. )

So would there be any point to doing this?

EDIT: Sorry for the 'no vote, no view' thing. Must have missed the option that turned that off. :p

Yeah, I have to say that I agree, Rat: I've never seen the point of reposting old stories which are permanently available somewhere else, in one of the archives. It does seem a little... pointless.

Having said that, I'm certainly not talking about circumstances where someone has revised an old story and is posting the revised version!


Wendy

Well, since I voted like LabRat and Wendy (i.e. what's the point?) and I see that 7 people thought reposts would be fun, I'd like to see some comments from those people. Do FoLCs not know where the nfic archive is, or do you enjoy reading the posted comments as much as reading the story? If it's the latter, I can see why someone would want to see old nfic posted.

I do enjoy reading the comments on stories, too -- but nfic or gfic, I tend to find the story far more important. If there are stories that never made it to the archive, yes, please post AND submit. But if it's on the archive, I don't really see much need.

For stories that have been posted on sites that are no longer running, I think it would be a good idea to be posted again.

But if you can still access them at any given time. I´ll also have to say ´what´s the point´? I don`t want to read the same story on three different sites. And for the comments, if you really want to give/receive a comment there is always a way.

Just my two cents.

sunshine

PS: I hope it´s not all giberish. It´s pretty late over here and I am just about to fall asleep over my pc

Actually, I think it would be great to see classic nFic on the boards again. Granted, I am an nFic junkie, but still I love the idea of being able to comment publically about these favorites, I mean it's nice to send a private email off to the authors, but as far as they know they're getting email from some pyscho stalker. At least on the board they can feel proud and safe about the positive responses they receive.

Anyway, I like the idea, and I hope you guys decide to do it.

TEEEEJ

Really? Is that true? Usually I write fdk in emails, especially for older fics, unless I know the author prefers to recieve fdk on the boards. This isn't a dig at you, TJ, but as someone who writes fdk in emails I'm wondering... is that true? Do a lot of authors prefer fdk on the boards? I could just as easily do a search for old fdk threads and post in there, but personally, I like the extra effort an email entails. Am I alone there?



Dave

Here's an example of what I mean by getting emails from strangers David.

Nan posted a topic looking to see if this person has emailed her, rather than open an email from a stranger. An email from a stranger could not only be disturbing, it could be loaded with gadgety viruses. On board feedback is safer.

Again, this all depends on if the authors themselves okay this route. I figure the administrator guys would also ask which authors were willing to repost classic nFic before they actually do it.

TEEEEEJ

As with most things, I think it would be a mistake to generalise, David. Authors' opinions will no doubt vary just as much on this issue as they do on most everything else.

It certainly isn't a problem for me to receive fdk by email. And most - though certainly not all - people sending fdk by email will put something relating to the story title in the header. So that even if you don't recognise the person sending it, you can at least take an educated guess that it's nothing sinister. Few spammers etc will go to the trouble of tracking down such specific info to use in an email they send you. The odd person who sends a fdk email with a blank header or 'story' might be less easy to weed out.

I'm a little concerned however at this one. As far as I've always been aware there is no risk in simply opening an email. I do remember reading once that if you open some types of spam email it can let the spammer know that it's reached a valid eddress and you may then get more. But apart from that, AFAIK the only danger is in clicking on a link within the body of an email or on the attachment that comes with it. Simply opening an email should be harmless.

Has something changed on this that I haven't caught up with and it's now a risk in itself? This would concern me because, of course, I get email from people I don't know all the time, sending me story submissions for the Archive etc, which as EIC I'm pretty much obliged to open. And not all of them use an appropriate header that easily identifies it as a submission, either.

Anyone know definitively either way on this one? Calling all computer gurus...

LabRat

Mmm, depends on e-mail readers. There are things that can be in attachments which CAN be triggered by reading the e-mail, if the program supports automatically viewing certain types of attachments, if the program is configured to do so.

As I recall, OE was notorious for this at one point, with their default settings leaving it open to such. I think they've corrected that, though.

It's an area of computer security I don't pay terribly much attention to, I have to admit, since my e-mails go through at least one virus checker on my server before they reach my Inbox.

I am not in a situation to get FDK via e-mail or here, but I do find that I loose a few e-mails b/c they go straight to my junk folder and well sometims I'll get 50 a day so it may easily get missed. I converse with MDL from time to time, and a few other people via e-mail and often their first e-mails were sent to my junk folder.

I've had some e-mails not even make it to me until its too late b/c my software decided it was a threat and seculded it away from me.

So I can see a problem that may occur with FDK if people have varying degrees of e-mail. . . passion. (I don't have much e-mail passion anymore. I may go a few days w/o looking at it now.)

Well, the voting seems to have stabilised on this one and I have to admit you guys have surprised me again. I fully expected this one to weigh out heavily in favour of the no vote. I wasn't expecting it to be so evenly balanced at all.

I've thought of another reason not to do this. Those vignettes of mine were written years ago and I haven't looked at them since. Goodness knows what grammatical horrors lurk therein. And I really don't have the time to go through and fix them up. Or, it has to admitted, the inclination really. <shudder>

LabRat

Maybe then you guys could just leave it up to the authors to repost their old nFic? If they want bulletin board feedback or something?

Just an idea.

TEEEEEEJ

I'm not sure what you mean, TJ. I am the author of the nfic I'm talking about.

If you mean the admins could leave it up to individual authors to post or not to post - I should make clear here that this poll and my posts were done by me purely as an individual member. This wasn't an official Admin post (if it had been I'd have signed it as an Admin), nor has this been discussed with the admins for a collective decision.

I was emailed by someone asking me to repost my own nfic, I wasn't sure if there was a point to that, so I set up the poll to see what others thought.

I would presume that if any author wanted to repost their old nfic it would be viewed by the admins as up to them. I could be wrong, but I don't think they'd see it as something they'd need to make a ruling on either way. And the poll results are evenly balanced enough that if you chose to repost you'd probably make some people happy.

For the reasons I gave above, it's just not something I plan to do anytime soon. But that doesn't mean other authors can't if they want to.

LabRat

I thought you meant ALL classic nFic from ALL the authors that have their stories archived could be reposted. I figured this whole time you were talking about nFic authors in the whole community.

See a bunch of us were talking in nFic about an old KathyB fic and then about some Meredith Knight fic, and a couple of others and I was just thinking it would be cool to get these guys to repost some of their old stuff.

Same goes for your stories. I wouldn't mind seeing Masques up on the board bit by bit again, and we have some new people that would probably leave comments.

I don't know if that explanation of where my comment came from is clear enough....but there you go.

TEEEEJ

Oh, I was pretty much thinking about vignettes rather than long stories. I'm not sure there would be much point in endlessly rehashing the same stories in multiple segments over and over again.

You could go on forever doing that imo - there are new members joining all the time. Do you repost your story every month? Every six months? For years on end? I think people would start to find that pretty wearing and it would use up a lot of bandwidth that could be devoted to new stories.

And that's partly the reason for the Archives. So that stories which have had their day here on the mbs can move over to them and be read by members who join the fandom later, long after the fact.

The odd vignette wouldn't cause too many problems, I don't think, but I think longer stories, especially if there were a lot of them, would have more cons against them than pros.

LabRat

Well, if a story is already posted on an archive somewhere, would it really be necessary to post all of it? Why couldn't parts of a story with appropriate direct links be posted? And why couldn't those be posted by readers as much as the authors? (sort of a readers recommend thing)

The "parts" could be openings, excepts or simply favorite scenes, etc, just to get discussions going. And if you really wanted to space them out, you could try going for adding maybe one a week or so in a special folder for that purpose.

Well, we've often had recommendation posts/threads in the past, of course. This idea doesn't seem to be that much different from that kind of thread.

The only problem I could foresee with this suggestion, off the top of my head, is that the usual method of recommending favourite stories by readers is to link to the complete story, wherever it may be archived.

You may find that some authors will object to having actual sections of their story separated out from the whole and cut and pasted into a completely different forum without their permission.

Not sure I'd, personally, see the need for a special folder - a simple recommendation thread like any other would serve the purpose easily enough.

But, again, I'm sure others have opinions on this and I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone else but myself, alone.

LabRat

Well, hmmm, yeah, that could be a problem.

But are you talking about even when a source/link is given, some authors object? Frankly, it would never even occur to me that a story, and specifically a story that's already been posted on the web, i.e. publised, couldn't be quoted as long as the quote was adequately referenced. We are simply talking about short excerpts at the most here. Very weird.

And besides the simple "publishing" technicalities, talk about a discussion squelcher in general. How in the world can story elements be adequately discussed if specific quotes can't ever be used to illustrate a point?

Just curious because frankly I am baffled here, are there really many fanfic authors that feel that way and what is the reasoning behind such an odd stance?

I have absolutely no idea, Beverley. I'm simply saying that if there's going to be a problem with it, I imagine that may be it. Authors may not like the idea of parts of their story being taken out of context, for example. Others may not want any part of their stories posted on this forum or that forum for various reasons. Some may just not like it, period. Whether they have a logical reason or not.

I think this probably goes back to what some of us have been saying on the 'changing the Archive' thread, over in Fanfic Related. That it's up to the author where their story is posted and no one else. And that some may object to others deciding for them. And I would imagine that for some authors that would equally apply to bits of their stories, as well as the whole of them.

But as this has never been done before, that I recall, in precisely this way - no, I'm not saying authors have objected to this. I'm saying it's possible some may have objections. I'm sure there are others who would have no objections at all. Certainly, I can't secondguess what they might say about it. I'm just pointing out that if there's going to be a problem with it, I'd imagine that might be it. Just speculation.

Individual authors, of course, would have to speak up for themselves and say whether this would bother them or not. Certainly though, I would hesitate to term any feelings they might have on the subject, either way, 'odd' or 'weird'. If they feel uncomfortable about others cutting and pasting bits of their stories onto a forum they never intended it to be on, then I think that's entirely up to them.

Although, having said that, from your earlier post, I rather got the impression you were talking about large amounts of text here. You may find you have less problem if its just the odd line from a story (I'm sure that has to have been done before now) than pages and pages of it. But, 'short', of course, means different things to different people. (As I realised only recently during a discussion on the Fundraiser DVD. When I realised that my belief that a short story was about 50 pages wasn't the universal one )

You know...I feel another poll coming on. Go for it, Beverley. Might be interesting to see what the response from authors is and many authors, perhaps not wanting to be called odd <g>, might appreciate being able to give an opinion, anonymously on this one.

EDIT: Just realised that this probably has been done before - in the old 'Guess the story' competitions. Large story tracts were posted then. I don't recall anyone complaining then, so maybe no one will now. Although, there is a difference, I guess, between simply quoting a segment of story and having people guess which one it is and posting a segment of story and then dissecting it. I'll admit, I'd be slightly wary of this, having had a bad previous experience when people who'd never read my story started dissecting segments of it negatively because they didn't understand the context of the posted segments. If someone's going to constructively critique one of my stories, I kind of like them to have actually read it first.

Guess the only way you'll know is to ask authors for their opinions.

LabRat

Labrat, are you seriously suggesting that there has never been a story "discussed" on this forum that wasn't posted here first?

Because that's what "onto a forum they never intended it to be on" sounds like only taken to an extreme. That's what seems odd or weird to me about this entire concept, not anyone's feelings. It simply seems downright convoluted to imply that a story has to have been posted on any forum in its entirety before permission can assumed to be granted for readers on that forum to even quote a single line from it. I guess I assume permission is automatically granted pretty much universally once a story is distributed on the web at large. Otherwise why link to the archive at all if you could never talk about the older stories there?

Which is kind of what I thought this thread was addressing - how to help new readers find old stories. Quotes and small excepts are wonderful ways to do that without having to repost the entire story.

Now if we're talking about a specific issue of quoting nfic content, then that's what the nfic forums are for. Aren't they?

EDIT: Just realized I missed something Labrat said the first time around.

But isn't that more a critiquing issue than a quoting one? I mean, isn't that why authors are encouraged to put a statement on the story regarding public/private feedback/criticism?

Another cool thing might be to feature a classic nFic critque, have someone do a short synopsis of the story and why they liked it, feature a couple of quotes and post it on the nFic board...thus new readers are clued in to some good fic.

It'd kind of be like writing a book report or review, say like "Why I thought Superstud was an awesome story"

Just an idea.

TEEEEEJ

That's kind of what I was suggesting, TEEEEEJ.

I would, however, caution against calling them critiques or reviews, both of which carry a lot of negative baggage to begin with, as Labrat has already pointed out. The term recommendations, on the other hand, may initially seem more cumbersome as a label but is a lot less explosive in nature because it's mostly viewed as positive. In fact, many see it as too positive, which is another part of that whole critiquing issue.

Personally I don't want to go there and if I saw a "critique" label on a post about an individual fanfic, I wouldn't read it. And I most likely would have strong reservations about reading a "review" of a fanfic. That's probably just me but it is something to think about.

(Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I've suddenly popped back out of lurkdom, it's because I'm finally back online after about a three month hiatus due to health, personal and family problems. Yeah, the old triple whammy. Actually, quadrupal whammy is probably more accurate because we were also having semi-major ISP problems during the last month, too.)

DOH!! sorry I wasn't trying to scam off your idea, just kind of skimmed what you said and threw down what was in my head, probably what was planted by your suggested, derrrrr, silly me.


TEEEEEJ