Time to reorganise the Archive? - 09/04/05 09:45 AM
Hey, guys
I've been thinking about this for a long time now and I've been wondering if the time has come to radically alter the way we collect stories for the Fanfic Archive
Traditionally, as most of you will know, most of the authors who post their stories here on the mbs, once they are sure they have a finished version, submit them for uploading to the Archive.
This year has seen the quietest time for the submissions that I can recall since I took over as EIC of the Archive. There have always been troughs and rush periods, of course, but this is the first time I've seen submissions being more often than not slow to come in and GEs twiddling their thumbs for months at a time.
Most of the year has been spent thoroughly convinced that next week will see no upload (although it's curiously always at this point that some author thinks to send in a story and we get a small flurry of two or three. How you guys know when to do that to keep us ticking over baffles me. Some kind of author ESP maybe. )
I think that part of the reason for this is that there has been a steady erosion over the years of the traditional link between the mbs and the Archive. Many new authors, I feel, come in and join the mbs and don't even know the Archive exists. And trying to ensure that everyone knows it's out there is difficult. Posts requesting submissions generally only spark off receipt of a couple of stories before the status quo settles back in. And such posts are quickly lost among newer posts.
There is of course a stickied thread with instructions on how to submit your story to the Archive, but who reads the stickied threads when joining a new mbs? I know I don't. Who has the time for that? So I'm sure that's less read than it is overlooked.
So, is it time to drastically reorganise the way we do things?
Many other fandoms, for example, work on an automatic system of collecting stories for their Archive, where the author has to actively opt out of having it uploaded rather than the onus being on them to volunteer their story.
Now, I've never liked this option, I have to say, as I think it tramples on an author's right to say where their story is posted. And we in this fandom have a specific problem with implementing something like that because, unlike those other fandoms, we insist on editing submissions before they are uploaded to the website. And taking an author's story and editing it, essentially without their permission, seems to me to be taking a step much further than just taking it and uploading it.
So I don't think that option works for us, but I toss it out anyway for debate.
The only other possible solution I've thought of is perhaps I should start posting an official EIC post in the comments folder of any new story posted here on the mbs. A "congratulations on posting your story. Do remember to send it along to the Archive when you're through' kind of thing.
Or I could email authors directly and solicit submissions from them.
In the past, I've always avoided doing either of these because I felt it was intrusive. If an author wanted their story on the Archive, they'd submit it. They didn't need me nagging them to do it.
But if we've gotten to the point where it's not choice that's leading to a dwindling of submissions but ignorance that the Archive is out there and available, maybe it's time to reassess that one. And to add to that, I've lost count of the number of times an author has mailed me with a story saying, "I found this on my hd. No idea why I haven't sent it in yet! Thought I had." so obviously one of those nagging emails might not go awry as a reminder now and then.
Anyway, I was going to do a poll, but I don't really have any solutions to offer, other than the vague ramblings above, and I'm not sure those are any help <G>. So I decided just to post the problem here instead and throw it open for debate and suggestions.
Maybe you don't even feel there's a problem that needs solving. If submissions are dwindling so be it, if the Archive has stories to upload fine, if it doesn't one week, that's fine too. And if that's the majority opinion, that's okay. I personally think it would be a shame. I don't think there's been a week on the Archive without an upload since its inception. I'd be kind of sad to see that tradition broken. And we're getting closer to it every week.
Discuss!
LabRat
Editor-in-Chief
The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive
I've been thinking about this for a long time now and I've been wondering if the time has come to radically alter the way we collect stories for the Fanfic Archive
Traditionally, as most of you will know, most of the authors who post their stories here on the mbs, once they are sure they have a finished version, submit them for uploading to the Archive.
This year has seen the quietest time for the submissions that I can recall since I took over as EIC of the Archive. There have always been troughs and rush periods, of course, but this is the first time I've seen submissions being more often than not slow to come in and GEs twiddling their thumbs for months at a time.
Most of the year has been spent thoroughly convinced that next week will see no upload (although it's curiously always at this point that some author thinks to send in a story and we get a small flurry of two or three. How you guys know when to do that to keep us ticking over baffles me. Some kind of author ESP maybe. )
I think that part of the reason for this is that there has been a steady erosion over the years of the traditional link between the mbs and the Archive. Many new authors, I feel, come in and join the mbs and don't even know the Archive exists. And trying to ensure that everyone knows it's out there is difficult. Posts requesting submissions generally only spark off receipt of a couple of stories before the status quo settles back in. And such posts are quickly lost among newer posts.
There is of course a stickied thread with instructions on how to submit your story to the Archive, but who reads the stickied threads when joining a new mbs? I know I don't. Who has the time for that? So I'm sure that's less read than it is overlooked.
So, is it time to drastically reorganise the way we do things?
Many other fandoms, for example, work on an automatic system of collecting stories for their Archive, where the author has to actively opt out of having it uploaded rather than the onus being on them to volunteer their story.
Now, I've never liked this option, I have to say, as I think it tramples on an author's right to say where their story is posted. And we in this fandom have a specific problem with implementing something like that because, unlike those other fandoms, we insist on editing submissions before they are uploaded to the website. And taking an author's story and editing it, essentially without their permission, seems to me to be taking a step much further than just taking it and uploading it.
So I don't think that option works for us, but I toss it out anyway for debate.
The only other possible solution I've thought of is perhaps I should start posting an official EIC post in the comments folder of any new story posted here on the mbs. A "congratulations on posting your story. Do remember to send it along to the Archive when you're through' kind of thing.
Or I could email authors directly and solicit submissions from them.
In the past, I've always avoided doing either of these because I felt it was intrusive. If an author wanted their story on the Archive, they'd submit it. They didn't need me nagging them to do it.
But if we've gotten to the point where it's not choice that's leading to a dwindling of submissions but ignorance that the Archive is out there and available, maybe it's time to reassess that one. And to add to that, I've lost count of the number of times an author has mailed me with a story saying, "I found this on my hd. No idea why I haven't sent it in yet! Thought I had." so obviously one of those nagging emails might not go awry as a reminder now and then.
Anyway, I was going to do a poll, but I don't really have any solutions to offer, other than the vague ramblings above, and I'm not sure those are any help <G>. So I decided just to post the problem here instead and throw it open for debate and suggestions.
Maybe you don't even feel there's a problem that needs solving. If submissions are dwindling so be it, if the Archive has stories to upload fine, if it doesn't one week, that's fine too. And if that's the majority opinion, that's okay. I personally think it would be a shame. I don't think there's been a week on the Archive without an upload since its inception. I'd be kind of sad to see that tradition broken. And we're getting closer to it every week.
Discuss!
LabRat
Editor-in-Chief
The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive