For anyone who is writing fiction, it can be difficult to find suitable readers who are willing to provide extensive notes on their work, especially when writing anything over 300 words. Generally...
For anyone who is writing fiction, it can be difficult to find suitable readers who are willing to provide extensive notes on their work, especially when writing anything over 300 words. Generally speaking, the longer the story, the harder it is to get notes on it.
One of the most successful subreddits for fiction criticism is /r/DestructiveReaders/. That sub has a series of rules and recommendations for its functioning, but, to summarize, you are only allowed to request feedback on a story if you have previously provided quality feedback to a story of equal or larger length than yours.
Each critique you make gives one "credit" that you use to receive a critique on something of your own.
It's a great idea and, by and large, it works.
The issues of /r/DestructiveReaders/ are, essentially, the issues of Reddit as a whole, as a consequence of the existence of downvotes. Members can take the notion of "quality critique" to an extreme, going way above what the rules actually require. They may require something overly lengthy, or something that appeases a subjective criteria. Some may even downvote the "competition" so their own posts stand out.
That can lead to some unfair, frustrating experiences the mods can do little to prevent.
In this post, I am proposing that we create a series of recurring posts that function in many ways similarly to /r/DestructiveReaders/, but in a way that is more flexible and adapted to the needs and peculiarities of the Tildes community.
The posts could be either monthly or created when the previous got too long.
I would maintain the "credit" system, but I would use a notion of "effort" which takes everything into account, including the length of the review, but other criteria we can come up with as a group. We could possibly have a scheme in which the authors themselves would say how useful that review was. Sometimes, three paragraphs can be useful, and I would like us to have a way to ascertain this.
I wouldn't have any powers to remove anything, so the whole thing would be in the honor system. Essentially, I would be merely suggesting behavior, and, if someone decides to simply not follow the rules, I won't even try to admonish or shame anyone.
I would track credits and submissions on the body of the post itself. At least in the beginning, I could serve as the sole organizer, but anyone else who wishes to contribute will be welcome.
And, oh: we could be open for non-fiction as well. That could mean biography, history, or even technical writing. But I'm not sure how to incorporate everything into that idea.
What does everyone think?