Does posting work here harm our chances of being published?

@Moose, all they'd have to do to NOT have the stories be considered published/use up the contestants' first rights is simply post the contest stories/poems behind a password. Behind a password is only for members here, not for the general public.

About the workshops, nobody would use them and they wouldn't exist, let alone be a major part of and widely used on every writing forum on the internet for the past twenty+ years, if the password was not protection against them being considered published. This is extremely old and well-trod territory, nothing new or experimental!

About the contests, who would want to waste most of their chances to have a story or poem published just to enter a small contest where there's not even a payment, a prize, a publishing credit or even a win, necessarily, if they knew that was the deal? Well maybe a few would but why should it be necessary? And it's not really up to them, fairly, when they're not even told they're giving up their first rights by entering a non-password-protected contest, is it?

Thanks for telling Wreybies. If there were any legal worries here, I'd think it would be far safer to do what most, if not all, of the other forums have been doing for years, rather than the opposite. In any case, I don't think there's any potential legal problem with putting the contest stories behind a password.

Personally, I would just like to be able to join the fun of putting my stories in the contests without it costing me a potential publishing credit. It doesn't seem like something you should be up against on a writing forum.

I like it here very much but I do think those are two pretty big issues, especially for the newer writers, that are harmful and behind the times. It would be so much better to just fix them.

 

Um, what? Yes, this is most definitely a privately owned board. And no, published in a magazine is "published." Posted behind a password in a private forum is "not published." They are not comparable in any way.

And "people need to take personal responsibility for their choices" is highly inappropriate if it means deliberately letting all the new writers, who come here for help, unknowingly blow their first rights with non-password-protected contest entries. That would just be uncalled for and nasty, and I really doubt that's the forum's position at all. Much more likely an oversight, I'd guess.

Also, just tossing the term "legal" around vaguely isn't... anything, really.

Okay, I'm stopping here because I've already laid out my position, my reasons for it, and my qualifications for even having an opinion on it.

I'm really speaking to the ones who actually decide these things, as far as the contests go. Can y'all just put the contest entries behind a password?

And as far as confusion about the safety of using the workshop, I'll leave it to the ones who, even though said with the best of intentions, may want to think about what they are telling the newer writers, and their actual knowledge/experience basis for advising them.

That's it. Not here to argue and don't have the authority to tell anyone what to do.

 

I realize that I am late to the party to be weighing in on this issue, and I am appreciative that the topic is being considered, discussed, and clarified. It is, of course, crucial that workshopping pieces here is safe for writers. Regarding the contests, as someone who has participated several times in the monthly short story contest, I do think it would be best to have these contests behind the password.

However, I never submitted a story that I had any notion of attempting to publish. I wrote and submitted stories for practice, my own entertainment, a diversion from the novel I was writing, and a desire for reaction from other writers to my work. That being said, others might have different goals. I would certainly advocate for the contests to be behind the password.

 

My experience is that the general state of the industry is in line with what Carly is saying, and has been for quite a few years. I’ve heard editors from big publishers (Random House; Simon & Schuster), agents, and short market editors address it at conferences, and the views mostly correspond with this quote from Write Relief (I say mostly because there can always be an exception; check your market):

“
Is my work considered previously published if I post it in a writing forum or Web board?

If the forum or Web board is private and intended for the purposes of encouraging feedback or community support, then most editors and literary agents will consider the work unpublished. But just in case, you may want to take it down once you’ve received feedback so it doesn’t appear online.

If the forum in question is public (that is, if nonmembers can see what you’ve written), then your work will likely be considered previously published.”

When you have a password-protected forum that only members can view, such a forum can also be shielded from indexing by search engines. That’s what writing forums do with those areas of their sites, and should be what is done here. Makes it very difficult for some rando to locate the story, sign up, and read it.

The only thing that would improve the situation from the standpoint of this particular issue would be the ability to remove a work after critique, but that causes other problems for a writing forum.

Still, as I said above, checking your specific market is wise.

 

Okay, since I feel like an official word is wanted from the management, the following:

Firstly, I am no one's definition of an attorney. Clear? Not an attorney. I concur through my own research and my contact with judicial realms (I am a legal interpreter) that we, as a private forum, which makes its Workshop an area that cannot be seen or accessed by lurkers or trawled by search engines, our Workshop does not count as published as regards this matter. This is the consensus of the more active writing forums in play today.

Now - obviously - a publisher may say to you "this Wreybies person is no one, his opinion counts for nothing, these are our requisites because in this matter I most certainly am someone since I'm making the decision to publish you or not". In that case, that person clearly has the de facto power.

I cannot make a binding statement on the part of the forum in this matter. It would be irresponsible and legally problematic.

But, would writing forums exist as entities if they were not understood by the publishing world as part and parcel of the process? Would our members whom we know to be published, because we can link to their books for sale, participate if it were that tenuous?

You must make your own decision, but I've been here ten years now, and of the MANY, MANY, MANY issues I deal with on a minute to minute basis "you dickheads cost me my ability publish" is not one of them. You would have heard me kvetch vociferously by now, since I am not wont to restrain my kvetching.

 

Also, would it be possible to simply put the writing contest entries behind a password from now on? As it stands, those stories are accessible from the internet. So according to most accounts, they would be considered "published."

Thanks for responding.

 

They actually were for a good while. This protection came unstuck at some point when Daniel was retooling the positioning of the top-tier nodes. Daniel is the only person with the power to fix this. I do not have the keys to that wing of our little Downton Abbey.

 

Stating that it definitely doesn't is not the only other option. From the quick look-see I did on other forums, it looks like they might just not say anything about it and what I suggested above was to simply eliminate that piece. (and I find myself repeatedly saying "I just said..." to you, so not sure what this little game is but I don't appreciate it). Only posting a little bit as suggested= not receiving all the assistance with it that you could have. That's not high quality help. And telling new writers it's "technically published" is not at all inviting or encouraging, and according to the way things actually go, does not even seem accurate.

ETA: As one who saw my writing improve by leaps and bounds after a long stint of heavy participation both ways on workshops, I find this discouraging.

 

Should we ask him?

 

The owner of the board isn't interested in (1) the user-friendliness of the workshop or (2) the first rights of people's contest entries being wasted, likely unbeknownst to them?

 

@Daniel

I think the members make a good point as regards fixing the "logged in, registered member" coverage of the Contests. This would not create any new work for the mod team, so I have no reason at all to argue against it, and it makes good sense to me.

Wrey

(copied in PM)

 

Wreybies- I messaged him too, just before you posted that. This is the second time.

 

That attitude is how forums die but if that’s what he wants then whatever.