Ok, I hate to be that guy but I have some feedback for this forum. I can understand having a new person on the forums posting 20 different times to the forum before starting to post work. It helps familiarize the people with the forum. I also understand posting two reviews for each one piece of work. It forces people to review work that other people post. Why though does a new person have to wait 14 days before they can post work? I know how to skim through a forum. I am familiar with this forum after posting my brains out so I can get past the first two hurtles. It just doesn’t make sense to keep potentially good writers from sharing potentially good writing. To be honest it’s kind of asinine and anal retentive. If anybody can up for logical reason why new people have to wait 14 days? Please explain it because it just doesn’t make any logical sense to me. All I want to do is post my work get it critiqued and read others people’s works. I don’t feel that anyone needs to waste time waiting 14 days to post their writing to a forum.
Let's say you start a forum. You want it to be good. You want people to stick around. You tell people that you want them to do a certain amount of posts before they post their work. Within two days, they've met these conditions, and they post their piece of writing. It needs some work, so a long-time member critiques it. This new person fixes their work, or perhaps they decide that everyone on the forum hates them, so they decide to leave since they got what they came for. That's not what you created your forum for. You created your forum not just to help people, but for people to stick around and work productively and make a community. If someone sticks around for fourteen days just to get their work out there, it shows that they're serious about the community. If someone comes and posts their work on the first day and it's the only post they make, they're not serious about the community. Why should we help people like that if they don't want to help the rest of us?
I agree. If a person keeps coming back within the fourteen days, they're more likely to stay for a longer period of time. It helps hone skills and become more mature.
Yes. The people who want the drive-by-crit won't wait around for the 14 days - they'll move on to places (and people) more easily taken advantage of.
I can see your point about creating a good forum but making people wait around is not a incentive to make people stay. Just ask a restaurant manager. Besides if someone does post their work then leave, once they have what they want, it shouldn’t matter. If an individual doesn’t take their writing seriously that’s their prerogative not yours or mine or anybody else’s for that matter. I will stick around even though I disagree with this. There are many things I disagree with but that’s why I choose to write.
I look at it as more of a filter. People who aren’t willing to hang around two weeks before asking us to critique their work likely aren’t people I would want as members anyway. This is supposed to be a community and not just some place where people will do the bare minimum requirements and then post their work to be critiqued. You say you will stick around despite this rule. Good. That means that it is more likely you are the kind of poster we want here and that the rule is doing its job. Welcome!
But this isn't a restaurant. We aren't selling a product, or a service. We're a community, and what it offers is only as good as what people put in. The drive-by-crit members don't want to be a contributing member of this site, so honestly I don't much care whether they go. Likely as not, they would have vanished as soon as they got what they wanted. What we want, and what the rules encourage, is members who become a part of the site and the community. It's not about an individual taking their writing seriously, but all about what this place is and how it works. Everyone contributes, and everyone gets something out of the place.
The problem is that writing is a service and a product. Just look at religion. Someone put words in the bible, rather or not someone believes it to be God or man is the perspective of the individual. Either way, the bible gives some hope and others not. As for the seriousness of writing, I didn’t even know how to read or spell my name until I was in junior high so yes I take my writing seriously even if its crap. Without writing people would be doomed to be ignorant. If someone just used others for their own purposes such as writing a critique for their story, they are ignorant because they don’t understand how serious writing really is. So if someone wants to be ignorant that’s their prerogative is all I’m saying. Jeez this turned into a philosophical debate instead of something about rules. Opps!
I do agree that the rules are a bit much for posting your work. I mean I do like the idea of there being the fourteen day mark to keep members here before they could post stories... that's a good idea to me BUT the one thing I have trouble with is critiquing. I'm not a good story writer just yet and I've never done a single critique in my life... add on the fact that I suck at abstract questioning, problem solving and all that and it's even worse. I don't even know how my own writing needs work so how would I know that for someone else who is probably twice the writer I could ever be? To me, I don't find it fair to anyone who might be starting out as a writer and hoping to get better by knowing what they are doing wrong as a writer. I'm more of an expression writer. I lack verbal and emotional expression so writing becomes an outlet for that. Story-writing is VERY new to me still and I haven't learned it yet. That was the reason why I came here... only to find out that in order to post my work that I have to make two critiques. If I was a better writer that knew what she was doing, then... yeah... it would be easier for me but its not. I just feel like I'm being asked to do something that goes against what I, not only haven't learned but something that has never ONCE been in my knowledge. I've read just about everything I could try to critique here and I don't know what I could tell the person about what THEY could work on. How can I? I don't know my weaknesses so how can I know how to improve what their writing weaknesses are, you know what I mean?
No it isn't. Writing is a tool. What you do with it becomes the service or product. Not a good excuse. If you want to get better at something, you have to actually work to get better at it. If you can't give the absolute best critique in the world, it doesn't matter. All you have to do is read the piece and tell them what you think of it. Point out errors in spelling or grammar, or issues with style and flow. It doesn't take any skill to point out flaws, since it's an instinctual ability inherent in about 99%* of humanity. It's highly unlikely that you're a member of the other 1%*. *These aren't actual statistics, but my point still stands.
The thing is, no one expects you to automatically know all the ins and outs of writing. The idea is that you learn by doing. You might not know the subtleties, but I bet when you read (read anything) you have opinions on it? Things you like about them, reasons you like those things, and things you don't like? At a basic level, that's all that's required. And, the more you do it, the better you'll get. The point of the review requirements isn't just to make sure everyone contributes. The requirements also serve the reviewer. The skills you develop reviewing other people's work can be put to your own, so that you can find many of the flaws in your own writing yourself. Self-editing is an essential skill for a writer, and it's on that you can learn from reviewing.
