Categorization Changes In order to improve the workshop, the genre sub-forums have been moved to the Novels and Short Stories parent forum. All existing workshop entries have had their previous sub-forum’s genre added to the thread title as a prefix. In the Writing Workshop thread prefixes indicate the most appropriate genre for the submission. Presently, threads are only able to have one prefix. In the future, it may be possible to select two prefixes: one for the genre, and one for fiction type (Novel, Novella, Short Story). For now, threads in the subforms were also tagged with their forum genre and type. The 3 sentences, Fan Fiction, and Flash Fiction categories will remain their own sub-forum pending further review. Some categories have been renamed to more accurately reflex the genre. Additionally, the Action Adventure, Historical, and a general “Other” category have been added. Link redirects have also been set up to redirect old forum links to the Novel and Short Stories forum. When creating a Novel and Short Stories thread, you will need to select a prefix to indicate the genre. If it doesn’t apply, select Other, or suggest a new category. Workshop Credits - 2:1 Critique System We have been using a custom workshop credits plugin for a while, with the intent of balancing submissions and encouraging critiques. Over time, it became quite buggy - only working sometimes for some people. This has been resolved with the purchase and implementation of a credit system, which is already live and applied to the workshops. If you encounter any issues with the new system, please submit a support thread. The new system will work as originally designed - for each workshop submission, you'll need to have earned two credits through leaving two critiques on another writer's submission. This system may be expanded in time to reflect more in-depth reviews or custom forms for specialized types of writing.
Sounds good! Is this credit score something that will be visible to the regular users, enabling them to keep track (especially early on in their memberships) of their ratios, or is it one of those staff-only viewables like number and nature of warnings?
Sounds good, although I've not looked at it yet. Will do now! I'm happy to see Historical being included as a genre ...it's a big genre, actually. Good move. ............ edited: Not sure if I'm missing something, but when scrolling down the list of offerings in Novels and Short Stories, there isn't any way to tell which is which. It's extremely important to know, as a short story develops differently from (and much more quickly than) a novel. The genres may be the same, but the format is different. TBH, I have never been happy with them being lumped together, as they have been of late. I like the Novels listed via genres, but I really wish the Short Stories and Novels appeared in two separate categories, as they did a while back. Is there some way to make the differences immediately obvious, without having to open each offering and attempt to figure it out from what is written? (Saying 'this is my WIP' isn't really a reliable clue.) As a critique-giver, I concentrate on Novels. I would be a lot more likely to offer a critique if I can tell right away which story form I'm tackling.
Originally the plan was to prefix novels, short stories etc... that seems to have changed, i'm not sure what will happen now because the team and I aren't yet in the loop about these changes. Actually on closer inspection it seems they are tagged with the type - its not terribly obvious but if you look at the top left of the screen... the flaw in this plan is that you can't see the tag until you open the thread If you click on a tag you can searh for all the entries with that tag The reason they were combined originally was that Novels didnt have any genre categories and not knowing what genre a thread was , was more problematic.
Of course the credit system won't address the real elephant in the room about the quality of the crit...it can't absent a really powerful AI, so please continue to report people who are taking the mick with multiple one line critiques ETA : note that posts in the workshop now require a twenty word minimum, which will stop people from saying 'nice work'... bu won't stop them from saying stuff like 'very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very nice work" so we still need some vigilance
As Iain asked in #2 above, will there be a way for users to see their credit score somewhere? I have reacted/critiqued already but don't know if I can post something for critique yet. Something simple for us noobs...
It doesn't look as though there is - i can't find anywhere admin can see it either. The best advice i can give is not to think of it as a target to meet, give as much critique as you can, when ever you can... because critiquing the writing of others helps you become a better writer...then when you do want to ask for critique you'll both be handsomely in credit, and all the people you gave useful critique to will think you're a good guy and be more willing to repay the favour looking at yours manually you've given three critiques and posted one piece for critique, so if you want to post another piece you'd need to give at least one more
I'm the poster boy for this. I've got one Workshop piece and done, I don't know, 70 or 80 crits? Guessing. And this is very true.
Yeah-- I've been on various critique forums, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the best writers in the workshop tend to be the ones giving lots of crit. Reading and writing crit teaches you how to spot and fix problems-- which is an invaluable skill all writers need.
As a reader/critic/appreciator I really really like the new layout because there are fewer pages to refresh in order to see any new developments. As a writer, I'm not as certain. Seems like it would be easy for a piece to go overlooked/under-commented, especially during times of high activity. But hey, what do I know.
Hello! I am seeing something called credits under every user. Most have 0, but when you press on the number a list of people with more credits appear. What are these and how do they work? I get a feeling they are not the same as the workshop credits?
You might want to check the first post at the top of the thread : I don't see this Credit thing of which you speak, where are you seeing it? Oh, OK, it shows up when you click on somebody's avatar or name to see their info. Got it.
Wait, why is my credit at minus 8? I should have like 100! I've only got one Workshop entry, and I've done somewhere close to 100 crits (guessing). Maybe too many of them are under 20 words? @christos200 is new, I think he's done 2 crits and posted one piece to the Workshop now, and he has 13 credits. What gives? He only has 9 posts, and they're not all in the workshop.
Methinks the system is borked. I just saw someone with 9 posts and 13 credits. Edit: Xoic beat me to it. Not singling out christos for criticism here.
I hate to say it but we team people don't have any firm info - only Daniel knows anything about this, and he hasn't been on line since he made the changes, i'll reach out to him on facebook and see if we can get him back to sort it out In the meantime the staff and I will try to figure this out but please be paitent Where credit is too high I suspect posts in the first three sentences thread are counting for credit when they shouldn't... i'm going to pull that back into GW for now.. but that's not the whole story as it doesn't explain why a good critter like Xoic is in negative figures
I notice that i'm in the same boat - ive made 380 posts in the workshop and hardly asked for any crit...my credit score is 2.... i don't understand it at all... i see Daniel is on line so hopefully he'll be able to sort it out or at least shed some light on what is going on
I wonder if its only counting recent posts - 3vil4ave is 'richest' with 19 .... which if it was counting all time posts wouldnt make sense compared to someone like wreybies or chickenfreak who gave thousands of critiques in their ten year tenure... But i'm only guessing.. the controls for this thing are in part of the back end i can't access
I just created a Workshop entry, but I didn't see where to add the genre. I might just be being incompetent, it wouldn't be the first time. Also - before posting the thread, I had 2 credits, now I only have 1. Surely I should have 0 credits left?
Apologies for the rapid rollout without notice. I’m going to answer some questions in this thread and monitor new support threads regarding the workshop changes. Right now you are only alerted If you don’t have enough credits for a post. However, the software should allow me to display current credits elsewhere: either somewhere in the workshop, profile, or elsewhere. This is planned, I just have to work out technically how to apply it. The intention is to set it up so short stories and novel excerpts are in the same forum, but more easily differential. Presently, the index is to do so with prefixes: ability to select genre for filtering and ability to select short story/novel/novella. Due to the limitations of our current software it is only possible to use one prefix, but this change is intended as the first step to upgrade all our software to XF2. I’m also exploring options to implement it much sooner. If the consensus is against this method alternatives can be consider. Additional genres are also open to suggestion. Tags are meant as a temporary measure until dual prefix selection can be rolled out. I’ll look for a better way to improve it in the meantime. This is largely true. Implemented a modest word count for now, but this system is flexible: we can decide that shorter critiques earn 1-2 credits, and critiques over a certain length in 2-3. This could be implemented now. Eventually we can create critique templates (if we want to) that allows basic critiques, or more in-depth critiques along pre-defined categories.
Fair assessment. My objective is to implement interface improvements that solve this problem. For those of you with negative credits or credits not showing up now - I will look into it tonight and over the weekend. Prior earned critiques haven’t translated to the new system - I believe it’s possible but will take some technical work on my part. For negative critiques, I suspect the system has a configuration issue, which I will look into now and update you once I have more information and a fix.
Once the technical hiccups are worked out I will work on a new post explaining how to use the credits with an updated FAQ.
Thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks for a brilliant suggestion. Nice work. Very well done. Fabulous!
