Workshop Improvements

+ 73. That's more like it!

 

10 credits on ~66 critiques here @NWOPD
-2 workshop requests = ~62
~62/2 = ~31 credits
(ignoring 3 posts in the 3 sentences thread)
I still have few enough posts that I was able to go through and count them

I wondered though, could people help manually by adding a text tag into the posts they want to be counted? E.g. [CRITIQUE_CLAIM]
That might be a way out of doing complicated scripts to auto-count across hundreds of thousands of historic posts, since if someone needs the credit from something pre-update, they could manually dig out some of their old critique posts and edit them to include the tag. Users wouldn't have to worry about their total, and it puts the manual effort onto the user.
There would be some logic needed e.g. to prevent people putting [CRITIQUE_CLAIM][CRITIQUE_CLAIM][CRITIQUE_CLAIM] but if the auto-counter is already having to check there are 20 words and not double-count multiple comments on the same submission, there is already some logic going on (!)

==

And separately:- This is only a minor problem (or perhaps a non-problem), but quite often new users seem to dig out workshop entries from years ago - perhaps to avoid backlash from other users in an unfamiliar environment -, and these will be unlikely to benefit the writer, since they've hopefully finished their book by then. I think it wouldn't be good to close the threads after a certain time, but if the credits are being auto-counted could there be a cutoff for critiques to count toward credits?

 

Guilty! I totally did that right after creating my account - but to be fair, all I did was pick two entries near the top of the list because I had assumed that meant they were new submissions. I didn't (yet) realize that they were several years old and only near the top of the list because they had been "new"-ly resurrected by someone who showed up before I did.

All of which is a roundabout and self-conscious way of saying I like your idea.

Maybe even just a "Recent" tag that can be phased out automatically after a year (or voluntarily by the author) after which posts can still be made, but won't count for credits.

 

Well, both of those entries were mine, and I appreciated the crits.

 

Yours were my first and third - the second was first posted in 2018 *blush*

 

You were my first crit as well when I got here. You're like the welcome wagon for this place. You were a running cactus at the time.

 

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

 

A bit traumatic, but I got over it.

In fact you could say it was a bit prickly... badum tissssss!

 

You know, come to think of it, not only did I drop my first crit on your story, but then you were the first person to give me a crit as well. Lol, now it's impossible to say anything here without subtext.

 

@evild4ve give me a little time to look into it further. Appreciate the idea, currently mulling over some others.

 

Here's my suggestion.

Require an author to "accept" a critique in order to get credits for it. So, you post a critique but the thread starter has to click "accept critique" or maybe even just Like it in order for you to get the credit.

This would have the advantage that, if someone posts a 1 line critique or just a throwaway comment (or some other bizarre summary), they don't get a credit, and it forces people to critique work from active members, since the authors of works from years ago probably won't be here any more.

But you'd have to make it clear that accepting a critique (or liking it, or whatever terminology you want to use) doesn't mean you necessarily agree with it, but that you agree that it is a valid critique.

Of course, you then get some difficulties with people not accepting critiques because they didn't like them, which isn't the idea. I had a few where someone just went through my story and edited a few lines. I'd still accept that even though I don't feel that providing alternative ways to write my lines is a valid critique, unless the person can also explain to me why they think that way is better (not, "oh, this is how I'd write it").

 

I like @Naomasa298 idea, especially for the necro post bumps. If it is liked by the original poster, it obviously isn't dead, it has just fallen down the forum list. Many writers, myself included, write mainly as a personal progression journey, not as a serious attempt at a profession. Anything I put in the workshop is probably still being worked on (I have 5-6 WIPS at any given time on my google drive) and I will take whatever critique I can get, even one given some time after my original post. If the author interacts with the critique, it is obviously still a valid critique and I would hate someone to write something super detailed in good faith and not get credit for it.

 

Necro-posting is a VERY common new member 'mistake.' And I can't think of anything less welcoming than giving a newbie a hard time about it. There is a lot to take in, when you first join—including getting familiar with where things like dates appear on the page. And it's very common to respond to a topic that interests you, on a forum, rather than the date it was posted.

Obviously it's okay to point out the date on a post, but I really get annoyed when people give the member the 'stupid' treatment when they make this mistake. I know when I first joined, I got a bollocking from a person (who fancied herself as a Mod but wasn't one) who took me to task in a very highhanded manner for daring to respond to an 'old thread' (from several months before.) I was old and ugly enough myself to not let her lecture put me off the forum at all, but her manner DID put me off her! Yes, I checked dates carefully after that, so she made her point. But she could have made it far less scathingly, and it would have left a better taste in my mouth.

 

Giving authors the ability to invalidate criticism of their own work would cause a lot more problems than it would solve.

 

I agree that it has potential for problems. We saw it not long ago in one of the threads here, where an author took the critique they were given very personally. And many new authors take critiques as personal critiques of them, rather than the work.

But you kind of have to get over that and provide strong guidelines of what should or should not be accepted. And you do have to treat others the way you want to be treated. I've stopped responding to people who never bother to say "thank you", or just take from others without offering anything in return themselves.

 

I wasn't thinking primarily about personal drama (although of course that's also a possibility) but about the quality of criticism. And I'd be concerned about it even more as an artist than as a commenter. I appreciate the criticism that my work has received thus far and I've tried to take it into consideration. I'd be much less inclined to take comments on my posts seriously if I knew the commenters were worried in the backs of their minds about making me happy enough to give them credit. I'd wonder if they were making nice comments that didn't apply or (even worse) avoiding making critical comments that actually did apply. It just sounds like a mutual admiration society waiting to happen.

 

I think there's a degree of that anyway. I don't think people inherently like being critical of other people's work and often don't know how to be critical without it sounding nasty - so end up saying "nice work" or something along those lines. Once you've been here long enough, you overcome that (especially once you've seen how other people do it).

As with the current system, it's up to the more long-standing members to set an example.

 

I would worry not about how little, but how much effort I put into a crit. Now I critique until I'm done, and while I post to the workshop somewhat sparingly I admit that sometimes I head to the Workshop to crit to make sure that I'm keeping my numbers up. If I need to worry about whether a member will "accept" my critique and thereby "pay" me for my efforts, I'm going to be much less likely to put in a stringent effort critiquing someone whom I don't already know.

Sounds callous as hell, but wait until the first couple times someone doesn't like what you had to say about their work and doesn't hit the "accept" button.

 

If the new measures make people mindful of what their critique sounds like, and makes them less likely to give a hurtful, dismissive critique, then I guess it's worth a try.

As always, the critique-giver on this forum is NOT a reviewer. The critique-giver isn't influencing a buyer. The critique-giver is trying to help the writer. The critique-giver should give suggestions and reactions that lead to the writer achieving what they hoped to achieve, when they conceived and wrote the piece.

It takes tact and insight to be a helpful critic—and both are traits worth developing. Chances are, the writer will receive a tactful and helpful critique in good faith, and give an 'accept' even if the critique-giver has pointed out quite a few problems with the writing.

 

Behind this is the general question of how the forum gatekeeps. If everyone was wanting to submit bona fide drafts and contribute critiques for others in return, this would be swings and roundabouts - a philosophical difference about what Critique is. (I'm of the view that it's not up to the writer to say if a critique has taken place)

But there's always the rogue element who are trying to improve the quality of their scam emails, or test their AI vampire romance generator, or who are trolling, or who have other mysterious issues. Probably the forum has metrics, but for argument's sake a couple of % of the workshop posts.

Nearby to them are a second, larger, vaguer problem group - of people who want compliments on garbage. Their critiques exceed the length requirements, but they're really reviews - more about ingratiating themselves than revealing the truth of the text; not backed by evidence. Which is also what they want others to post for them - they dislike critique and give it sniffy responses.

Terry Pratchett springs to mind (words to the effect of) "there are three sorts of people: the first sort of people come to a pub for the beer, the second sort come to meet girls, and the third sort is there to sell insurance."

So if critiques had to be liked going forward, how would the rogue element react? Currently small numbers of them get round it by posting 20 words of junk twice. Requiring the critiques to be liked by the writers could make that harder - the bad actors wouldn't know if or when they would get 2 likes, so it might keep more of them away. But consider also: a new user doing their first two reviews might be willing to put the effort in, but have doubts about whether anyone would like them. The timescale and effort to get going on the site would now be outside new users' control and unknowable.

If anyone wanted to throw the system open, they could post two workshop submissions and always like any critiques posted to them. In the subject line: GET YOUR TWO LIKES HERE FOLKS. So that might need manual moderation. But I think they wouldn't need to undermine it. The bad actors are as smart as the rest of us but dishonest: probably they would change their MO to sending 20+ words of complimentary waffle to the users in the second group.

This hasn't drawn a binary distinction between commercial reviewers and helpful critics, but I'll put some suggestions why it's more complicated in case anyone reads it as one.

It's normal to first learn to critique using classic authors (who being dead are beyond help). Afterward, many people go on to become reviewers of published works (whose authors are still alive with any luck, but equally beyond help). And there is another small group who remain in academia doing pure critiques, that aren't reviews and whose authors are beyond help. I'd suggest to think of reviewing as a craft derived from and separate from the art of critique, rather than as what critique's called when it's having to earn a living.

"On this forum" is an important qualifier. The writing-circle ethos of constructive critique pulls on what critique is, in a different direction again from the value judgements that mutate and degrade it into mere reviewing. I always offer constructive suggestions, but that shouldn't be taken as in any way discouraging writers from reacquainting themselves with the pristine beauty of normal.dot. We can lead a horse to water, but we can't make it repeat most of its education before redrafting its fanfic of a video game of a comic.

Constructiveness is necessary to community but a hazard to the quality of critique - not because we're having to restrain any instinctive ferocity, not because it's a drag having to be tactful - because we're working with unfinished material.

 

I feel like this conversation has gone off the rails a bit.

I've only been back two or three months, but...

• I like the critique that's been offered in the Workshop so far. There's a good variety of people giving short crit, long crit, positive encouragement, and harsher and more academic critique.
• Do we really need to gatekeep what counts as quality crit? Is it even possible? We all have wildly differing opinions on what counts as "good" crit.
• Frankly, I don't even want longer and more detailed crit. It sounds nice in theory, but in practice, it's easy to overwhelm the writers with too much at once.

I'd rather see young writers getting more critiques that are shorter so they can get more opinions without feeling overwhelmed. If the goal is to force writers to put more effort into critiquing others before they ask for help... I'd say just raise the crit requirement from two credits to three.

EDIT TO ADD: I do want to say. I do appreciate those who take time to give very long and detailed crits. This is not to sound ungrateful.

 

I already miss being able to write fewer than 20 words. I don't post frequently in the workshop, but sometimes I want to write fewer than 20 words. Of course, if you are going to implement a system in which all posts in the workshop are counted automatically as critique, then you have to install parameters, I suppose, but that eliminates a more congenial atmosphere which allows posts which are merely complimentary. Sometimes, and I have before, I just want to post, "hey great job, I really liked this." I never counted those as critique, but maybe that's a necessary casualty of these improvements.

 

Yeah, same. It's sad but I think it's necessary. I like giving random/short opinions, so I've still kept doing them, I just make them longer now (and obviously I don't count them as "real effort" crits).

Maybe mention something you particularly liked or thought was good. That's important too-- it lets the writer know what to make sure to keep.

 

Perhaps, if it isn't too complex, the 20 word minimum should apply only to a poster's first post in a thread. Any subsequent posts could be shorter.

Sometimes, someone points something out to me that I got wrong initially, and I just want to respond with "Ah, I see" or "My bad, sorry", or something along those lines.

 

While I don't know that I'd characterize the conversation as off the rails, or getting into the weeds, or losing sight of the important points, nonetheless I agree with certain subpoints.

A variety of types and lengths is useful for several reasons. Some people are better at micro, other at macro. It helps for a commenter to do what they're good at. I expect that after reading a long and/or detailed critique, it could be refreshing to read a more general one.

As a general principle, I find value in some detailed critiques and in some that are "merely" general observations. Even a single observation (or encouragement, or even a discouragement on a specific point) can be of great value if it happens to be the right one, or confirms a suspicion or allays a worry.

As I'm new and have a single submission in the Workshop, it's easy for me to say at this point that I have not received any un-useful critique. I expect I would probably +like any critique that appeared to be made in good faith, so without establishing and encouraging a specific policy, I don't see that liking would be a good measure of quality. Most members do the best they can, and some will be objectively better than others, if that's possible, while some will feel more relevant or useful than the others in the critiqued writer's eyes, regardless of any objective measure of quality.

I'd be inclined to keep the crit requirement at two. I don't know that one can automate or institutionalize quality requirements, and I don't know how significant the payoff would be. I'd think that if a particular member or members now and then are seen to milk the system by spamming or borderline-spamming with minimal crits, that would be a situation for individual intervention by a moderator.

Sure it feels somehow "off" that a three-medium-paragraph reaction may get the same credit as something that obviously took an hour or more to write. But who's to say that the three-paragraph reaction isn't more useful to the writer than the more detailed version?