Why not just put a huge disclaimer saying they reserve the right to refuse stories? All this analysing and explaining down to the Nth degree is asking for trouble - at the end of the day it's their archive and they will only post what they agree with. Justifying 'weeding' is daft - one person's weed is another person's Orchid
I suspect it's because they're an automatic archive. Anyone can come along and upload stories to their server. The only way they can clamp down on what stays there is by removing something once it has been uploaded - something I think is doomed to failure and will lead to acrimony. As I said to lerefuge above and as you've mentioned, it's one thing not to be asked if you want your fic archived on an archive that cherry picks stories and only hosts 'the best'; it's another thing entirely to have your stories removed from a public archive for not meeting these rather vague 'quality' indicators. And as the archive grows, and there are different weeders, the definition of what is 'quality' is bound to vary.
I think, to be frank, it would have been better for them to have taken a hard line and stuck to it; no mpreg, no songfic, no author insertion (although Mary Sues are more difficult - what one person sees as an obvious Mary Sue another sees as just an OFC). As it is, these vague 'unless it's good' caveats don't help, IMHO.
And those weeding criteria aren't exactly easy to find either. I got the link from their forums. How many people will venture into there unless they are insatiably curious (me ::g::) or simply have a problem with using the system?
Like I said - I think the whole thing is doomed to failure, and probably a lot of acrimony too unfortunately. I don't think it is possible to have an open archive like that and have quality criteria. I, personally, think the two are pretty much mutually exclusive. I mean, how many of the 'bad' writers (i.e the ones you and I would run screaming from ::g::) will actually look objectively at their work and think 'this isn't good enough'? If they thought that they probably wouldn't be posting it in the first place... I would hope :)
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Date: 2002-09-30 08:26 am (UTC)I suspect it's because they're an automatic archive. Anyone can come along and upload stories to their server. The only way they can clamp down on what stays there is by removing something once it has been uploaded - something I think is doomed to failure and will lead to acrimony. As I said to
I think, to be frank, it would have been better for them to have taken a hard line and stuck to it; no mpreg, no songfic, no author insertion (although Mary Sues are more difficult - what one person sees as an obvious Mary Sue another sees as just an OFC). As it is, these vague 'unless it's good' caveats don't help, IMHO.
And those weeding criteria aren't exactly easy to find either. I got the link from their forums. How many people will venture into there unless they are insatiably curious (me ::g::) or simply have a problem with using the system?
Like I said - I think the whole thing is doomed to failure, and probably a lot of acrimony too unfortunately. I don't think it is possible to have an open archive like that and have quality criteria. I, personally, think the two are pretty much mutually exclusive. I mean, how many of the 'bad' writers (i.e the ones you and I would run screaming from ::g::) will actually look objectively at their work and think 'this isn't good enough'? If they thought that they probably wouldn't be posting it in the first place... I would hope :)