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farewell friend

farewell friend

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I haven't seen this suggested yet, and I have no way of knowing if it was previously discussed among staff.

When I enter The Writer's Workshop, it seems very unorganized. You are bombarded with many stories, and you cannot always tell what they are (Pokemon fan-fiction, other fan-fiction, one shots, original chapter fiction, original short stories). Everything is just clumped together. And it's a shame, because many stories go unread and unnoticed. Perhaps if there was better organization, more users would be enticed to participate in reading and critiquing. Perhaps this may seem insignificant, but think of it like this: if things were organized coherently, then people could find what they wanted and subsequently return more often. If you entered The Writers Workshop interested only in original chapter fiction, then all you'd need to do is visit the original chapter fiction sub-forum. Perhaps non-Pokemon fan-fiction is your interest? Visit the other fan-fiction sub-forum. If things were organized like this, people could find what they wanted, and writers of less popular literature (original chapter fiction and short stories) could have a greater chance of gaining readers and critiques. Likewise, users interested in reading these types of stories have a greater chance of finding them.

I was thinking of the following set-up:

Pokemon fan-fiction sub-forum (Pokemon one shots would also go here)
Other fan-fiction sub-forum (for all other fan-fiction and other fan-fiction one shots)
Original chapter fiction sub-forum (for people who like to write ongoing stories for original characters)
Short story sub-forum (for original short stories)

I hope you consider this, thank you :)
 
It's not that it's a bad idea or it isn't logical at first glance but... first of all the WW already has three subforums- main fic section, the discussions/ideas/etc section and the administrative section. The split now does well in dividing the fanfic stuff the way it should be IMO.

Other than that, keep in mind that the majority of people here come to read Pokémon fanfiction. Putting other kinds of fics in different subforums would lead to people only visiting the main Pokémon one and not even bothering with the rest- I've seen it happen on several other forums. The way it is now, users can at least spot a fanfic about another show they might like and click it while browsing the list of fics in search of something Pokémon-themed.

Thirdly, I don't see how things are confusing when the majority of authors label their fics and point out whether its a one-shot or if it's Pokémon or non-Pokémon.
 
It's not really a matter of confusion, just one of disorganization. With all of these stories in the same area, very few receive any attention at all. As I go through the section, I find some with a decent amount of replies, but when I click into it, I find that these replies are predominately from the OP. If they're fortunate enough, they may have one or two critiques. No doubt people become very discouraged after this, and I thought better organization may help to alleviate the issue. I thought, perhaps, that if things were better organized, people would be encouraged to participate more often. But I also see your point; if people are not participating as it is, why then would they participate if it was further divided?

What if there was simply a sub-forum for all fan-fiction (fan poetry would go here), and another for all original works (original poetry would go here)? That would reduce the amount of sub-forums while adding a bit to the organization (as a point of reference, when I say "disorganization" I am simply referring to the literature- nothing else).

Thank you for taking the time to read this :)
 
I think having a subforum for non-Pokemon fics, and one for original works, wouldn't be so bad, actually. It's all too easy for a non-Pokemon story or an original work of fiction to be swallowed up by the inordinate amount of Pokemon fics.
 
I like this idea a lot--it would help the writers as well. It's really tiresome digging through four-five pages of recently updated/commented on stories to find one of your own that is ready for an update and, while it would still get pushed back if not updated frequently, you'd at least have an easier time finding it if it was categorized but what kind of story it is.
 
If subforums are out of the question, you could always compile an index similar to the Contest Hall Index (credit to ghaskan and winstein, I believe). Admittedly it would take a while to compile all the threads and put them under their respective sections, but it would work in the same way. You wouldn't even need an alphabetically ordered section, you could just order them into categories like the ones suggested by farewell, friend.

Just a thought to branch out ideas a little. I wouldn't mind helping to compile the stuff into their sections if you do decide to go with an Index, or something similar, as it is a very large job to take on.
 
I suppose an index would work, but I don't think it's as user-friendly. As it is, a lot of people seem to disregard the list at the Contest Hall. And things become troublesome when you have many stories. Who wants to go through an eye-sore of a list?
 
farewell said:
I suppose an index would work, but I don't think it's as user-friendly. As it is, a lot of people seem to disregard the list at the Contest Hall. And things become troublesome when you have many stories. Who wants to go through an eye-sore of a list?
Click to expand...

I agree that it's less user friendly in a way, but to some people, so would navigating different subforums. What makes you think that people disregard the Contest Hall list? And, the Contest Hall list has many contests listed on it, too. Seriously, scroll down it with the spoiler tags open.

As for being an eye-sore: They would be listed in a subforum; so if they are an eye-sore of a list in a thread, how would a subforum make that any different? I get what you're saying, but they're not that remotely different. People can just Ctrl+F to find the genre/whatever they are looking for.

Although, I was merely providing an alternative suggestion. If it gets accepted or rejected it doesn't bother me.
 
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As a moderator in the Contest Hall I can safely say that duplicate contests are quite rare. But this is getting off-topic now.
 
The compilation would be a massive pain as it would have to be updated at great speeds.

But the subforum idea does have merit.
 
Please note: The thread is from 14 years ago.
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