I would like to see...

It would seem there are some members of this forum not entirely happy with the overall quality of material being posted here.

I thought I'd start a thread to give them a place to discuss this problem directly and openly.

This will alow people to openly discuss these general issues without risk of insult or injury to any individual writer/poster.

I was gonna call this thread 'I just don't like it', but that'd be unproductive...

Let me be the first to start.

I hear much talk about quality of literature, and that's fair enough...but how about qualilty of feedback? And the choice of where that feedback should go. I love feedback. I'd like it if everyone said my stories were awesome...and god-damn it they are...I know not everyone's gonna be into that.

I'll give you an example of useless critism:

To Brantley Elkins,
I was once a fan of the Aurora Universe, now it sucks. Wah Wah Wah!!I want REAL Arions back!!

Not nice. I would get absolutely nowhere with a comment like that.

Now here's a an example of constructive critism:

Dear Brantley,
I really like the idea that the Aurura Universe is your safe and capable hands, and will go on for many years to come. I do however, feel your watering down the 'Aurien' threat too much. Your Planetary Protectors aren't really needed anymore...what is a hero without a true villian to test them?

As you can see, both comments raise the same point. But I don't think Brantley's gonna appreciate the first one. (sorry BTE if you're ready this...peace man....) But he may at least get to the end of the second without wanting to throttle me. Much more chance that'd he'd listen.

I would like to see...

More contructive critism.

Cheers,
Dru

njae wrote: I would like to see more detailed feedback in general.

Just as constructive criticism is much better than "It sucks", it's also more helpful to explain what exactly one liked about a particular story than to simply say "I liked it". After all the author may not be aware of the biggest strength of his story and might scrap that for the next story/installment if nobody tells him what the strong points are.

What he said.

more people using the site, there are over 2300 accounts registered and only about 50 active members, there are over 1800 accounts that have not been accessed in over a year there are 1000 accounts that have not been accessed in over 3 years.

Also i would like to see more people use the chat room, there has been a issue with the web client to sort that out i've changed it.

I just want to see the site being used by more people.

Fats

d_k_c wrote: Don't mean to go off on parts again....Because there certainly is a place for them here...But, how does someone give feed back on a story when its not complete? It's like watching the first 15 minutes of a film and someone asking you ..."What you think?". Any type of negative feed back wouldn't be fair.

As far as completed stories go, thats a different matter.

I have to disagree on this point, while it's very hard to give a fair opinion on a first chapter/part, I think that as soon as the story reach the second part it's possible to start making more structured critiques. True, most of these will be based on comparisons with the tone, style and plot outline given in previous parts. It will be a partial opinion, but it might help to keep the story consistent, which is the most important thing in a multi-part narrative.