To everyone who gave this a go: thank you so much! Constructive criticism is not a new thing, but running this event was new to me. Thank you for being patient with me and bringing a lot of thought and generosity.

I think everyone has received their 2+ pieces of feedback, but please tell me if I'm wrong so I can fix that. This round is roughly over, but it's never quite over as long as people who signed up are still interested in feedback. See the open-for-concrit tag. You can take that tag off your own post any time, or ask me to.

What worked / Improvements

How did this work for you, and how might you have liked it to work instead?

I have a few notes on my thoughts. Responses or completely different thoughts are welcome.

Mod notes

Hand-matching. I made this more complicated for myself than I had to, and started to contemplate AO3 matching or google forms, but by the end of matching, I was fond of hand-matching again. Sending out assignments gradually worked for me. I think the sign-up form was overcomplicated. One question I would definitely include if making a similar form in future is "Do you want to read smut? Do you want to read non-smut? Do you want to read both smut and non-smut?" I know people are willing to read outside their comfort zone sometimes, and I appreciate that, but porn/not porn was a fairly frequent divider in sign-ups.

Platform for sign-ups. I think there are benefits to individual Dreamwidth posts. How did you find them? I think the process of people submitting a sign-up, then me approving them and telling people to make their own post, was a bit cumbersome for everyone and could be improved. For example, I could just set posts to moderated and approve them.

Platform for concrit. I think the principle of "post where your recipient asks you to" generally works. I was very grateful for people who posted in places that weren't DW comments and then promptly told me where they'd posted - that was really helpful. Commenting on the recipient's DW post to say "Note for mod, I have posted where asked" or whatever would probably work too, and be a little easier to keep track of.

Platforms in general. I discovered I am woefully unfamiliar with fanfiction.net. I also noted that my instructions on posting to Dreamwidth were lacking - ie, you have to join the community to post to it. Some general notes on platform features might be a helpful resource - maybe?

The concrit guide. This was meant as a starting point if you were stuck or uncertain, rather than strict rules. I'm not sure how helpful it was - for one thing, my impression is that everyone taking part this round already had grounding in and confidence about how to give feedback. Is it needed at all? Improvements welcome.

Replying to concrit. Does there need to be any mod guidance about that? I saw skill and thoughtfulness in giving concrit, but I also got the impression people were pleased or relieved to be told their thoughts had been useful. I'm not going to make a "you must reply" policy, but I'm happy to frame it as a normal thing, or make suggestions about how - "Try not to argue with your concrit giver, they can't change their first impression..."

Fandoms. This came up, so: I know this would be exponentially more useful to some people if matching on fandoms, but I don't think that's possible for a small event drawing from multifandom participants.

Btw, thank you specifically to the two people who signed up to get assignments only - that made things a lot easier for me as a mod.

Madness

I was thinking I'd make this post and leave it a few days, then put up a single Madness post where people could comment requesting feedback. No new requests after X date. Keen? Tell me! And if so, please check back.

Next round

How do people feel about another round in November, or if not that, February, on similar principles but with a longer assignment period?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I would love another round.

Thanks! I'm still deciding if I have the energy for November, but if not, I'll definitely do February.

I'm about to make the Madness round post.

I think there should be another round, but I won't take part. I liked the concrit I received and found it useful but my sense is that most critters prefer fanfiction as opposed to OW. (Also, I am too slow a writer!) Since I had no feedback on the concrit I gave at all, I assume that I missed the mark. Maybe I'm wrong about my concrit not being good but one of the reasons I joined up was to get feedback on my crit. Overall, I think this is a good idea but I don't think I'm a good fit and the benefits did not outweigh my anxiety.

Your improvements to the process sound fine. I don't think that ranking feedback from 1-5 regarding gentleness was needed - maybe just a gentle/direct choice would be enough (I think most people chose direct).

Thanks for running the event - I've learned a lot. Do whatever you need to to make it easier to run.

Edited 2020-09-01 14:20 (UTC)

Thank you, especially for thoughtful feedback even though it wasn't quite what you'd hoped. I agree the 1-5 ranking was variably useful. I saw a lot of people say they wanted something in the middle, too.

Thank you for running this. I really enjoyed the experience!

I found the concrit guide very helpful and used it to help me organise the feedback I was giving. Without it, I think I'd have waffled or been a bit all over the place.

I'd be up for another round and prefer February, though are there reasons for suggesting a longer assignment period? It felt like a good amount of time to me.

I'm glad!

I wasn't thinking of a much, much longer assignment period, but three weekends rather than two of having one's assignments might help. I think overall this event suits a short period to maintain momentum.

I really enjoyed the exchange and would love to do it again in November, February or both. Thank you for organizing it! I agree with your point about setting posts to moderated and approving them, but I have no strong opinions about anything else. :)

Thank you! I'm glad you had fun.

I think the idea of direct/gentle was a good one in theory but it looks everyone had different ideas what it meant. I know I was confused by the idea of people picking a range but a lot did. And some were also concerned about if the crit wouldn't include anything positive, and I think at least one person was disappointed they didn't get enough negativity because they wanted more to go on for improvement.

Maybe 1=only negative 5=only positive 3=roughly one to one ratio, up to a range of 1-5 meaning you're fine with any combination of positive and negative. It might also be good if people gave their feelings on SPaG: don't tell me, give me specifics, just mention if it's a weak point.

On concrit and replying to concrit and feedback on concrit, maybe everyone should end theirs with if they're okay discussing further about the story or if they're okay getting feedback on their feedback, or include that in their signup post or such.

I can't agree with this, personally. "Just tell me if it's negative" isn't something I would feel at all comfortable doing. Actually, it'd be more work for me to prune out the things I say that happen to be positive. And it sounds like it might make hand-matching trickier too as it's yet another matching parameter to consider. It might work in a Madness round though, as I could easily avoid someone who wanted exclusively negative things.

I believe what Anon was saying was that, as strange as it may seem, it was something people wanted, so it should be an option even if you wouldn't do it yourself.

I'm going to keep thinking about whether the use of numbers proposed by the anon above is something we use, or something we amend, but for now I definitely agree it's okay to say "Just tell me if it's negative", etc, in a Madness round. If people aren't up for it they can just look at another person's works.

I agree about everyone having different ideas of what direct/gentle meant - I saw that as well.

I think your idea of how to use the numbers is clearer than the version we just used. On the other hand, it would make matching more difficult. I matched for, hm, harshness last, hoping that was something that concrit-givers could be most flexible about as long as they knew what their recipient wanted. But it actually seems quite difficult to me to only give negative or only positive feedback on a work.

I'll keep thinking about this. Thanks.

On concrit and replying to concrit and feedback on concrit, maybe everyone should end theirs with if they're okay discussing further about the story or if they're okay getting feedback on their feedback, or include that in their signup post or such. - True, it does help if you can manage your expectations going in about whether someone will reply to you or not. I wonder if people would be reluctant to state baldly "I'm not going to reply"...

There should totally be more rounds, though I won't have time to partecipate for a while! Overall it was really good and there isn't much I would change. The guide was super helpful too.

Re: the comments, I wouldn't want to encourage people to comment/give guides for it actually? I think engaging with criticism you received is a more personal thing than commenting on a fic and people might not be up to it and all.

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I see your point that replying to concrit shouldn't be forced, and even encouraging it could be too much pressure ("you don't HAVE to, but really..."). I will have to think more about that.

I'd love to do it again in February! Regardless of when it is though, it would make things a lot easier for me if there was a longer assignment period. I had trouble finding free time to get both concrits done in the period we had. Or maybe change it to one concrit each if the writing time stays short?

Sure. How much longer were you thinking? I think the two-concrit-each part was fun and I'd like to keep that if possible.

I'd say 3-4 weeks would be ideal to do two concrits (I liked doing two as well).

I found the guide really helpful and I'd love another round, be it in November or February. I agree that we need a longer assignment period.

August 2020 Feedback Post

What worked / Improvements

Madness

Next round

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