April 2021: Feedback

[morbane]

Hello all,

Thanks again to those who took part in the most recent round of Concrit-X. I'd be interest to know if anything in particular struck you (as a good idea/thing you saw others doing, as something that could be improved), or your general impressions.

My personal notes:

• I saw some people curating sets of their works on AO3 for concrit: for example, by searching on a time period and then linking to the result of that search, or by tagging all relevant works with a specific tag. I wouldn't want to require people to do that, but I thought that was a great and helpful idea.


• Related to above, there's a canonised tag on AO3, "Constructive Criticism Welcome", that I tag most of my works with. I recommend it as a searchable tag if you want to encourage people to give concrit in general. That said, I have rarely and arguably never received concrit without directly soliciting it, probably because concrit is hard work.


• I said I'd run this in November or February, then April, then I started it mid-April. That's not great. I'm sorry about that. Currently, to run this, I need: a) some time to work on any sign-up suggestions people have made in a previous round; b) an empty weekend to work on matching; c) a relatively under-committed period in the following couple of weeks. I'd like to tentatively target August again for the next round.


• Last time, I noted that some people accidentally left concrit in the "wrong" place - ie, on AO3 when someone had requested Dreamwidth, or vice versa. I added extra reminders about that this time, and as far as I saw, the only person who erred that way this time was.... me. It's easy to do. The only thing I can think of to make it less easy to do would be to add the following reminder: if you would prefer to get comments by email/PM or on the platform the story is published on (AO3/ff.net/etc), you can make a request post that has comments turned off entirely.


• Speaking of, I really appreciate people being willing to join this comm as members and make Dreamwidth posts. I think I'm going to continue that (as well as offering "I post for you" / "stay private") ways of signing up, because it's so much easier for me to keep track of, but would be keen to know if there is something I could do to make that easier.

Now

If you don't want any more crit on your posts, you can:
-take the "open for concrit" tag off them
-ask me to take that tag off them
-ask me to hide the post

If you said you would unscreen comments on May 15, please unscreen comments. Check with me if you're not sure how.

The following post is a "Madness" post round, where anyone can ask for concrit but you are not guaranteed any.

May 2021 Madness Round

[morbane]

Madness will happen on this post and in its comments. Thanks for playing!

Getting concrit - Requesting Now Closed
Ask for concrit by replying to this post (until the end of May 31 - NOW PAST). Anyone's welcome, whether or not you just took part in the April round. If you did sign up, you're welcome to ask for concrit on the same or different pieces, or ask for responses to more specific or different questions or the same ones. Concrit is not guaranteed.

Please include:

• How you want to receive feedback - ie, by reply to your own comment, by posting a review where the work is published (AO3, ff.net, LJ...), or by another means. (Note: comments are not screened on this post, so if you post a contact detail, anyone can see it.)
• Any specific questions you want concrit-givers to focus on, and what level of bluntness you prefer, if relevant
• Which works you want feedback on, and if any of your works are "safe" or should be skipped over.
• What fandoms and content, roughly, your works contain - especially if asking for feedback on just a few pieces.

You can comment asking for concrit until the end of May 31 - NOW PAST in your time zone.

It's okay to be more specific about the kind of concrit you want in Madness than in a normal round. You might not get anything, but feel free to ask.

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism for those who have requested it in comments!

General feedback

If you have thoughts on this community's events or the April 2021 round, please leave your thoughts on the previous post, which is a feedback post.

If you are willing to provide feedback on the feedback you get - "Yes, this was what I was looking for / I was surprised you focused on this aspect / Actually, that wasn't quite what I was asking / etc" - consider saying so. Please be constructive in these replies as well.

If you don't want any more concrit, reply to your own comment to say so.