The Planning Thread for "quality fanfic archive"

Forums are a great way to bring out fanfic. That way people can review it, give ideas, help you with writing etc. Forums, however, aren't the greatest way to read fanfiction. That's why I think we should make a website to easily read quality fics.

This is the idea:
We should start collecting good fanfics to a separate website so that they don't go to waste. The fanfics could be collected from all over the internet and archived in a single, easy-to-use website. They could be categorized in several different ways: genre, author, canon characters, the species of the protagonist Pokémon... That way, the reader can easily find a fic that best suits his/her interests. For example, if you read one fic by author x, you can easily find another one from the same author.

The fics would be accepted by a certain jury or council by a loose set of criteria:

-readability: well-written, revised for any spelling or grammar mistakes
-plot: a logical, somewhat original plot, definitely nothing plagiated
-characters: characters should be well-written and not illogical or incoherent with their actions (this doesn't mean they can't act illogically, but if character x is a passionate hater of electric type Pokémon, x shouldn't sacrifice his life to save a Pikachu, right?)
-the fic has to be at least almost complete: we don't care how long it is as long as it's complete and awesome. Why does it have to be complete? That's because we don't want people coming to our site, start reading a fic and just when it gets exciting, they found out it was dropped by the author and will never be finished. Also, we want something to start with. Thus, they have to be complete. Later on, when the site is already launched, we'll start searching and accepting non-finished fiction. Those, too, will be not accepted if the author is likely to drop the fic. Unfinished fic is a no-no in our book.

..and so on. Pretty decent criteria, huh? This hasn't been decided yet, those were just guidelines I invented. Post Office Buddy is working on the grading scale and when he gets it ready, I'll put it up here. The whole purpose of this thread, however, is to have conversation about this criteria, the fics to be admitted and so on.
This is not a thread to try and get your fic on the site! Grr!

You can, however, suggest a great fic you've read, as long as it's not written by you. We appreciate any help and that does include hints on good fanfiction!

Post Office Buddy came up with a great idea on how to do this. He suggested we'd form three teams, one of which would be in charge of contacting mods of different fanfiction boards, another to revise and accept the fics submitted by the mods and the third to put the fics on the site and, well, make the site.
Any volunteers?
I am, of course, but I'll need help.

So, anyone with me on this?


Here's a list of our current "staff" and their jobs:
Reviewers:
Post Office Buddy
An-chan
Merata
Blue Angel (didn't he sign up, too?)
icomeanon6
Rekhyt
Searchers:
An-chan
Dark Lakitu
Post Office Buddy (not nearly as much though, as he has little time, he says)
Webpage development:
Solovino
An-chan (can help with the visual design and stuff like that)

Post the thread or PM me or Post Office Buddy to apply to any of the positions! A couple of web developers would be needed, and, well, there are never too many people to search for the fics. You can also apply as a reviewer if you want.
You can also comment if you want to point some mistake we've done or something like that but don't want to participate. Any, and I really mean any, help is appreciated.

Everything written here is open for conversation. Nothing has been decided yet. If something here is stupid and we haven't noticed it, you're 100% obligated to inform me of it.

A list of fics found this far:
Possession (oneshot) - katiekitten permission pending
Loyalty (One-Shot) - Saffire Persian permission pending
Chance (Short Story) - Saffire Persian permission pending
The Ties that Bind (One-Shot) - Saffire Persian permission pending
Dividing the Bones (One-Shot) - Saffire Persian permission pending
Just Like The Others (one-shot) - Magmortified permission pending
Breaking Out (One-shot) - Dark Lakitu Author's permission aquired!
My Endless Loneliness (One-shot) - Jeffback/Post Office Buddy Author's permission aquired!
Ace Sanchez - The TRUE Role Reversal (note: yeah, I know, crappy page) permission pending
15 great one-shots by different authors (note: all good, I checked them all!) permission pending
25 great stories centered around Pokémon (note: more or less all good) permission pending
19 at least fairly good Pokémorph stories permission pending
Unfortunately Blue - bobandbill Author's permission aquired!
Two of a kind - CyberCubed permission pending
Pokemon Revelation: Cross of Fates - xXSaberXx permission pending
Never Forgotten (One-Shot) - Gardevoir Girl permission pending
Live Together, Die Together (Short Story) - Gardevoir Girl permission pending

Well, I am definitely interested. I'll try to improve this process even more while we wait for more volunteers.

Well, I rarely post in the fanfic section, but if you need me I would be happy to do the HTML coding for the website. I would have a lot of time this week since my school is on fall break.

Some thoughts came to mind while I was taking a shower. Lol.

Anyway, firstly, before we begin archiving these fictions, we need to get author approval. So when we get a list of recommended fics, we need to make sure that we also PM the authors prior to posting on this site.

Secondly, after we get a list of good quality fics, then we can begin by separating them according to author. Perhaps the easiest way would be to create author profiles, which show every fiction they have submitted to said site with a link to each. I think I can make this more efficient, but I have to go to work for now. I'll continue to think about it there, since my job really is mindless.

If anymore ideas come to mind, then I will post them later. Toodles!

I could look through selected (or ones sent to me, etc.) fan fictions and look for grammar errors and spelling errors and revise them, if you want.
That is what I am best at ^^

Hmm, jeffback, did you see that sample site I made?
Yamikarasu and Blue Angel: Thank you, all help is appreciated ^-^ Keep in touch with this thread!

We should probably start going trough the fanfics on the 'archive'-section here first and see how many of those have authors that are still active. They're all most probably good enough, seeing how they already have been aknowledged as "outstanding" or whatever the definition of the section was. And then would be the annoying job of looking trough the normal fanfic section and seeing if there's anything good and hopefully nearly finished there. This is going to be one hell of a job, but I imagine the results will be worth it. As I have nothing better to do (as a matter of fact, I do, but that's not the point) I think I'll go and sort out that arcive section a bit. I'll probably make a list and link all the possible fics for you to see.

Also, about PMing authors: would it be better to PM after the fic has proven to be good enough for the site to prevent any unnecessary disappointments, or before we look trough the fic to avoid unnecessary work?

An-chan said:

Also, about PMing authors: would it be better to PM after the fic has proven to be good enough for the site to prevent any unnecessary disappointments, or before we look trough the fic to avoid unnecessary work?

Click to expand...

I'm good at telling how "good" things are at first glance.

I once noticed a spelling error without even reading. XD

Do you want to try running them by me first?

We'll have to see if we can even get a site first XD I'm pretty useless when it comes to that, I only know some reeeally basic html and nothing of css and everything else. I can use those idiot-proof sitemakers like Freewebs has, but that's pretty much it. I can host the site, update it and add new fics, but I can't make the system myself... So, until we have someone guaranteed to do that, there's no hurry to go trough the fics.

I still went trough every fic on the archive section. It was pretty much serious waste of time: about 80% of those fics have been inactive and thus unfinished since 2006. And, well, 80% of the finished ones are written by people who have been inactive since 2005... I'm going to turn my eyes to the normal fanfiction section now and start from the oldest.
However, I managed to find something from the archive section:
Possession (oneshot) - katiekitten
Loyalty (One-Shot) - Sapphire Persian
Chance (Short Story) - Sapphire Persian
The Ties that Bind (One-Shot) - Sapphire Persian
Dividing the Bones (One-Shot) - Sapphire Persian

These are all finished (obviously, most of them are one-shots), and the authors are still at least somewhat responsive. I'm trying to go for finished ones, because we don't want a web archive full of great but incomplete fics, now, do we?
Also, the way I see it, anything finished by Dragonfree, Xanthine and Sapphire Persian are eligible. They all write marvellously and after seeing some of their work, I have no doubts about their creativity, either. Also, they are all still active. I bet I'll find some other writers like that, too, as I go on with my search. I still think everyone has to go trough the accepting and revising process! No exceptions made, even if a nobel novelist comes and tries to get their fanfic on the site.

That's why I can probably safely suggest my fic to be looked trough for this :laugh: But someone has to go trough it before I can say anything about it. I'm no nobel novelist, but neither am I a n00b badfic writer. It's just that my fic is finished.
I'd also really like to have that parody jeffback made on the site, but I think people would miss all the humour in it... Which reminds me, I have to see jeffback's work, too. He seems like a fine writer.

So, basically, I'm going to take every decently written fic as eligible. Ahh, this is going to kill me...
//Edit: It is going to kill me, even more so than I thought. If I have to skim trough even one badfic anymore I'll shoot myself. And in the names of all known gods, why can't people finish their fics? I've found several perfectly decent and interesting fics that are, for some reason, left unfinished after the chapter that makes you want to read more. I managed to get trough 3 pages of fanfiction on the main section, so that means there are only 37 left. I have no time to do it right now, as I have to finish a book (that I hate, by the way) as soon as possible, but I can probably continue tomorrow. If, however, someone else is insane enough to want to help me, start looking from page 37 and tell me where you got so I can carry on later. This is precisely the reason I want to make this site so bad. It is impossible to find any of the good, finished stories in this format.
This is the only one I've found this far: Just Like The Others (one-shot) - Magmortified

An-chan and everyone:

I've been reading this thread and it calls my attention. I would be very glad to help, even when I'm new here. If anything can be done to improve the quality of Fanfiction, I want to be "part of the solution".

What can I help with, you may ask? Probably the computer-thingies stuff. If it is a system made of scratch, or an adaption of an already existent CMS, I can handle it. The only problem is that my schedule is quite tight at the moment, but if it is confirmed that this will be a long term project and I see a high level of commitment, heck, I'll save three hours a week for the next five years, for this project only. Word.

Also I may be able to help organizate the "institutional" aspects of the council, such as checking on rules and regulations, arrange and provide for online meetings, create mission statements and requirement statutes, and that kind of stuff.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the FF itself I may not be of much help. I'm not a reviewer, and I definitively do not have the time to wander around with a Fanfiction Itemfinder. But now that you bring this project on, it's something I would really like to be part of.

See ya.

Lol, most people would fail to see the humor of my parody had they not read the "motivation" behind it. However, posting that on this site in conjunction would be hypocritical to our goal.

I noticed that you wanted to see a sample of my writing, An-chan. If you want to see a decent sampling of my writing, one that is actually complete, you can check out my one-shot, My Endless Loneliness. The link is in my sig.

Once I get home tonight (hanging out with a few friends for an hour or two), then I shall start rummaging through this forum. I think I also might take a look at Serrebi as well, as some good fics exist there as well.

What's our policy towards fics that seem to have good plots but you can't really tell because they're so awfully crappily written? Should we offer our help with the writing part to get all fics with good plots and decent characters gathered up or should we just minimize the current amount of work and just overlook those?

Solovino: thankyouthankyouthankyou! Any help is welcome! keep in touch with this thread so you'll know where this thing is heading. I'll try to keep you in touch. We'll see how this turns out.

I'll tell you one thing, jeffback... Rummaging trough this forum will be enough work for a week if you want to stay sane. So, I suggest you just postpone Serebii for a while... I'll help with that one, too, though. This is sure going to be one hell of a job, but as long as nobody doesn't have to do it alone, we'll make it! ^-^ it's funny how the searching of good fics affects me. On the other hand, I feel like shooting myself because of the amount of unfinished or crappy fics. Then again, this is precisely the reason we're doing this: because it's so freakin' impossible to find decent fiction from forums! We're doing this so other's don't have to. We're freakin' pioneers! We lead the revolution, lol... Viva quality!

It's 3 AM here so I'm pretty much out of ideas (and sanity) right now. I'll go to sleep now and continue thinking about this tomorrow. Maybe I'll come up with something great. Maybe not. Frankly, I believe it's the latter.

I think we should send the authors of these fics with good plots and explain what's going on. We should tell them that we are interested in adding their fics to an archive of "good" fics, but that they must revise their fic before we can do so. Many writers here do seek recognition, so the idea of being added to a list of renowned PFF authors might motivate them to make drastic revisions to their work. We could even offer to help them with making it worthy of the archive. However, should they choose not to respond, or are not willling to revise, then we should treat them the same as a badfic.

I've already read a majority of the fics that have been updated around or after March, so I should be able to skip a few just on sight of title. I remember how most are, whether they were well-written or not, and a brief scan of the badly written ones will tell me whether or not they have revised. That alone should cut the time I have to spend greatly.

Lol, just looked at the site for the first time. I like the general layout, but I think we need to find someone who can code it so that each author profile is on a separate page instead of on one page. We could kind of do it like PC profiles, and have a member list like PC does. We should also find a way for people to "nominate" fictions for the archive, either by email or some other method. That way, if someone stumbles across the site that writes for a forum that we have never heard of or overlooked, then they can contact us about it and we can update.

On another note, I think we should make a banner for this thread and put it in our sigs. Well, a banner for any supporter or volunteer. If you want me to, I could give it a try and run the design by you sometime this weekend.

Edit: For the approval process, I think we should have a fiction pass through at least 3 critics and receiving two votes of approval before being posted on the site. That way, if one of the critics friends wanted his fiction placed on the archive, then it would be done giving the author the same chance to appear on the site as anyone else. Likewise, should someone a critic hates apply, then we won't have hate clouding their minds. It would be best to have three impartial judges, but that can't, and most likely won't always be the case.

Alright im interested thanks to jeff. anywhere besides website construction, and proofreading. so i guess i can find some fics.

that is if ur needing some help :D

Oh yeah, we definitely need help there. There are TONS, and I mean TONS of fics out there that we have to browse through. The more help we can get, the better.

Anyway, I have a key that I think the critics approving fics should follow. My key is point based, and the final score of a fic will be averaged from the three reviews. My suggested key is below.

30 points: Plot - This is quite a critical element of the story. In fact, without a good plot, there is no reason to accept the story. What we really want is a plot that seems logical, isn't clich'ed, and isn't full of holes. If the fic is a parody, then it is okay to accept clich'es, since that is most likely one of the things being parodized.

1. 15 points: Originality - Has this idea been done to death? If so, then how well did they throw their own twist into the fiction? If it is a "new" idea, how creative was it? Also, does it seem like it has been plaguarized? (Note: any plaguarized fictions will automatically be thrown out and the moderator of the forum it was posted on will be contacted along with the original author. Please report all plaguarisms to Post Office Buddy or An-chan along with the source and we will deal with them.)
2. 10 points: Cliches - Are cliches used with little thought, or do they seem to be placed in the fiction on purpose? Certain parodies will obviously use cliches like crazy, so in that case we would rate them on how well the cliches were utilized. Were they placed carefully to bring about the best possible humour, or were they placed in poorly chosen areas that negatively affect the overall humour of the parody?
3. 5 points: Plot Holes - If there is even just one plot hole in the fiction, then at least one point will be deducted. Further deductions will be based on how prevalent these holes are and how well the author covers them up.

30 points: Readability - Perhaps even more important than plot. Without readability, then you have basically undermined what we are trying to do. This category is split into 3 parts:

1. 10 points: Grammar - This is extremely important to readability. If there are a million and one grammar mistakes in just a short chapter, then it will quickly turn potential readers off.
2. 10 points: Punctuation - Simple as this sounds, many writers tend to overlook punctuation rules. Comma rules could slide a bit, especially if it's something as complex as separation of clauses or whatnot, but most others have no excuse to be wrong.
3. 5 points: Format - Unless a fic is a parody of noobish writing, then it should not be a block of text. A good fiction should be formatted correctly, with a line break between paragraphs.
4. 5 points: Spelling - Take the total number of spelling errors in the fiction and divide them by the number of chapters. Deduct one point for every two average errors. (No division needs to be done in One-Shots since they are, well, a One-Shot.)

20 points: Character Development - This, too, is crucially important to a good fiction. A fiction that doesn't do a good job on character development tends to overlook many other important characteristics of a good fic. If a character is bland, does not grow, etc., then the writer did not focus enough on that aspect.

1. 10 points: Realism - Is the character a Gary-Stu or a Mary Sue? How realistic are the character's actions? Does s/he have flaws of their own or are they seemingly "perfect"?
2. 10 points: Growth - Does the character progressively grow in one way or another throughout the fiction? Does a human/Pokemon become stronger/wiser throughout the fiction? Do they seem to learn from their mistakes?

20 points: "Speed" - What I mean by this is how rushed the fiction sounds. If it seems like the writer went from point A to point B as quickly as they could, then they obviously didn't put much thought or effort into the fiction.

1. 10 points: Realism in Traveling - Does the speed at which the characters travel seem realistic, or do they start in, for example, Viridian City at 9AM and end up in Pewter, traversing the Viridian Forest in the process, at 9:30AM? Considering the routes are most likely a mile or so long, and the fact that wild Pokemon or other trainers would most likely attack the character along the way, it would take quite a while to get from one town to the next. Caves are also a good example, since fumbling around an unfamiliar cave would take quite a few hours for even the most experienced hiker. Pretty much, if the time it takes for the character to go between cities seems too game-like, then they will be deducted points from this criteria.
2. 5 points: Detail - Does the writer seem to only name items rather than creating imagery through description? Do they fail to mention how an item was obtained before the use of said item?
3. 5 points: Evolution Factors - Sometimes Pokemon evolve at ungodly speeds throughout a fiction. Realistically, if you were to receive a Pokemon, then it would take you many months to evolve it into even it's first evolution. Again, if this seems too game-like, then there will be deductions made.

Under this system, a fiction should score an 70 or higher to be accepted. Since, in school, a 70 is slightly below average, then I feel this is fair to authors and their fictions.

I'm considering lowering the qualifying score to 60. If you either object or agree with this change, then please PM me to let me know. Please don't post it on this thread as we want to avoid too much clutter.

This may need improvement, but it's a start. If you think something else should be considered, then please, by all means, post it.

jeffback: I can code (I was thinking about those jokes of the "WILL CODE FOR FOOD" type). I have already offered my help for anything that comes to the actual web service.

I pretty much concur with your grading, but I think there are some elements that need extra attention.

• minimal scores --- the required minimum of 70, averaged, seems nice, but I think we should also impose a lower bound for acceptable reviews in the main two categories: plot and readability, which are our main concern, so that no averaging bias occurs. I'll check the math involved.
• speed --- it may cause redundancy to simply evaluate "speed" and assign it 20 pts when, for the most, he elements that affect the flow of time in a story are given by the plot and their effect will be more prominently shown in the Plot score, in particular, once the narrative style is evaluated. What variables will speed be defined upon?
• plot --- by how the "plot" element is explained here, it's my opinion that the grading should be done substractively, that means, instead of checking what good elements are present, it will be the absence of bad elements that will be graded. Which will leave us two problems: what minimum "common denominator" do we set, and how do we reward those fics that go all they way over that minimum, since we can not simply assign "45 points for plot".

On other affairs:

I'm checking with my boss if he will allow me to use our hosting space for experimentation on web services; if that's the case, I will have an answer by the end of November and we may set up a more workable test site, in case this archive idea does actually take flight.

I'm sick right now, a cold that hit me quite hard, so I'll be reading only for a while. Gotta use the bed time to work on my FFs. If anything too important comes to mind, please PM me, I will be more likely to respond.

Bye.

Ahh, I love you people.

The point system seems rather workable, but there are a few things that are still a bit too open to interpretation. You know, readability and speed are easy to judge, but plot and character development aren't. The variance caused by this may be fixed by having several judges, but after we've seen two billion grat fics, I think our ability to judge might get cloudy. Well, that really isn't any problem that need dealing with now, so let it be handled later.

Also, I came up with an idea. As we already have author profiles, and I bet some of the authors are also critics, we should also have critic profiles! You know, show how much point a critic has given to fics he/she has evaluated, which were his/her favourites and which were the opposite and so on. That might be a good feature, too ^-^

About that page I made... it has crappy useability, crappy looks and crappy fics, but that's only because I made it a couple of hours with the idiotproof website maker they have at Freewebs. I had really a lot of fun writing those fake fics, though, and all. I would like the actual page to have some sort of search feature in which you could choose the method by which you are searching (i.e. author, critic, genre, keyword) and so on. I don't know how hard it would be to make, I don't know anything about this sort of stuff... But I do know about writing.

(By jeffback) We should also find a way for people to "nominate" fictions for the archive, either by email or some other method. That way, if someone stumbles across the site that writes for a forum that we have never heard of or overlooked, then they can contact us about it and we can update.

Click to expand...

I also thought about making a gmail account for this site, just for that reason. The password would be given out to all major critics/judges/whatever we end up calling them.

But first, we have to have a name. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'll go with the Blue Hive at this point. I don't really think it's a good name for the site, but it's the best I could come up with when I made that sample site. Your job is to come up with a better one!

(By solovino) I'm checking with my boss if he will allow me to use our hosting space for experimentation on web services; if that's the case, I will have an answer by the end of November and we may set up a more workable test site, in case this archive idea does actually take flight.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a great idea. If I understand this correctly, the space would be only temporary. Am I right? Anyway, we have to get some preferably free or then extremely cheap hosting space somewhere, and a proper address, too. Someone could search for those services... ^-^'

Oh, and by the way, I volunteer for making any drawing-sort-of graphics for the site. I have a USB drawing board and you can check the "Drawings"-album on my profile to see if I'm good enough. I'm waiting for your opinion. However, I've never made a single banner in my life, so you can do that one, jeffback. ^-^''

Sorry I haven't replied in a few days. School and work have hit me hard this week, and I have only had enough time to check this thread for any new updates. I should actually be asleep now, but I just wanted to first make sure that you knew I wasn't abandoning you.

I think I might, just might, have time to make the banner tomorrow. I won't promise anything really amazing, but I can try.

I think I shall work upon the grading scale in Composition tomorrow. That class is quite easy, and relates to writing, so it might help me get in the state of mind I need. Besides, one of my instructors reads fanfiction as well, so that might help me out.

I'll get back to you whenever I have available time. Might not be until late Wednesday night, since I have work and school Tuesday afternoon. Knowing that An-Chan lives in Finland, I doubt I'll catch her, so hopefully I'll see an update from you Thursday :)

Funny how jeffback lives in fairly similar environment than I do (lakes 'n' forests 'n' stuff. Y'know, most of Finnish immigrants in America went to Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota because the environment is so much alike that in Finland. Minnesota, though, can be translated to Finnish as "Where to the war?" It doesn't make sense, but anyway) but there's seven hours of difference in time :laugh: It's half past six PM here and I'd suspect it's somewhere around noon in Michigan.
Edit: Wait a sec. I just realized that "tomorrow" of jeffback's is currently my today :D And it has been all the time, since that post was posted at 9 AM my time (Tuesday), which, then again, would be 2AM his time (Monday, because the day changes only after you've slept), right? Geez, I'm getting confused here.

Anyway, back to the topic. *swoosh*

I took a peek at fanfiction.net the other day and practically had a heart attack first. The page told me therea re over 21 thousand Pokémon fics there. Clicking on the Pokémon category, however, had me relaxed. It seems to me that half of the stuff there can be classified as crap without even looking very deep into it. I'm going to take a further peek today after I've written a bit myself (I want to write first and read afterwards, because if I do it the other way round, I'll get all sorts of influences and all). And then, well, I could seek up new lifeforms (fanfiction sites) and civilizations (fanfiction boards) and boldly go where no man has gone before! In the name of the Quality Archive, I shall voyage trough the final frontier we call the internet. *doon* Fanfic Trek! Starring: An-chan...
I'm feeling pretty creative!

I'll be back later tonight, hopefully with some links to present.

And nice of you to drop by to tell us you haven't disappeared, jeffback ^-^

I'm writing a long continuous fan fic about pokemon based 10 years after ash got pikachu. id be happy to post it on your site if u want.

An-chan said:

...And then, well, I could seek up new lifeforms (fanfiction sites) and civilizations (fanfiction boards) and boldly go where no man has gone before! In the name of the Quality Archive, I shall voyage trough the final frontier we call the internet. *doon* Fanfic Trek! Starring: An-chan...
I'm feeling pretty creative!

Click to expand...

Cool! I want to be part of the journey, too.

On one condition however: can I be the teleporter operator? Because I really don't want to be a redshirt. Word.

Coming serious, I'll take next month (Nov) to sneakpeak at the Pokémon section on the site and try to locate anything that seems to be modereately long and moderately decent.