PC Reviewing Challenge '11: Now with 10% more officialness!

[Bay]

That's true. I'm just worried about our key players getting burned out after a few months in a row. Because it'd suck if this turned into something like the old monthly fic challenge where we're all like, "WOO WE CAN DO THIS" and then only three people do it two months later that happened.

I miss the monthly fic challenges. XD Only problem is I was busy with university stuff back then and I wasn't able to get inspiration for the prompts due to my mind being in a million places. I think the fic challenge can still work if it's every other couple of months or changed it to several one shot contests. But yeah, this is not the time or place to discuss that. XD;

I would go for this challenge a seasonal thing. Got a lot of real life stuff going on, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get through the challenge every other month. If it's seasonal though I can manage. I will still be able to review here and there when the review challenge isn't taking place, just that I'll be on the slow side.

 

[bobandbill]

Jax, you should have your emblem now. =)

I am personally for it being a seasonal thing as the most often occurrence given the whole RL stuff (certainly now uni started again for me I would have to say give a challenge this month a miss for instance), and there's the whole burnout thingy. (People can do one review a day whenever they want though regardless ;D). On that note having it as one review a day for whatever month it is makes sense to me.

 

[Miz en Scène]

Just to add to the suggestion pool, I'm all for the seasonal idea. That way, there's potential for some (imo) snazzy emblem names like Winter Reviewing Challenge '11 or something. Though... that may be a problem for some of our friends in the future.
*stares at bnb*

In all seriousness, though, if every four months is too much, why not make the challenge every Summer/Winter or Spring/Autumn?

 

[Eeveemaster9]

Just gonna put my two cents in:

If we are to have a monthly reviewing challenge, I suggest lowering the minimum. Instead of 28, perhaps 20. Doesn't that seem more fair to people that have jobs/school? If it becomes an annual thing, alot of writers probably won't post their work until then. (I know I would) Because, their work might be overlooked if the reviewers don't get nothing in return until a year later. :x

 

[JX Valentine]

If we are to have a monthly reviewing challenge, I suggest lowering the minimum. Instead of 28, perhaps 20. Doesn't that seem more fair to people that have jobs/school?

Not to throw out your opinion, but keep in mind that we all have jobs or school. (I'm not sure why people have a tendency to think active members don't do anything but go on forums all day. I'm only really sort of biting about this because you're the second person I've seen imply that this week... and it's only Monday.) So, this is still up to everyone else, but if the people who made the deadline are okay with the minimum being where it was this past month, it's probably okay to keep it there. It's a challenge, after all, so it's meant to have a goal set pretty high.

Besides, a review can just be a paragraph; the only real hard part about writing twenty-eight of them is reading twenty-eight fics. Luckily, there's a lot of writers who don't post chapters pages and pages long.

Other than that, it looks like popular opinion's that we should do it more than once a year anyway. Right now, we've got four votes (read: everyone who's commented so far besides myself and Eeveemaster9) for seasonal and a second vote each for halfsies and every other month. So... seasonal it is, then?

 

[EmeraldSky]

Besides, maybe this will give people more motivation to write.

 

[IanDonyer]

I'd like to see it done every month, but this is coming from someone who didn't participate in it at all. =p I suppose it makes more sense to have them be seasonal though.

And EmeraldSky, I agree. From experience, I can say that reviews let you know people care enough to read your story and want to help you improve, and that's a -powerful- motivation. It's not what should solely keep you going, but still.

 

[Bay]

Just gonna put my two cents in:

If we are to have a monthly reviewing challenge, I suggest lowering the minimum. Instead of 28, perhaps 20. Doesn't that seem more fair to people that have jobs/school? If it becomes an annual thing, alot of writers probably won't post their work until then. (I know I would) Because, their work might be overlooked if the reviewers don't get nothing in return until a year later. :x

Like Jax said, all of us have jobs/school (I have a job, for instance), but a lot of us are able to do this challenge fine. It's like saying changing the 50,00 minimum word limit for National Writing Month to something lower because of many people having other stuff to do. A challenge is a challenge when you set the bars high. If you can make it, great. If not, try again next time.

As for your other concern, probably this is me not catching on, but I'm a bit confused with your wording. You're saying a lot of writers might not post their work until this review challenge comes again? If so, I wouldn't really worry about that. I will still review, at least.

Anyways, yeah again I'm cool with this being seasonal and also having the number of reviews be thirty or thirty-one, depending on the month.

 

[Astinus]

Doesn't that seem more fair to people that have jobs/school?

But plenty of other people with jobs, school, or both (and life in general) managed to finish the challenge. Like Bay said, this is a challenge. If the goal was set rather low, there wouldn't have been that fun rush trying to finish, or that small worry driving you on that there won't be enough stories posted, or someone else might review and you're left with "buh" to say.

If the number is too high, and people say so (like, say, fifty reviews a week) then the number could be lowered. But one review a day isn't that difficult, so long as you pace yourself/set the time aside. But there might be a rush (like one person had when they were trying to finish) but that's fun. Right?

As for your other concern, probably this is me not catching on, but I'm a bit confused with your wording. You're saying a lot of writers might not post their work until this review challenge comes again? If so, I wouldn't really worry about that. I will still review, at least.

That's what I got out of it. Possible authors will see that they'd be guaranteed a review (at least) during the challenge and so would wait until the Review Challenge to post their story. If the RC isn't going on, then no one will post.

And I have to say that for me personally, this challenge showed that even with work and being sick, I can still review stories. So yes, I'll still review stories, especially those I follow. I'm not going to stop and wait for a challenge to come around again. The main reason why I like the challenge is because I like the racing aspect to it, and so try to not be the last one done.

And... *throws shoe at Ian*

 

[Eeveemaster9]

Eep oxo;;

I didn't mean to offend, and I didn't say exactly that everyone spends their life here with no job or schooling;; Me and my horrible, horrible wording...

Bay@
Yes, that's what I meant...And I suppose. *Coughs*

 

[Astinus]

We tend to eat our own here. In other words, the response to your post could have happened to anyone.

Seasonal it is, then? (Bueller? Bueller?) Since discussion has halted on this, and we seem to have come to a decision, I'm going to fling this back to the Writer's Lounge. So if anyone is looking to add their opinion, that's where it is. It's not going far.

 

[JX Valentine]

Totes not bumping this, but since we're aiming for seasonal, lemme just propose a schedule for reviewing challenges:

Spring: April
Summer: June
Autumn: September
Winter: February

I decided to go with the first shortest month of each season (or the shortest period, whichever), but this also creates uneven months in between. The alternate would be maybe February, May, August, and November so that there's roughly three months in between. This schedule would also mean that there'd be uneven amount of reviews required for each month. (28 or 29 in February, 31 in May and August, and 30 in November.) That's also not considering the fact that this schedule would clash with NaNoWriMo; the idea of putting it in September remedies this by placing a full month between the challenge and NaNo.

Thoughts on all of this?

 

[Astinus]

When the original idea of seasonal was proposed, I originally thought an even three months in between each round. Mainly because I enjoy even spaces between things. NaNoWriMo, however, did not cross my mind because I forgot all about it.

So I'm fine with the current schedule. Sure, the amount of reviews needed will change, but that's what we were thinking of before.

 

[bobandbill]

Not November because of NaNoWriMo = good idea, imo. And screw unevenness, we have fanfics!

 

[Bay]

I'm totally cool with that schedule. And yeah, November is the worst month to do reviews because of NaNoWriMo (I'm planning of doing it this year).

 

[Grovyle42(Griff8416)]

Nuts, did I completely miss an opportunity for free reviews?

So this is happening seasonally? When does the Spring one start?

 

[Misheard Whisper]

Yeah, I missed this one too (as a reviewer, that is) so I'd like to express my interest in participating if there were to be another one. :3 It sounds like it was great.

 

[bobandbill]

If you look back to the previous page you'd see that the next one will start in April going by the suggestion from Jax, so a week from now will be the next one. =p You northern hemisphere people and your 'spring'

 

[Misheard Whisper]

How dare you suggest I read more than the last couple of posts in a thread >:[ You ought to know me better than that, bnb!

Also, hrmm, April. That's Script Frenzy month . . . but also I have the second half of the month off for term holidays. I guess I'm in.

 

[JX Valentine]

GDI. I forgot about Script Frenzy. XD We could theoretically move it to May (which would then mean we'd have to push the summer and autumn blitzes -- and shut up I'm American so therefore it's summer and autumn -- to later months). But if you're pretty much the only one tackling SF, I propose we just be sadistic to you.

If not, see you in a few days? XD