JX Valentine
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PC Reviewing Challenge '11
Do you love the forums? Love writing? Think you can give awesome advice? Then welcome to the Reviewing Challenge! In this month-long reviewing blitz, race against the calendar to submit twenty-eight reviews in a single month. Why? To help the forum? To improve yourself and those around you?
More like because you can, am I right? ;D
How to Play
Step One
Sign up! Sign ups are done right here in this thread. Anyone who wishes to participate only needs to make a post with the following form filled out (except for the last two fields):
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Best Way To Contact:[/b]
[b]Reviewing Style:[/b]
[b]Custom Challenge Rules:[/b]
[b]Request Queue:[/b]
[b]Completed Reviews:[/b]
To clarify, the name is just what you want contacts to call you. Contact is PM, VM, IM (with specifics – username, which program, etc.)... basically any information you think someone would need to get in contact with you. Reviewing style is a brief description of how you review (e.g., strengths/weaknesses, areas of focus, that sort of thing).
Finally, custom challenge rules are basically anything else you want to add to the challenge's general rules (which we'll get to in a moment) that make it your own challenge. These could include anything from a word count/higher review count to "cannot use quote tags." Anything you'd like!
You don't have to worry about request queue or completed reviews until after the challenge begins. The first is a handy list for all the review requests people sent to you that you haven't gotten to yet, and the second is a list of reviews you've completed to keep track of how many more you still need to do.
As a note, the deadline for signing up is the last week of February. That's right. You can still join the challenge while it's going on; you just can't join in the last week because that would be rather silly, wouldn't it?
Step Two
From February 1 to February 28, it's your mission to submit at least twenty-eight reviews to any active story (read: has been updated within the past month) before February is over. That's just one review a day. Easy, right?
To make it easier, people have the option to send you requests to review their story. That way, writers can be guaranteed at least one review, and you can keep a steady supply of things to cover going. To keep track of your review requests, simply edit your profile and slip it under request queue.
If you run out of things under your queue, you still have one other option, and that's to simply review as many stories as you can starting on the first page. The forums have plenty of active stories out there; all you have to do is take your pick!
Do you have to stop at one review a day? Nope! Do as many as you'd like! In fact, doing multiple reviews a day means you'll hit the monthly review goal a little bit quicker, which means you can breathe easier later on.
Step Three
Completing reviews! What defines a complete request? Can you go back and review other chapters? Well, potential participant, the answer is it's up to you! Of course, you can't multipost and write reviews for individual chapters in separate posts without a break in between (see rules), but you can most certainly come back and review the same story later on. The only stipulation? The author has to post an installment between your reviews for it to count. Otherwise, it'll just be lumped all together as one big review of the story up to that point. Sorry!
Once you're done with a review, there's one other thing to remember. Right after you hit submit and are brought back to your freshly posted review, copy the URL in the address bar and skedaddle to your profile. Hit the edit button, paste the URL under completed reviews, and save. That makes it easier for the judges of the challenge to come along and verify whether or not you've written twenty-eight reviews by the twenty-eighth. After you hit #28, you can choose not to add any other reviews to this, but it's absolutely mandatory to do it for the ones that you want to count towards your review goal.
Step Four
Wait! The challenge ends on midnight, March 1, whenever that would be for your time zone. Then, once everyone is in, judges (mods and helpers if they need any) will go through the profiles and mark down every member who wrote at least twenty-eight reviews. After that, they'll hand out a shiny emblem to everyone who succeeded as a job well done.
Prizes?!
That's right! Everyone who beats the challenge will receive this dashing emblem:
On top of that, the people who finish twenty-eight reviews will also have bragging rights and the satisfaction of making the forum an awesome place to be.
But yeah, you're probably going to just be in it for the emblem, am I right?
The Rules
Of course, there's a few general rules to keep in mind:
1. Yes, you must submit twenty-eight reviews from February 1 to February 28. This is absolutely mandatory to be considered for the emblem.
2. The rules of both PC and the FF&W are completely in effect here. If you're not familiar with them, read them before signing up! The rules of the FF&W are included in a sticky at the top of the main forum; the general rules of PC are located at the top of the site itself.
3. Although it's included as a rule in the FF&W's batch, it's got to be reiterated here, too. Reviews must be constructive to count. What does this mean? A constructive review – praise or criticism – is simply a review that points out specific parts of the story and talks about what the reviewer's thoughts on it.
For a clearer example, this is a one-liner:
This is a great story! Can't wait for more!
Notice how it says nothing about the story? Yeah, we're not accepting those at all. Same thing with this:
It was awkward at times, so maybe you should proofread. Still, keep up the good work!
Notice how this doesn't say anything about what exactly made it awkward or what parts were awkward at all, so it doesn't end up being particularly helpful because the author has no idea what you're talking about? We're not accepting those, either.
There's a variety of ways to submit constructive reviews, though, so long as you point out specifics and go into detail. Answer the questions of what and why with everything you write. The what is the part of the story; the why is your reasoning for pointing it out/why you think it works or needs to be fixed.
For more help, check out these guides to reviewing. They should give you a much more detailed overview of what is and isn't good reviewing, so they should point you in the right direction.
http://studio-revolution.net/summary.php
http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-give-constructive-criticism-a40316
http://www.dragonflycave.com/reviewing.aspx
Other than those three simple rules, you can modify your own, unique challenge to your heart's content, as explained in the first section. Have fun!
A Last Note: For the Requesters
To those of you thinking of recruiting a participant to review you, a few special rules for you:
1. Pay attention to what form of contact the participant specifies in their profile. Use only that method to ask politely to review your fic. Include a link to your fic and a quick summary to give us an idea of what we're going to be getting into.
2. Do not send us fics that haven't been updated in at least a month. This would mean we'd be breaking the rules to review you, and if we end up doing that, then that particular review won't count towards our review goal. Sorry!
3. After a participant reviews your work, remember to contact them again if you'd like them to review future chapters. Participants will take you off their request queue once they're finished looking at your story, so it's a good idea to get in touch with them in order to be put back on.
4. Remember that you requested them to review. Try to be as courteous to them as they are to you for this reason. Writers who decide to take hostile routes against the participants (flaming, starting drama, et cetera) will be blacklisted from requesting during this challenge and every other future challenge. So, it's just a good idea to play nice, you know?
BLACKLIST
(These members have in one way or another violated either the above rules, FF&W's rules, PC's rules, or general common sense. Reviews to their work will not count under certain circumstances detailed after their names. There are ways to get off it, but it's usually difficult and involves more or less promising to stop doing it wrong.)
1. MeerFall (Offense: Causing drama in response to a review written for the challenge. Details: All reviews to her work submitted after February 10, 2011, will not count towards the challenge)
2. GirlieNinjaRose (Offense: Plagiarism. Details: The Costume Party, A Hollow Heart Echos, and all work after February 24, 2011, will not count.)
Wait! I have a question!
Any questions or comments can be asked in this thread. Discussion can take place here, too!
Participant List
(Ordered alphabetically. All links go directly to participants' profiles.)
Astinus
Azurne
Bay Alexison
bobandbill
Dagzar
Dragonite Ernston
EmeraldSky
Feign
icomeanon6
JX Valentine
Mira
Mizan
Scytheteen
Sgt-T-Shock
txteclipse
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