On Polls and Voting...

[tamingmods.livejournal.com]

Ok...so I've felt this way for a long time. I kind of let it go as this was one of the main features of the comm, but seeing as now that we're having trouble keeping up with the polls (not to mention how time consuming they are to assemble) I wanted to do some research.

I've gone back and checked the last 10 weeks, and my feeling is that the polls don't do much.

Here are the numbers. For the dates listed, I logged the max number of votes that any single story got and here they are: 

24-Aug	2
31-Aug	2
7-Sep	2
14-Sep	1
22-Sep	2
28-Sep	2
6-Oct	2
13-Oct	2
21-Oct	3
26-Oct	3
2-Nov	1

Every week there are quite a few stories (sometimes more than half) that don't get votes at all.

Based upon that, I don't feel that the polls are being that useful to our authors. I think, if this is a feature the members would like to keep, we should probably redefine their purpose.

Are we trying to help authors improve?
Are they for identifying writers that don't meet the minimum threshold?
Something else?

As members what would you like to get out of the polls? And what would make you vote?


~tamingmods (calypso)

Comments

[ficwize.livejournal.com]

When I was active here, I never checked the polls. Most of the time, no one from this community commented on my fic, so I really didn't understand how they were judging the quality of the work.

I think that comments, more than anonymous voting, give authors an idea of what works and what doesn't.

Just my $0.02 worth!

[jans-intentions.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you say. For one thing, at one time or another, taming mods read my work. You guys are all trustworthy. If I was putting up shoddy stuff, I believe you'd have a word or something.

I never look at them. I feel bad for that since I do read and comment on some stories here but not all. Mostly we stick to our fandoms, you know?

I think we should do away with them. Isn't it enough that we post story every week? If we suck, we won't have readers or fb and in a way, it's kind of the way it is, right?

[akasakasan.livejournal.com]

I agree that we should comment on fics instead of voting.

I joined this community a while back but I'm a bit hesitant to post because I'm a bit scared that people are just going to vote my stories as terrible without any explanation as to why. I think commenting helps a writer improve their work whereas voting just makes me really hesitant to post.

Or maybe thats just me?

[jans-intentions.livejournal.com]

No, I felt that way too.

[muccamukk]

Ha. I just made a point of reading a bunch of stories this week so that I could actually vote. Last week, I didn't read any. I don't really share fandoms with many people here.

I had assumed that the voting was a way to maintain a minimum threshold. However, it seems, from what I've seen, that everyone in the comm are great writers, so I'm not sure that it's needed.

To conclude, if it makes your life easier not having polls, I don't see the loss.

ETA: I also agree that commenting is more useful, but I can't think of a way to make it part of the rules (you have to leave two comments a week to stay in? That would have to be an honour system, I think).

[jans-intentions.livejournal.com]

Well, I feel that taming is most useful in helping us post every week. I do believe that the wide world of readers can accept or reject our work.

So I vote to carry on as we are but nix the voting. J xx

[alexfoster451.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we go to just comments, a weekly template could be posted for people to copy and use to help encourage commenting? Like the current weekly post explaining the voting system. Just a thought.

~ Alex

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

That's a neat idea. If people thought it was workable.
The problem I perceive is that people don't like saying things that could be taken as negative, for fear of hurting a writer's feelings. Anyone writing in a com like this probably hopes for con crit (although generally, I think more people say they want it than actually do *g*).
A template that prompted for both things well done and enjoyed, and things that caused questions, might work? But it is asking the commenters to be quite brave.
Sorry, not much help here.

[xocoatldreams.livejournal.com]

I got to agree with most people that the polls don't do much. They don't really tell you anything, they don't give concrit. I prefer comments, but I know that I won't always get them because not everyone is into whatever fandom I happen to post that time.

Maybe change the polls so comments can be added or even something as simple as a button saying good job.

I know I often don't vote because I'm not quite sure how to rate a story. It's easier just to comment to the author about what was great and what could be changed.

But that's just my opinion and I need to stop rambling and go to bed ^-^

[alexfoster451.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I agree with the mix fandom thing and the polls. When I started here I was diligent about reading and voting on each post, but after a while didn’t think I was being fair to the writers of fandoms I wasn’t familiar with and would often skip them. Which I suppose isn’t fair to the writers as a fellow Taming member.

All that said, the mix fandoms of Taming is one of its greatest features to me. It is exciting when I see new or established writers come in with a wide range of ideas and sources to pull from. Personally the mixed fandoms option has allowed me to grow as a writer and work in fandoms I might not have tried if not for the weekly deadline. It sounds odd, but it has made me feel more at home here than in a more exclusive fandom community.

If I had to, I would vote to drop the polls in favor of a more constructive crit based comments. Sorry if this was long winded. My words kind of got away from me.

~ Alex

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I think the polls are useful as feedback when I don't have time to comment...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I think the poll in individual posts is useful, but I'll likely forget to do it :P

[kei-rin.livejournal.com]

Maybe if there a way to tie in doing the poll with reading the fic then there might be an up swing in how many people vote because I know for myself that when I had the time (once upon a time) I would read the fic and leave comments when I could but then I might forget to vote because it was separated from the actual fic. Though it might be to much work to put a separate poll attached to each fic or at least the post in this comm that send us to the fic. I really don't want to make more work for the mods because you guys work so hard keeping this comm up already.

I also know that if I write something and it doesn't meet the minimum threshold that I don't post it here (which is what happens most of the time). I just leave it on my computer or maybe post to my own journal but I don't link it here because I know that it doesn't meet the standards for this comm.

Also,when I did have somethings that were put up in this comm I know I never went back to check how I did on the polls; I just waited till I saw the mod post of who we lost this week and who we gained when I didn't see my name I assumed I did fine and started trying to think about the next prompt.

I hope this was helpful.

[talullahred.livejournal.com]

I was excited about the polls when I joined and in the first week I voted on everything I could read... then I saw they weren't much used and lost interest. Like others above, I think concrit is more informative than the poll and I would not be terribly sorry to see them go.

If there is the absolute need to keep some sort of peer reviewing, why not demand that each writer posting also has to comment on at least one story, on plot, grammar, etc? The downsides is that people hate being forced to review and that you gals would spend a lot of time tracking down who did and who didn't...

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

I think, as others have said, that there are two problems: one is that the poll doesn't provide particularly useful information for improvement if there are votes, and secondly: since there are so many fandoms a lot of the time a fic receives no votes at all. I try to vote for all the fics I've read, but I confess that with such an array of fandoms, a lot of which I know very little about, that's often only three or four a week. And I'm sure that's something that applies to everyone.

This is then a problem if you decide to go for measuring success by comments. Some fics may not get many - even any - if they are in a fandom that is particularly obscure. It is natural that people gravitate to reading (and commenting/voting) on the things they recognise. Certainly we could all make an effort to comment on things in fandoms we don't know, but the comments would be fairly restrained as to grammar, and maybe story arc, since a lack of knowledge of the characters and the canon would make anything else difficult.

I'm sorry that this comment doesn't do anything more than raise other problems. I can't see an obvious solution, but I'm more than happy to participate in anything you decide to trial.

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. The freedom to write in any fandom you please is one of the joys of this comm.

[delilahdraken]

I think the polls are a good idea in theory, but sadly that doesn't help the author's much with improving. As someone else mentioned, the variety of fandoms makes it sometimes difficult to vote one stories, because the voter has near to no knowledge about the fandom used.

I always try to vote on the stories I read here, but due to time constrains on my part, that is mostly never more than one story.

[delilahdraken]

On the other hand, this lack of knowledge in a fandom would make it easier for the reader to see the 'greater picture' and concentrate on plot and characterization etc.

I've come to learn that too much knowledge about any fandom tends to minimalize the enjoyment found in reading fics, because one always has these pre-considerations in the head.

[dreamy-idealist.livejournal.com]

When I came across this community, I was interested in the feedback, the prompts and the nice banners :) I intended to participate, I will eventually, now is not a good time for me. Sorry ;)

I'm in another community where we have to write an entry each week, with a prompt, votes and eliminations. For instance, this week I have votes but no comments. So it's bittersweet. People voted for me, but I don't know what they liked or didn't like. So I guess I favor comments over votes.

Luckily, the mods set up this great feature called the edits, the system works fairly well due to members' participation. Even though I didn't get feedback this week, I know I can count on the two editors.

By the way, the community is brigits_flame.

As far as tamingthemuse is concerned, I see mostly fan fiction, and I admit than even with the best motivation, when I see chapter 28, having no prior knowledge of the story, I will pass.

My suggestion: maybe a writer who posts a story could be given one or two entries to comment on, it could be according to their favorite fandoms (by setting up a poll with the current fandoms to see who's familiar with them) or randomly selected. Or you could set up a sign up post, and members and/or writers who have time to read and comment could accept a certain number of entries to give feedback on on a particular week so that in the end every entry receives at least 1 or 2 comments. This way, everyone gets feedback from everyone.

Just a thought :)

[catw00man.livejournal.com]

Ok, I've thought about this for awhile and I figured since it looks like we're all just giving personal opinions I'll go ahead and toss out mine.

I end up on both ends of the scale. First off I know I write a niche fandom, NASCAR RPF, which honestly borders on original fic but still I know most people won't touch it because technically it is RP slash for the most part. This means I normally get no votes. I can't speak for certain, because I stopped looking, but after months of no votes but from a personal friend I quit looking. So for me, voting or commenting doesn't matter because I don't get any.

Now on the other side of the coin, and the reason I hesitated to mention the above. I'm very, *very* picky about what I read. It's just the way I am, nothing personal, but one of the other things about being in a niche fandom is you have awesome writers and not so awesome writers and I think it's made me a bit reluctant to read anything but from those authors I know. Now I know that everyone here is a wonderful writer or they wouldn't be here. Of that I have NO doubt. But everything here also isn't my fandom of choice so...I tend not to read. I realize thats not exactly fair but I guess I felt since I wasn't getting...it didn't so much matter if I was giving. I know that's kind awful of me but it's just how it ended up going.

So, honestly, I have no idea what's the best thing here. With a lot of people locking fics or not reading cross fandoms I'm not sure if there is a best answer. I don't think we should force people to read things they don't want to so I'm not sure where that puts us on regulating comments. I mean if we were required to read so many...what if there aren't that many we want to read? :-/ It's a tough one and one I don't envy the mods for.

Anyway, like I said, just my 2 conflictig cents. ;)

[catw00man.livejournal.com]

Ty hun and like I said I don't envy you guys. To be honest in the beginning the polls were something I thought was really cool because just it's existence kinda made this more of an elite group if you know what I mean? But with us being such a diverse group, it makes it hard.

I will say though, I love that we ARE a diverse group. There's not a lot of places that do welcome us NASCARers and over the years I have received a few fbs. Ones from here always meant more because I knew I was being looked as a good writer, not as just a writer of pretty boys. LOL So thank you guys for what you do!

[nondenomifan.livejournal.com]

Well, I never actually looked at the results, to tell you the truth--well, I think I did once or twice after I entered my own votes, but that was so soon in the week that very few had voted.

And, I don't vote much anymore because I just simply don't have time. I guess that's obvious, though, since I haven't had time to post, either. *pout* I'm actually about 28 weeks behind in my LJ inbox, if you can believe that. That's how busy I've been--well, part of the problem has also been that my old laptop died and I only just got a new one.

[tamingmods.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're alone on the not enough time thing.

And Yay...glad to see you back this week.

*hugs*
~calypso

[wonderfinch.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I personally don't like the voting system very much-- I joined this community a while ago, and I have to echo the comment that someone made a little while back: It's one of the main things that keeps me from posting stories here. I'm mildly terrified of posting, and having someone give my story a terrible vote without providing any explanation.

I ultimately think that comments would provide people with a better idea of how they can improve their writing, and for determining whether or not someone meets the minimum threshold of quality set by the community. While the polls can tell people what about their writing was good or bad, they can't let authors know just what they're doing to merit their scores in the polls.

The only advantage I could see of the polls system would be that it might allow people who are less familiar with a particular fandom an opportunity to express their opinions on stories surrounding said fandom? From my experience in other communities, I've found that it's difficult to make thoughtful and insightful comments on stories written on fandoms I know little or nothing about, but providing a simple score with limited comments at least lets me say what I thought about the writing, character depiction, etc. (without revealing my woeful ignorance about 99.9% of the world's fandoms.) And while I personally find it at least mildly helpful to see poll-style results of what people think of a story, I don't really know if that helps other people-- so maybe it's not the best option to keep around, since comments & crits & polls are, in my opinion, intended to help the author improve.

Um, anyways. Just my thoughts. Sorry for the small wall of text, I'm not really that good at being concise.