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blueheronteanookNow that there's a few different people posting on this site, it's time to open up feedback on site organization.
The BHTN is intended to encourage people to make works that engage with the text of Pale, whether through fanfic or meta. I don't expect that every work be a serious thinkpiece about how to build a good society when magic is full of perverse incentives, but there is an unfulfilled niche of a public place to collect that sort of work. The existing options of the subreddit, the various Discords, Tumblr, and Ao3 all have one issue or another with organization, discoverability, and/or current content that make them hard to use for this purpose. I'd like the BHTN to be an answer to that.
The current policies are a starting attempt to get things in that direction. The tagging system is meant to provide organization, so that someone can click around and find things they are interested in. Discoverability on Dreamwidth is not as easy as it is on Ao3, but posts and comments made here have stable links that can be passed around in a similar manner to the way that links are already passed around on the Discords. The current content restrictions of minimum wordcount, no OC-centric fic, and no NSFW are meant to encourage creation of different types of fanfic than what is currently on Ao3 in a way that allows everyone to live and let live. Additionally, the open thread system is meant to provide a lower effort way for members to interact with each other, while keeping the majority of the site focused on fic and meta.
You've had some time to test out the way that things currently work. Now it's time to figure out whether the system works for these goals.
Some things in particular that I'd like feedback on:
1) Should art be allowed?
The subreddit, Discord, and Tumblr already have a decent amount of art on there, and there is a spreadsheet that contains links to all known Pale fanart maintained by someone else. Dreamwidth is not a very good image host. Free accounts have a cap of 500 mb of image hosting, and images hosted on DW do not show up as link embeds when posted elsewhere. For an artist to post to the BHTN, they would have to either be content with the 500 mb cap, pay for more account storage, or take an image already hosted on another platform and use the URL to link to it here. So far I have assumed that nobody is willing to go through that hassle, but I may be wrong on this.
2) Should Pact content be allowed?
It's the same universe, even though Pact and Pale are fairly different thematically. Like Pale, there are less than 100 pieces of Pact fanfic on Ao3, and a lot of these are OC fic. It might make sense to combine the audience of two tiny fandoms into one combined slightly less tiny fandom, but there may be tonal clash, and that'll require another set of tags for organization. If Pact-centric works are not allowed, what should our spoiler policy be for it?
3) Are the rules on accepted content sufficient?
To recap, the current rules are minimum wordcount, no OC-centric fic, no NSFW, and content warnings/choose not to warn. I haven't decided anything about AI generated works, other than a general commitment to getting rid of spam when I see it. Willing to take suggestions on that.
In general, I feel that any subject matter covered in Pale should be acceptable in the BHTN. Additionally, rules about content are hard to enforce unless they are fairly binary about what is a violation or not, e.g. "no onscreen sex" is a lot easier to enforce than "tasteful depictions of teenage relationships only," even if there are works that would break the first but not the second, and vice versa. That's the reasoning behind the current rules as written.
4) Does the tagging system need adjustments?
The current tags are [fic/meta/community], [oneshot/multichapter], [character: firstname lastname], and [table of contents: workname] to keep long works in order. Should there be more tags? Less? I like the [crossover: workname] tag, and I expect there to be a decent number of Worm crossovers anyways, so these might as well be marked out in the system.
Considerations:
Ideally, the tag system is easy for posters to use, easy for readers to find what they want, and will still be comprehensible in two years time. As the current site admin, I have the power to edit the tags on people's posts, which I have been using fairly heavily so far. I would prefer to eventually have a system that requires less effort on my part to wrangle into shape.
Tags in the recent tags sidebar and the full page automatically display in alphabetical order, which is something that cannot be changed. Tags have simulated nesting for display purposes, so that a tag of [example: name] displays as [example] with a bullet point list of [name] that is a clickable link underneath. This alphabetical order can be somewhat cheated, so anything that starts with a ! or $ will display on top of tags that start with a-z, and anything that starts with ~ will display underneath. This can create clarity for readers, but becomes less intuitive for writers to apply.
Unlike Ao3, there is no search system that can be used to exclude tags. Tags are excluded by choosing not to click on them, and community search is a paid feature. That means it's better to use tags as enticement rather than warning. Multiple tags can be used to search at once by editing the URL, which is complicated enough that I expect very few people to do it without explicit instructions listed somewhere. This is the process, according to the site FAQ: to view any entry in your journal tagged with either "kittens" or "puppies", https://sunlit-skycat.dreamwidth.org/tag/kittens,puppies?mode=or would be used. To view all entries in your journal tagged with both "kittens" and "puppies", https://sunlit-skycat.dreamwidth.org/tag/kittens,puppies?mode=and would be used.
DW communities have a cap of 1,000 tags for free accounts, 1,500 for the first tier of paid accounts, and 2,000 for the second tier of paid accounts.
5) How should community socialization on here work?
Right now, there is the open thread system, and DW allows DMs between people. Based on activity, I feel that a monthly open thread as a catch-all place for people to talk, with possible discussion questions or categories in the comment section for things, might be good, though this is the thing I have the least opinions on outside of anything asked in here.
It is possible to get something similar to a private modmail set up by having a post where all comments are screened by default, because only admin can see screened comments, though overall I feel like community moderation will be better to figure out when there are at least ten unique posters on here or in three months from now, because everything is still at very beginning stages.
Edit: the tag structure has been reorganized and applied to all existing posts, hopefully for the last time in a while. New fics should have the genre listed before the cut. If possible, it would be nice to have that edited into preexisting fics already on here, but it's not required. Instructions on how to format posts can be seen here.
The BHTN is intended to encourage people to make works that engage with the text of Pale, whether through fanfic or meta. I don't expect that every work be a serious thinkpiece about how to build a good society when magic is full of perverse incentives, but there is an unfulfilled niche of a public place to collect that sort of work. The existing options of the subreddit, the various Discords, Tumblr, and Ao3 all have one issue or another with organization, discoverability, and/or current content that make them hard to use for this purpose. I'd like the BHTN to be an answer to that.
The current policies are a starting attempt to get things in that direction. The tagging system is meant to provide organization, so that someone can click around and find things they are interested in. Discoverability on Dreamwidth is not as easy as it is on Ao3, but posts and comments made here have stable links that can be passed around in a similar manner to the way that links are already passed around on the Discords. The current content restrictions of minimum wordcount, no OC-centric fic, and no NSFW are meant to encourage creation of different types of fanfic than what is currently on Ao3 in a way that allows everyone to live and let live. Additionally, the open thread system is meant to provide a lower effort way for members to interact with each other, while keeping the majority of the site focused on fic and meta.
You've had some time to test out the way that things currently work. Now it's time to figure out whether the system works for these goals.
Some things in particular that I'd like feedback on:
1) Should art be allowed?
The subreddit, Discord, and Tumblr already have a decent amount of art on there, and there is a spreadsheet that contains links to all known Pale fanart maintained by someone else. Dreamwidth is not a very good image host. Free accounts have a cap of 500 mb of image hosting, and images hosted on DW do not show up as link embeds when posted elsewhere. For an artist to post to the BHTN, they would have to either be content with the 500 mb cap, pay for more account storage, or take an image already hosted on another platform and use the URL to link to it here. So far I have assumed that nobody is willing to go through that hassle, but I may be wrong on this.
2) Should Pact content be allowed?
It's the same universe, even though Pact and Pale are fairly different thematically. Like Pale, there are less than 100 pieces of Pact fanfic on Ao3, and a lot of these are OC fic. It might make sense to combine the audience of two tiny fandoms into one combined slightly less tiny fandom, but there may be tonal clash, and that'll require another set of tags for organization. If Pact-centric works are not allowed, what should our spoiler policy be for it?
3) Are the rules on accepted content sufficient?
To recap, the current rules are minimum wordcount, no OC-centric fic, no NSFW, and content warnings/choose not to warn. I haven't decided anything about AI generated works, other than a general commitment to getting rid of spam when I see it. Willing to take suggestions on that.
In general, I feel that any subject matter covered in Pale should be acceptable in the BHTN. Additionally, rules about content are hard to enforce unless they are fairly binary about what is a violation or not, e.g. "no onscreen sex" is a lot easier to enforce than "tasteful depictions of teenage relationships only," even if there are works that would break the first but not the second, and vice versa. That's the reasoning behind the current rules as written.
4) Does the tagging system need adjustments?
The current tags are [fic/meta/community], [oneshot/multichapter], [character: firstname lastname], and [table of contents: workname] to keep long works in order. Should there be more tags? Less? I like the [crossover: workname] tag, and I expect there to be a decent number of Worm crossovers anyways, so these might as well be marked out in the system.
Considerations:
Ideally, the tag system is easy for posters to use, easy for readers to find what they want, and will still be comprehensible in two years time. As the current site admin, I have the power to edit the tags on people's posts, which I have been using fairly heavily so far. I would prefer to eventually have a system that requires less effort on my part to wrangle into shape.
Tags in the recent tags sidebar and the full page automatically display in alphabetical order, which is something that cannot be changed. Tags have simulated nesting for display purposes, so that a tag of [example: name] displays as [example] with a bullet point list of [name] that is a clickable link underneath. This alphabetical order can be somewhat cheated, so anything that starts with a ! or $ will display on top of tags that start with a-z, and anything that starts with ~ will display underneath. This can create clarity for readers, but becomes less intuitive for writers to apply.
Unlike Ao3, there is no search system that can be used to exclude tags. Tags are excluded by choosing not to click on them, and community search is a paid feature. That means it's better to use tags as enticement rather than warning. Multiple tags can be used to search at once by editing the URL, which is complicated enough that I expect very few people to do it without explicit instructions listed somewhere. This is the process, according to the site FAQ: to view any entry in your journal tagged with either "kittens" or "puppies", https://sunlit-skycat.dreamwidth.org/tag/kittens,puppies?mode=or would be used. To view all entries in your journal tagged with both "kittens" and "puppies", https://sunlit-skycat.dreamwidth.org/tag/kittens,puppies?mode=and would be used.
DW communities have a cap of 1,000 tags for free accounts, 1,500 for the first tier of paid accounts, and 2,000 for the second tier of paid accounts.
5) How should community socialization on here work?
Right now, there is the open thread system, and DW allows DMs between people. Based on activity, I feel that a monthly open thread as a catch-all place for people to talk, with possible discussion questions or categories in the comment section for things, might be good, though this is the thing I have the least opinions on outside of anything asked in here.
It is possible to get something similar to a private modmail set up by having a post where all comments are screened by default, because only admin can see screened comments, though overall I feel like community moderation will be better to figure out when there are at least ten unique posters on here or in three months from now, because everything is still at very beginning stages.
Edit: the tag structure has been reorganized and applied to all existing posts, hopefully for the last time in a while. New fics should have the genre listed before the cut. If possible, it would be nice to have that edited into preexisting fics already on here, but it's not required. Instructions on how to format posts can be seen here.
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Date: 2023-06-28 08:25 pm (UTC)Might still be worth having a rule for deterrence purposes, though. Have a general rule about not stealing credit, and put this in under that.
Easy enough to make the next open thread have three comment categories as a way to have that separation without making too many extra posts, and see what happens from there.