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New Contest, Site Updates, and Happy 4th!

Written by Scribophile

July 4th, 2008

The July Contest Is Here!

Writers, at your keyboards–the July contest has begun! This month we’ll be looking for poetry, and the theme is “questions.” We’ll leave it up to you to decide what that means. We liked the submissions for our last contest so much that we’ve decided to open the July contest to ALL Scribophile authors again–we want to see what you can come up with! First place earns a $50 gift card to Amazon.com; second place scores a $25 gift card. Submit your entry by the end of July to be considered. We’re already excited to read those great entries!

Site Updates

We’ve just released an important update that we hope will help focus critiques. This update “archives” a work after it’s been around for a certain time period–30 days after hitting the review queue, to be precise. What does it mean to be archived? It means that the work and all its critiques/comments are still visible, but you won’t be able to critique the work any more. You can tell if a work is archived by a little padlock symbol () next to it.

We noticed that we were still seeing a lot of old works from relatively inactive members getting critiqued, while newer works, particularly in the review queue, were being neglected. We hope this change will help focus everyone’s attention on the newer stuff being published and get you more critiques faster.

If your work gets archived but you’d still like to try to get critiques, you’re free to re-publish it. At this point you’d have to manually delete the work and publish it again, losing any critiques you’ve received, but pretty soon we’ll be adding a “re-publish” button that will let you avoid going through the full publish process again and will let you keep the critiques the work already has.

As always, we want to hear what you think. Love the idea? Think it’s stupid and we should all be cast to the dogs? Let us know in the comments or in the forums!

Finally, Have a Great 4th of July!

What are you doing sitting at a computer on a beautiful day like this? Go out, drink a 6-pack, grill some hotdogs, and blow some stuff up! Now that’s a 4th of July we can get behind!

As an added patriotic 4th of July bonus, here’s a picture of George Washington’s false teeth. Enjoy!

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« Contest Entries and Critiquer of the Month

Republish Option and Bug Fixes »

Ben Jacobson

1674 • Scribe

Well the new rules certainly cleared some room in my reading list. No longer populated with forgotten good intentions, I now have the space to hit some new works. In that way I like it. Do I like it as a writer? I don't know. It was nice to get an occasional comment on an older piece that reminded you that it was there. So far though all the changes at Scibophile have been for the better. I'm willing to tough it out and see how it works. I do need that republish button ASAP though. -Ben

Scribophile

∞ • Administrator

Thanks for the feedback, Ben. We thought long and hard before releasing this update, because we figured some writers wouldn't like their older works suddenly not being open to critiques. But we think the long-term benefits of this update outweigh the more immediate drawbacks. By drastically narrowing down the number of works that one can critique, we give new works a better chance to get critiqued; at the same time, authors who've just published one work and then disappeared can no longer "distract" critiquers. In effect, this update encourages authors to participate, which we think is always a good thing. Does anyone else have any thoughts on the issue?

Amber Lynn

747 • Ink Slinger

Just wondering if the 30 days counts for the first draft, or from each new draft?

Scribophile

∞ • Administrator

Amber Lynn, the 30 day count starts after the work hits the review queue, regardless of what draft number it is. The count doesn't reset if you write a new draft.

K. McCrae

290 • Pen Wrangler

It seems like the count ought to reset after a new draft, especially if you make significant changes? It's just as helpful to hear that the changes are good/bad/etc. as it is to find out that changes need to be made in the first place. Just a thought. It will be helpful, though, I think, in keeping us from critiquing works of inactive members; but I agree with Ben--the sooner that "republish" button happens, the better. ^_^

Lisette Wood

1067 • Grammarian

I agree with McCrae that the count should reset for new drafts. Sometimes a second draft doesn't even have any of the same words in it as the first one, so it's like publishing a new work. ( :

dnmtwthlsrbm

1128 • Inkmaster

If it resets after each edit, what's to keep people from doing some very small edit to keep from having to use karma to republish? I saw the lock icon and message saying works couldn't be critiqued before I saw this post. I was a little upset / confused. Seeing the explanation it makes perfect sense. This site has a lot of old inactive members. This should help focus critiquing. Echoing sentiments, just give us a republish button

I have no issues having to use karma to get my stuff critiqued. Just means i have to critique other things. Seems fair to me. Overall, good idea.

Scribophile

∞ • Administrator

Dnm brings up a point we thought about when considering whether to let drafts affect archiving--there would be nothing stopping people from making a minor change just to prevent their work from being archived. Overall we think that if you make enough changes between drafts where you don't even have the same words, then it basically becomes a whole different work, which you should be publishing separately anyway

We'll be keeping a close eye on the archive system over the next few months, and we may come back and tweak some stuff to keep things running smoothly. Thanks for the feedback!

New Contest, Site Updates, and Happy 4th!

The July Contest Is Here!

Site Updates

Finally, Have a Great 4th of July!

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