sholio | Come on, reccers, *please*!

Come on, reccers, please!

Okay, so, this is a rant I've been sitting on for a while, but ...

If you rec at

stargateficrec and suddenly realize that you've waited until the last minute to rec, could you do your flist a favor and at least *try* to spread out your recs a little bit?

I mean, today ... it's the 28th. That means that even if you woke up this morning going, "Oh, shit, I haven't posted any recs yet!" you could post one rec today, one tomorrow and so forth 'til the 31st. And every person watching

stargateficrec doesn't have to wade through an impenetrable mass of recs for one character or pairing to get to the rest of their flist.

That's kinda what happened to me this week -- I realized that I'd gotten nearly to the end of the month without finishing out my John & Rodney recs, so I've been SPREADING THEM OUT. I still have one to go. I'll probably post it this evening or tomorrow depending on how clogged with recs the site is. Let's face it -- if you post your recs at the same time everyone else is posting their recs, yours gets lost anyhow. Even in the end-of-month rush, I try to wait for lulls in the action to toss one of my recs in.

And if right now is the only time you'll have all week to hunt for and write up recs -- then write them all up now, and post them over the next four days. That's how I generally do mine, actually, at least when I'm organized enough to manage it: I write them up all at once, or in small batches whenever I have time, and then copy and paste them into a browser window at intervals. My Jeannie recs this month ... I wrote them all up at the end of September (I had some time, and felt like reading some Jeannie fic) and then every few days, I'd open up an LJ window and copy-paste a rec into it.

I'm not really trying to pick on anyone specific, because a lot of people do it -- hey, I waited 'til the last minute this month, so I'm part of the problem too. But the end-of-month clog at ficrec is what makes people take it off their watch lists. I know I'm not the only one who has that problem. And it's harder on the taggers and mods, and it makes it less likely that people are going to notice or read that rec for that awesome fic you've been waiting for months to share with people.

Edited to add: I also don't want anyone to feel bad about reccing, of course. It's an awesome resource for fandom, and how I find many new stories! It's just ... that last-minute end-of-month glut of recs is really a pain, and it makes the comm less useful for everybody.

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That's why I finally stopped watching the comm a few months back. It was driving me CRAZY (plus, I guarantee you that when a rec is made in that onslaught people are much, much, much less likely to read it). I really wish the maintainers had a "one post per person per day" rule. Much rather someone not finish their 4 than do them all in one day.

*nods* I think that would be a good rule. I don't know how many people actually get any use out of a big clump of recs all posted together; I know that I tend to skip right by most of them without even looking. If there's just one or two recs, I'm a lot more likely to take the time to look at all of them and maybe take a chance on authors or pairings that aren't my usual thing to read.

Yeah. I thought about suggesting it to the mods but I've seen them respond poorly (IMO) to users making suggestions so it felt easier just to part ways. I still click over to it to see if a recent rec catches my eye because it's been a source for great fic over the years (it's an awesome resource) but I just can't handle it in general.

It doesn't bother me, but I have a very tiny flist; I can understand that for people with more unwieldly lists, it would be prohibitive to read.

The mass rec'ings can get annoying, especially when what's being rec'd isn't your cup of tea, and you have to wade through it until you find something more to your tastes.

It's like when people on FF.net post a long list of their one-shots all at the same time, pushing all other stories to the bottom or the next page. I drives me crazy having to scroll through it to find the other stories (because some of those lists would go on for pages). And if you don't have a lot of time to search for fic, then those stories pushed to the end are pretty much lost.

Yeah, and there was a big fic comm just recently (well, last year or so) that had to ask people not to post a bunch of drabbles as individual posts. Spread it out, people, damn it! And I'm guessing that someone who posts a ton of one-shots at once would end up with many fewer of them being read and commented on; when there's a glut of fic, sometimes it just all gets pushed off to the side (which I've also been guilty of doing with ficathons - I still need to go back and finish reading last spring's Genficathon stories!).

Honestly, the glut wasn't what made me take it off my list; it was the long, rambling recs that seem to be more in vogue these days. (This may have changed back again, but it was driving me crazy to scroll through hundreds of words detailing a fic I had no interest in to get to the next entry on my flist.)

Still, I agree with the general concept of the rant. *g*

(And, looking at the comm, it seems that short is again in style. Which is good, but I think I'll wait until after the first of the month... *g*)

Also to be clear: I have nothing against a long rec in general, just that there were a LOT of long recs, probably compounded by the fact they were posted in clumps toward the end of the month. I realized I was sounding more harsh than I needed to be.

Heh, you don't have to apologize. Generally long recs are like long author's notes -- the fic should speak for itself! Having said that, when I first started reccing at ficrec I saw that everyone else seemed to write paragraphs about their story and I used to try to do likewise. The longer I rec, I think, the shorter my recs get, but I'm pretty sure that long recs aren't more likely to make a reader check out a story -- they just become tl;dr, especially at the end of the month, when everyone else is reccing things too.

I like long recs. I don't think it's anything to do with the fic standing on its own. I want to know why I should read this fic, out of the five bajillion fics out there. "It's so awesome!" doesn't really tell me anything.

And I realise I'm guilty of not giving enough info on my own recs. I usually tend to talk more about a fic when there are problems. But still, I definitely have to disagree with that one.

Well, there's "this is awesome!" and then there are recs that are paragraphs long. I think there's a happy medium.

And...I still like recs that are paragraphs long. I mean, if it's a drabble, sure, that's overkill. But not for a longer or more complicated story? I mean, you look at book reviews and such and they're often several paragraphs, so why not fic?

Yeah. I mean, for a novel-length story, yeah, I can see a longer rec, or review. Sorry--I didn't mean to imply that longer recs were necessarily bad, just not to my taste. I know it sounded a lot more like the first.

That's totally fair, and I'm sorry for presenting it in such either-or terms. I suppose I should mention that I rarely read reviews or view movie trailers, either, at least not as a way of finding new things, because I dislike knowing too much ahead of time. Reviews are something that I read after I've seen the movie or read the book (or the fic), to see if I picked up on the same things the reviewer did and maybe to view it in a brand-new light; I enjoy them, but for me, they serve a different niche than a rec does. I had never thought of recs as being the same as reviews because what I want from a rec is a short paragraph giving me a few reasons to check it out, not an in-depth and somewhat spoilery discussion of the highs and lows, such as I would want from a review.

Shockingly, though, fandom is not entirely composed of me. *g*

Yeah, it just depends for me. I'm not a big fan of spoilers, but a lot of times I really do need more than just a short blurb to convince me to read something.

I really wish more people on the SGA Big Bang comm would use a rec for their preview. I'm finding the authors have no idea how to promote their own work (at least the ones who have posted so far). (Tip #1: If your story is novel-length, you need to write more than one vague line for your summary.) A long rec that really went into what makes the story interesting and different would be immensely helpful.

I still don't know what makes a good preview, and I've been trying to figure that out for years, with original stuff as well as fanfic. The fannish trend towards "describing" a story (especially a long story) with a single line from the story kinda drives me nuts. NOT. HELPFUL. On the other hand, I find excerpts to be really the most useful way of advertising a story *to me* -- it gives me an idea of what to expect without giving away all the twists and turns. There are a number of books I've bought on the basis of reading the first chapter online! If there's a long rec or review, I won't read it because I don't want to be spoiled.

An excerpt is good at giving an idea of the writing style and skill, but often doesn't really tend to tell me what the story is about (and thus whether or not I'd be interested in it).

With my fics, I often tend to take a line or two from the story as the summary, but I try to choose something that gives a good idea of the subject matter. (I don't think I always succeed.) Some people pick what they think is the best line, which again, may give me an idea of the writing style, but is not really telling me what the story is about.

(But then so many people in fandom don't use summaries as a way to choose their reading material anyway, and instead read based on pairing or author or kink or something else that is totally irrelevant to me. :p)

I've used lines as summaries, also, so perhaps I shouldn't talk ...

I guess you really can't anticipate what's going to appeal to the audience. Like an audience is a monolithic entity with only one opinion on anything. What's a fascinating teaser to one person is annoyingly vague to another and irritatingly trite to someone else.

Of the Big Bang previews so far, I've found most of them pretty helpful (in either deciding whether to read the story or whether it won't be my thing) and a couple that are too vague to be useful at all. I like creative previews as much as the next person but there needs to be actual information in it ...!

The one with the images? Yeah, I just could not tell at all what that story was supposed to be about. Maybe if there had been some more accompanying text or if the summary itself had been better.

Yeah, that one. I just found it too vague; I still have no idea what the story's about or if I'd want to read it. But for some people, perhaps it's exactly what they're looking for, and the creative preview (and it *was* cool and creative!) is what draws them in ... like a movie trailer that's just one memorable image without much actual information about the movie.

It's a bit like graphic novel covers, I guess -- I generally dislike covers that are done in a different art style than the interior art, because I want the cover to give me an idea of what to expect from the insides! I tend to be very annoyed when I open up a book on the basis of beautiful cover art and find something totally different. But my inner artist really appreciates some of the pretty covers even while being annoyed that the interior art doesn't match. And obviously for some readers, the pretty covers must work just fine.

This is actually how I realized that it's the end of the month. ;)

and it makes it less likely that people are going to notice or read that rec for that awesome fic you've been waiting for months to share with people.

Exactly!

*g* It sort of works that way for me too, especially on months when I'm not reccing. My flist is full of

stargateficrec; it must be the last couple days of the month! Oh look, yes it is. :D

I suspect part of it is that they've had to scrounge for reccers lately; a lot of us primarily find stories through the comm in the first place (or, if they're like me, can not figure out how to tell clearly if something's already been recced in a category), so the coverage has been thin, and I think a lot of folk have been volunteering out of a sense of obligation rather than motivation. They don't necessarily have that list of stuff they've been waiting forever to rec; they go grab ones to meet their minimum when they notice it's getting late.

I think if I had a backlog to rec and volunteered, I'd try to do one the same day each week, which I'm guessing is the theory behind four per month anyway.

I'm personally accustomed to skimming down my flist because it's also my RSS reader (when the feeds aren't down, again), so the clumps don't especially bother me; I can just ignore a chunk of Sheppard/Weir recs, for example, instead of being excited that I have a new distraction from work on my flist and then realizing I don't care about it. That's almost definitely just me, though. Heh. And I throw a new tab from anything I plan to look into, so I don't tend to miss recs that interest me.

Yeah, but it's not just the recent months; it's been that way ever since I've been watching the comm. I think it improved for a while because the mods got fairly aggressive about bringing it up when people kept doing it -- not that I'm saying they banned anyone or anything, but they used to mention frequently that they prefer the recs to be spread out throughout the month. They've been busier lately, or just not as involved in fandom, and it's been getting worse again.

I tend to dislike high-traffic comms and feeds in general, because they make it more difficult to wade through to my actual friends' posts (which are what I'm more interested in). So maybe that's a personal thing. I've never been able to figure out how people can stand having high-traffic comms on their reading list; I miss things that way.

Edited 2009-10-28 20:32 (UTC)

If certain communities get high traffic for a few days (hi there, secret_santa) I switch to viewing 'journals only' with the filter in the navigation bar, that way I don't miss friends' posts.

And the couple of times I rec'd I always tried to post once a week, but I thought that was a requirement ;). Maybe the mods should change the wording to 'once a week' instead of 'four times a month'. Most people simply follow the comm's guide lines.

Yeah, I have a filter just for communities (like storyfinders and the like), but not every community I watch is on that filter, because I don't check it all that often. I've switched ficrec in and out of there a number of times depending on how annoyed I was with the end-of-month spamming. Generally I keep it on the main filter because I *do* get a lot of my fic-to-read from there.

(or, if they're like me, can not figure out how to tell clearly if something's already been recced in a category)

I just click on the tag for that category and skip back a couple of pages. Unless it's a really popular category, skip=80 or 100 gets you a couple years back in time. If the fic doesn't come up I go ahead and rec; I figure that if it's been rec'd earlier than that, it can't hurt to rec it again. :)

(or, if they're like me, can not figure out how to tell clearly if something's already been recced in a category)

Go the the stargateficrec community and click on "memories" in the top community menu. There you have each reccing category listed as a "memory" category, and if you click on the category you're reccing for you'll see links to every rec made in that category. Then use your browser's search function (some variation of: edit -> find) to search for the title of the fic you're looking for. It's pretty easy and quick once you figure it out, but not immediately obvious. And the tags are hit and miss for checking categories.

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Come on, reccers, please!

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