Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[julilly]

[julilly]

These rules supersede the rules posted on August 16, 2010. As of now this update is the most current.

#7 is the new rule! Please be sure to check your stories and pass word along to writers you know who might not follow us on Twitter or check the forum!

Enforcement of rule #7 will begin April 20, 2012.

[colorguard_diva]

I just wanted to say that I think rules are helpful to make AC a productive site. Though I would like some clarifcation about a few of the rules. Thanks for your time.

Rule 5 -- I am fine with an author having more than 2 stories on the Most Recent page when the dates are clearly different days. I also agree that posting 2 stories a day is fair. My concern is those who update those two stories continously all day long. Meaning they post a chapter in the morning, a chapter in the afternoon, and a chapter in the evening. This keeps their story at the very top of the Most Recents page all day long. I do not see how that is being fair to the other writers of AC. It's frustrating when you post your story and not 30 minutes later another writer/writers who''ve already posted twice in the same day, posts another chapter. It has happened multiple times to me and many other writers. I just feel that they are trying to keep their story at the top with no regard to other authors. Just my thoughts and observations on the Most Recent page for the past few months.

Rule 7 -- This new rule just threw me for a loop. I haven't seen any summaries that have caused me concern with their length. I just find it interesting to be bound by a certain amount of sentences. Some stories may take more the 5 to 6 sentences to set up a summary. Look at most books. They have more than 5 to 6 sentences in their summaries, some even have more than one paragraph. I am just curious why this has beccome an issue and would like clarification about it.

[mare]

Hey Rachel,

Some of these stories use at least four paragraphs to describe what it's all about. I don't know how it shows up on your page but for me, some of these stories take up half a page all by themselves just with the descriptions and the banners. Both Julilly and I have noticed this and decided it was time to bring it to people's attention.

 If your story is well thought out enough, you should be able to describe it within 5 to 6 sentences (which is a lot actually) I mean that's an entire paragraph. That should be more than enough to let us know what a story is about.

So, that's where the rule came from. We were afriad if we didn't implement it soon, we'd be reading entire chapters within a summary.

I get what you are talking about for the constant updating, it is annoying to always see the same stories at the top of the page, but we figured out we can't please everybody. If we start saying no to that then ten other people will complain we're not being fair. Maybe as writers we just need to be more conscience of things like that and realize that everyone deserves a chance to have their stuff at the top of the list and maybe post a chapter, wait a few hours and then post another. Obviously if it gets to the point it's out of control and most people are abusing it, we'll have to really reconsider the rule and revise.

Hope that answered your questions.

[RokofAges75]

I just wanna point out that I saw SakaSteph tweet about people on fanfic.net posting BLANK CHAPTERS just to bump their stories to the top - apparently that is a common occurrence over there.  Hearing about that makes me glad we have rules to prevent such douchery here... and also that most people on AC (you forum peeps, anyway ) aren't douches and would never do that in the first place.

[colorguard_diva]

Hey Mare,

Thanks for clarifying for me. I have to say I'm lucky because no one's summaries have taken half a page for me. None of the current summaries have been bothersome to me, including those who have used more than one paragraph. I think some stories might lead to having more than one paragraph or the use of say 10 sentences and not take half a page. Just my thought on the subject. Even for myself I can't not say that all my stories (in the future) would be able to have summaries of 4 to 6 sentences. One might need say 10 sentences to make it coherent for a possible reader.

Really when you think of it 5 to 6 sentences with maybe 10 words in it is only 50 to 60 words, would it possible to have say 100 to 125 words for a summary instead. That way if you need more words to describe a story you would have them. Personally, I can see the run-on sentences forming in people summaries to fulfill that 5 to 6 sentences rule....lol. Just a suggestion.

The people who post at least three chapters of a story throughout the day in my opinion are still monoplozing the Most Recent page. Why can't you post all three chapters at one time. I'm not asking you to change the rules, I am just explaining my thoughts. There will always be those who follow the rules and those who will not and do it repeatedly. It's just the way life is.  I know it would annoy everyone If I posted the same story 5 times in one day.

[colorguard_diva]

Julie,

Yeah that is totally wrong. Though I think posting chapters of your story multiple times a day so that it is always on top is rude and unfair to those who follow the rules. They get away with it because as long as they are only posting two stories a day, they can post chapters of those 2 stories until their heart is content and knock people further down on the page to remain on top.

Sorry it's a pet peeve of mine.

[Sakabelle]

I just wanna point out that I saw SakaSteph tweet about people on fanfic.net posting BLANK CHAPTERS just to bump their stories to the top - apparently that is a common occurrence over there.  Hearing about that makes me glad we have rules to prevent such douchery here... and also that most people on AC (you forum peeps, anyway ) aren't douches and would never do that in the first place.

FanFiction.net makes me want to scream. I really hate that website. They have "rules" but no one ever enforces them. What's the point in bumping like that? They post notes at the end of their chapters too, saying "No new chapter until I get ten reviews!" It's almost like you won't get comments unless you do that. Not that I post a whole lot over there or anything, but still. What's the point in writing if you're just writing for reviews? What does a review mean if you aren't passionate about the material you wrote?

Many hugs for Mare and Julilly for being such awesome mods and making AC such a great community for writers.

[RokofAges75]

LOL I wish I was productive enough to be able to post multiple chapters a day!  The only way I could do that is if I hoarded them, but I usually don't have the willpower to hang on to chapters very long once I'm done editing them, at least of stories that are already online.

Personally, that doesn't bother me half as much as people spamming up the whole Most Recent page by posting their whole collection of stories at once.  At the end of the day, even if they've updated one story ten times, it's still just taking up one spot on the page.  Who cares if it's the top story?  I'm willing to bet anyone who clicks on the Most Recent to browse will at least scroll down the first page.

[colorguard_diva]

How can they post their whole collection at once, lol. That's clearly breaking the rule of more than two stories.

[RokofAges75]

As far as the summary rule goes... I can see both sides of that.  I remember being annoyed at FictionPress for having such a strict word count limit for summaries.  I tried to post a story there with a summary that was only 3 sentences (48 words), and it was still too long!  So at least we're not being limited to that extent here.

Unfortunately, as with a lot of these rules, it's the people who have no common sense who have ruined it for the rest of us.  No one's summary should take up an entire page, but I've seen some - and recently - that do.  On the other hand, published novelists do have much longer summaries on their book covers - but in that case, they're not competing for space with other people's summaries.

I think that's what a lot of these rules boil down to - space.  Banner size, summary length, number of updates in a day...  It's all about making sure we have an equal share of the space on that damn Most Recent page, so that everyone's stories have a chance to be seen.

[RokofAges75]

How can they post their whole collection at once, lol. That's clearly breaking the rule of more than two stories.

I know; that's why that rule was created in the first place LOL, because that's what people were doing.

[julilly]

Hey Mare,

Thanks for clarifying for me. I have to say I'm lucky because no one's summaries have taken half a page for me. None of the current summaries have been bothersome to me, including those who have used more than one paragraph. I think some stories might lead to having more than one paragraph or the use of say 10 sentences and not take half a page. Just my thought on the subject. Even for myself I can't not say that all my stories (in the future) would be able to have summaries of 4 to 6 sentences. One might need say 10 sentences to make it coherent for a possible reader.

Really when you think of it 5 to 6 sentences with maybe 10 words in it is only 50 to 60 words, would it possible to have say 100 to 125 words for a summary instead. That way if you need more words to describe a story you would have them. Personally, I can see the run-on sentences forming in people summaries to fulfill that 5 to 6 sentences rule....lol. Just a suggestion.

The people who post at least three chapters of a story throughout the day in my opinion are still monoplozing the Most Recent page. Why can't you post all three chapters at one time. I'm not asking you to change the rules, I am just explaining my thoughts. There will always be those who follow the rules and those who will not and do it repeatedly. It's just the way life is.  I know it would annoy everyone If I posted the same story 5 times in one day.

The fact that you keep repeating "I haven't even noticed" just goes to show that very few stories on the site right now would actually break this rule. So most people have nothing to worry about.

The reason you haven't really noticed the ones that take up half a page is because every time they get posted I have to go in and edit the summaries to try and make them as small as possible. There have been summaries on stories added recently that not only are double spaced but are upwards of 500 words! That's not a summary, it's a synopsis. Not to mention, what qualifies as bothersome to you may not to someone else and vice versa (i.e. 500 words takes up a lot more space on someone's phone screen than it does on a computer screen.).

You can say a lot in 6 sentences and for those with banners maybe they need to start using their banners more creatively rather than just having a photo with a title written on it. There's a lot of space in a 600 pixel banner.

Though your suggestions are great in principle, in practice Mare and I would have to do a LOT of work. That's what it would take to give a summary word count because we would have to copy and paste every summary into Word to see if it met the guidelines. And in order for us to limit the number of chapters someone posts every day we would have to follow and get email notifications of every single author's updates on the site then count them up. Somehow, I can't see that being a very efficient or effective business model.

We can see sentences, we can see the day something has been updated which makes it easy and fast for us to follow up on.

[colorguard_diva]

And while you may notice certain things, other notice other things. Really, if it were my story I would prefer you to ask me to edit my summary than editing yourself. Only for the simple reason that if you haven't read the story how would you know what information is pertinent to my story.

Like my original post I really just wanted clarfication because rule 7 came from out of the blue. The other rules we hear about all the time. Clearly, we don't want to add any work to anyone's  already busy life. Maybe letting the author edit their summary would save you time.

[FrickingKaos]

Personally I think editing should be left up to the writers themselves.

Like for example someone breaks a rule, you give them 24 hours to fix it, or something like that. Kind of like how you handle banner size. Not telling you how to run the site, just a suggestion.