Given their popularity, I'd like to propose we (by that, I mean you, Lazeez) create a new Forum Post for "Recommendations". Separating those would make finding them easier, will offloading many of the side discussions from the "Story Discussions" Forum.
I'm happy with whatever you decide, but it seems like a logical choice that I trust most readers will appreciate.
it seems like a logical choice
It does indeed. I think it would be a worthwhile separation from Story Discussion and Feedback just as Lost Stories and Story Ideas are, even though it is more closely aligned with the Feedback component that the other two are, and Feedback would be strongly diminished if Recommendations was separated. I am assuming here that Recommendations would also contain negative appraisals, i.e. not recommended.
I think it would be a worthwhile separation from Story Discussion and Feedback just as Lost Stories and Story Ideas are, even though it is more closely aligned with the Feedback component that the other two are, and Feedback would be strongly diminished if Recommendations was separated.
Not necessarily. If someone isn't recommending a story, but commenting on the value of the story, then it would fit into the "Story Discussions" framework, since it's not an actual recommendation but it's antithesis.
I was thinking more alone the lines of "Does anyone have any ... fill in the blank for genre ... stories I may have missed?" questions. Readers could post questions, requesting recommendations, and others could respond, including suggesting alternatives.
I think the "Story Discussions and Feedback" has started to lose the entire "Story Discussion" framework, as most entries are searching for story ideas rather than discussing story problems, alternate threads not taken or unexpected plot twists or plot holes (though the last two were never that common in the first place.
isn't recommending a story, but commenting on the value of the story
I would have thought that commenting on the value of a story would have just been a recommendation (for or against) by proxy. But I have been wrong before.
What you go on to describe in your post is not what I would have immediately thought Recommendations would be describing, but I can see your point. You are looking more for a place to solicit recommendations. I suspect it would soon be flooded with unsolicited recommendations anyway.
I suspect it would soon be flooded with unsolicited recommendations anyway.
There currently aren't many 'unsolicited recommendations'. Most of the recommendations are in response to requests for specific types of stories, or they're comments on a particular story (i.e. commenting on the contents of the story). There's actually very little self-promotion in the forum, unless someone thinks one of their stories fits a specific category request, and then they're almost apologetic about recommending their own work.
But yeah, generally, if you're going to pan a story, you're going to list the things that are wrong with the story, rather than simply listing 'bad books'. I consider such discussion 'story discussions', rather than 'negative recommendations' as the entries are discussing story ideas and which techniques work vs. which fall flat.
But so far, I don't hear any rising chorus for the idea, so maybe it doesn't serve as large a public function as I imagined. :(
Where would this put the current group of Reviews? Generally speaking (I am probably only a Brigadier) the purpose for reviews is to recommend stories to readers. There might be some minor advice to authors in some reviews. Would it save your time to make potential contributors to "Recommendations" be reviewers instead?
The other issue of a formal Recommendations forum is that I have seen a lot of non-SOL stories recommended. Again, speaking as a General, is it in the interest of the site to lead people to stories not posted here? As forum posts go there is a lot of miscellaneous chatter and only the poster is responsible for comments. If there is a formal set of recommendations it might be helpful if they did not have any apparent authority to be recommendations by SOL in any way.
If at some future point you want to set up an on-line bookstore to sell stories at a profit to the site, it might not be in your best interest to diffuse interests of your readers to other locations, like Amazon.
Given their popularity, I'd like to propose we (by that, I mean you, Lazeez) create a new Forum Post for "Recommendations".
Done. New section created.
Thanks, Lazeez. Hopefully—despite the lack of response here—it'll be warmly accepted.
It may help if you shifted many of the existing (or already fulfilled) requests just so there's more there so readers are more likely to go there to request stories (though I can see where that might be problematic).
