Mummified

Looking forward to the revolution when the homepage is ALL writing related. Just for a day. Should be close with the current Writers Market crop.

Has anything happened to the forcritique tag thingy?

Good to hear your meeting went well Fran!

Were any other ideas particularly liked?

Heheh, and looking forward to the RedBubble writers day :)

Hi Empress,
the “for critique tag thingie” was discussed yesterday. Some writers want it, others don’t so we will need to separate it somehow so people understand that giving that type of feedback is restricted to “on request”. We have our next round of site initiatives being planned next week and it is definitely on the agenda. Damian, there were a heap of ideas and I will forward the complete list to you when I am next in the office (remind me if you don’t see it on your bubblemail by week end)

different coloured fonts but not flouro hard to read ones like maybe red and royal bue and forest green :)

“Constructive criticism”, heh. Things are way too subjective and what I like and find appealing might be horrible and boring for another person, hence why I don’t trust critiques completely unless they offer solid backup or point out grotesque typos and stuff like that.

I’m all for a quarterly publication thingie as well as the cover thing. I might attempt something like that sooner or later. We gotta revive the writers section =/

thanks lostboy1 and abyssalSoul. all helpful stuff.

i’d like to take the opportunity to throw in my belated tuppence, if i may.

i like the idea of artwork- would defintitely attract readers. don’t like the idea of coloured fonts. waste of time, both the readers’ and the writers’. words are words. letters are letters, and a full stop is a full stop, even if some insolent parties continue to insist on calling it a period (which everyone knows is a particularly difficult time of the month for men, regardless which side of the atlantic they are on).

i don’t think anyone has read anything of mine for about six months, probably because most of it is tripe, and i don’t think turning it all green , or even blue, is going to help,. i am however beginning to suspect that telling everybody that it’s tripe before giving them a chance to make up their own mind probably doesn’t help either.

a simple visual, individual rating system (5 bubble system displayed along side the avatar of people who’ve actually read it and rated it, displayed ahead of the piece, seperate to comments) would be pretty useful especially for longer pieces- it would give an approximate guide to potential readers, who would probably be able to judge if it’ll be their cup of tea or not, and an approximate guide to writers of who has actually read anything to the end (a combination of ‘views’ and ‘favourites’ does not inform in this capacirty). for example if ‘stringer’ gave one of ‘war of the roses’ story ‘five bubbles’, and ‘sruhs’ gave it a oner anyone from the ‘luke warm cups of tea and middle aged slippers group’ would know not to bother. whilst ‘mushroom broth and wildlife afficiendoes’ would be happy to risk ten minutes. this sort of thing would act as a very helpful guide to everyone, the writer included.

comments, criticism,etc, which can be a pain in the arse to trapse through if you want an idea if it’s worth reading or not, , can get tagged on at the end, for more in depth banter.

i hope you get my drift, and apologise profusely if this isn’t, as i suspect, an original idea- and i don’t mean anything personal to stringer or sruhs- just they are two members who sprung to mind as they have tastes and interests at varying ends of the spectrum, and both of their names begin with ’s’. (i used ‘war of the roses’ as an example becasue they are the best bloody wrtier i’ve come across here)

as for the failing falling fading writing thing, the fundemental problem is that it takes much longer to read a story than it does to look at a picture- thus the assymetry that currently exists. people need to be convinced to waste their time with writng, where as with a picture its fairly obvious. let’s inform them with individual ratings.

may i add, as a final point, for the benfit of those opposed to anything negative being mentioned about their precious drivel, that if people do not want their writing criticised they have NO RIGHT to publish it in any form. i repeat, NO RIGHT. one way public broadcast without an equal opportunity to reply in the same arena exists only in places like north korea. it is a natural system of check and balance. if you don’t want to know what people think, why are you sharing it? if you are looking for a pat on the back just email it to your mum. she’ll love it. if someone slates you, just take comfort in the fact anybody bothered to read it it at all. after all, that is what it is about, isn’t it? product and criticism- one cannot exist without the other. the two go hand in hand like bread and fucking butter. if you are worried that someone will offend you by telling you it’s’‘wank’, or even ‘utter wank’, then don’t show it to anyone. ‘period’, as they say on the unfortunate side of the atlantic.

When I joined RedBubble, I had no idea about the writing aspect of the site. The main-page is design and photography, and that’s what I expected throughout. I find myself happily surprised that this is not the case. My first passion has always been the written word, design is an outlet when the words don’t come. For years I’ve been posting work on www.zoetrope.com, and it sounds like writers here are thirsting for something similar.
I agree with Kahn’s comments above, but it can be difficult – especially for new writers – to put your work out for public criticism. A single scathing comment, true or not, can make a lot of people give up what glimmer of hope they may have had. Zeotrope has eliminated this by giving the author the right to rate the reviewer. If a reviewer gets too many negative ratings, they are removed from the site. This ensures that only constructive criticism is received. There’s nothing wrong with negative criticism, provided it comes with suggestions for improvement. Too many critics think that, “This sucks,” constitutes feedback.
I hope RedBubble can make some of Fran’s ideas come into fruition, there’s nothing but possibilities here.

Thank you Mr Khan. Will review your suggestions and provide contructive criticism in time. Very sorry to hear about your troubles with periods -they are certainly an utter pain. Do you also get cramps ? Perhaps only if karate-kicked in the head ? Thanks too Talkingwater. I’ll go and look at what Zoetrope are doing. I do think that constructive criticism is really handy stuff but I am sympathetic to those who feel timid. Not everyone is as robust as Mr Khan. In fact, few are. I am now awol for a while (slacking off on holiday I’m afraid) so please do not be offended if my dispatches from here are a bit patchy. It is hard to type while bodysurfing a wave….

‘this sucks’ does constitute feedback- a quick glance at the offender’s own efforts will give an author, or artist, a chance to know whether or not this opinion is to be valued. if, for instance, jeffery archer commented ‘this sucks’ i’d take it as a compliment, but if p.g. wodehouse wrote it, i’d understand that i’d be better off going back to working nights in the garden centre.

one such incident affected me- this was written after one of my strories…

“i agree with sjem…what a devastating read. i couldn’t bear reading all this tosh after the first cpl of lines. i was just wondering, babe, where else does the sky ‘stretch out’ (nice prose) but ‘above’ a person?
unmajestically? nice.
Nintendo? product placement. so thats how you get the cash to research your topics in such concentrated fashion. that was all i could take.”

you can read the piece here to make up your own mind, and read the comment in context.-

linK:”http://www.redbubble.com/people/khan001/writing/14285-bunker”

was i offended? no, because the guy who wrote it was producing (in my opinion) onion flavoured drivel- and anybody who valued his opinion- well, it just wasn’t written for them. i didn’t even consider deleting the comment. it was, perversely, a fine commendation.

and for the record my ex-wife just tried to stab me in the eye with a fork.

Was she your ex-wife before the attempted stab, or is this a spur of the moment decision on your part?

i love you
i hate you
i love you
i hate you
stab.
etc.

lucky she didn’t have a spoon, she could have scooped out your eyeball – eeeeeewwww

please don’t give her ideas.

IMPORTANT WOMEN’s POSITIONS NOW aVAILABLE AT *ARSE. news flash

come on then.

i wrote a forum post with another idea/concern about writing here. you can view it here. it would be nice to be able to share our writing with ONLY members of the site so as not to violate first publishing rights for outside writing gigs… if not, redbubble may not attract any professional writers or published writers or writers who are freelancing because posting their work here is considered a first publishing right granted to red bubble? just an idea. i am a feelance writer and it concerns me, which is why none of my writing is posted here yet. still waiting feedback and help on this issue.