[FFML] A thought on the future of the FFML

[David Smith]

On 6/24/2013 4:31 PM, Mythril Moth wrote:
>> I don't think a fanfiction.net-style web forum would quite work for  
>> us. The technology is readily available, but it only effectively  
>> facilitates comments that are short and address the fic (or a 
>> chapter)  as a whole. That's fine for fanfiction.net, but the 
>> character of their  membership is not the same as ours. FFML, at 
>> least historically, has  been a smaller, more dedicated community 
>> with a greater commitment to  quality before quantity, and a 
>> willingness to spend time looking at  each other's work in detail in 
>> order to help ourselves improve.
>
> This is one of those "very real problems" with the idea that I 
> mentioned when I posted it. We'd need to utilize software that allows 
> for a flexible and verbose degree of interaction, while at the same 
> time being something you could noodle around with on your smartphone 
> while at work or on the train or wherever.
>

One writer, who I was helping for a bit, was using a fantastic little 
tool called Orphus (http://orphus.ru) on his website.  He was 
translating some of his stuff to English (but seems not to, anymore, or 
it's well-hidden on the current version of the website), though it works 
regardless of the language.

His current website (so you can get a rough idea of how it works) is 
http://ranmafics.ru/

A Russian translation of Krista Perry's "Hearts of Ice" (chapter 17): 
http://ranmafics.ru/fanfics/hoi/hoi17.shtml

You can see how it works on the HoI page.  Select some text, and hit 
Ctrl-Enter (enable scripting on ranmafics.ru, if you have NoScript; 
allowing orphus.ru is not required).  It brings up a dialog that allows 
you to enter notes that are specific to that exact segment of text.  You 
could put in just a corrected spelling of a word, or more elaborate 
notes about phrasing or whatever other issue there is.

I can't find anything offhand on how it looks on the author side, but I 
think I remember it showing a series of highlighted notes throughout the 
text, and you could click each one to adjust what was written, and mark 
them resolved as you went through.

It's powered by Orphus's system, and the requirement is just a simple 
javascript include on each page.  I'm not sure how well it works in 
terms of getting feedback to a specific author (presuming multiple 
authors are putting their stories on a single site), or whether it all 
goes back to the site owner and needs further redistribution from 
there.  However in terms of utility for a reviewer providing feedback, 
it's really handy and easy to use.

I have no idea how well it would work with a smartphone or similar, as I 
don't have one to test with, however it seems as if it wouldn't be too 
difficult to use that way.

Downside is that it appears to send every such edit through Orphus's 
servers, which may have some implications that need further 
consideration (though it obviously simplifies things for the admin).  It 
should be possible to rewrite everything to be purely local, though 
you'd also want to be sure Orphus would be happy with such usage.


> To everyone reading, I ask for a moment of honesty here. You don't 
> necessarily need to reply on-list, just answer this question in your 
> own mind: How often do you even check your e-mail anymore, compared to 
> how much time you spend on social media, web forums, and the like? 
> Would you be more likely to read and reply to fanfics if you could 
> easily browse them while you're taking a break at work, waiting in a 
> doctor's office or such, or on the go? We're in an age where e-mail 
> has become a comparative chore. Even as I write this, there are people 
> who won't see it for a few hours yet, if at all today, but are 
> probably busy posting on some forum somewhere from a mobile device. 
> Everyone has "time" for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and even 
> web forums while they're at work or doing other things. Nobody has 
> "time" for e-mail while they're doing the same things, even if their 
> devices support it. That's all I'm really getting at here: we need to 
> upgrade the medium that drives this list to something that has the 
> same likelihood of being attended to by list members as Farmville.

For me, it's not an issue about having time for email itself, it's 
having time for an entire chapter.  On Fanfiction.net, an entire chapter 
is all too often barely a handful of pages.  However on the FFML, a 
chapter is a serious chunk of work.  It's an amount of material that I 
love reading, but that I dread reviewing, because reviewing a chapter 
takes at least two to three times as long as reading it if I'm trying to 
be thorough, and doesn't lend itself well to taking breaks.  If you're 
trying to make internal notes to the chapter, you have to already be 
creating a new email before you even start reading.

Fanfiction.net discourages detailed reviews in its own way -- a limit of 
how much text you can write in a review, inability to quote text easily, 
or otherwise provide context, and a hard division between reading mode 
and reviewing mode.

FFML similarly discourages reviews because of being isolated from casual 
perusal, and a largely all-or-nothing implication in what you can review 
(not strictly true, but people aren't going to be sending off tons of 
emails with a handful of paragraphs each).  It's also more difficult to 
review stories older than when you first signed up for the list.

A web site like Fanfiction.net (or various others) has strengths where 
the FFML has weaknesses, and weaknesses where the FFML has strengths.  
Something is certainly needed that can improve on both.


>
>> So, I'm not necessarily against the idea, but whatever we switch to  
>> has to suit our needs as a community, one of a very different  
>> character from fanfiction.net. We *need* the ability to target a  
>> specific line or other portion of a story, to write commentaries 
>> that  are as long as the story itself, and to comment off of someone 
>> else's  comment. I don't know of any web software package that 
>> currently does  this. Maybe we could find one, or maybe we could 
>> design and write our own.
>
> This I completely agree with, and there are quite a few web software 
> models that can accomodate, or be adapted to accomodate, the list's 
> needs. I would recommend a combination of vBulletin (as a forum) and a 
> story archival and comment model similar to, but more robust than, the 
> one in use here:
>
> http://www.fimfiction.net/
>
> The way FiMF is set up is considerably better than FF.net, but the 
> major problem, again, is quoting large chunks of the story for reply. 
> However, it shouldn't be too difficult for a savvy designer to create 
> something based around a similar model, but with a more expansive 
> quote-and-comment system.
>
>> The other issue is that any new venue would need to be accepted by 
>> the list population at large. Even if people *think* this will happen 
>> it might not. Once I was adminning a political email list and 
>> suggested  the idea of moving to a web forum. Everybody was positive 
>> toward the  idea. But when I actually set up the forum, nobody used 
>> it; everyone just kept using the email list because it was what they 
>> were used to.
>
> Yeah, that's the real catch: if we actually agreed as a whole to do 
> this, would it work?
>
> But again, my goal here is just to get people talking and thinking 
> about it, and see where we go from there. Hopefully something 
> wonderful will come from all this, but if absolutely nothing happens 
> at all, or something happens and it tanks, at least I tried. :)

It needs to be easy to use both for the reviewer and the author. Any 
notable annoyance for either will keep people from wanting to change; if 
they have to deal with such issues anyway, might as well be the ones 
they're already used to. The lower the barrier to entry, the more likely 
it will be adapted.

--
David