Pros fic Reading Room returns

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, there was a pretty overwhelming yes vote to the poll yesterday about whether people would like to read more fic discussion and see the return of the Reading Room, so let's give it a whirl! For people who are newer to the comm, this is how it started, a few years ago now, and here are some posts to give you an idea, and this is how we used to organise it via scheduling.

So... we may not all be in the same place these days, so we might end up by doing it differently, but shall we start the same way and see how it all fits/doesn't it? We would ask for volunteers to rec stories (eventually we did that in themes), and then put up a list so that people knew ahead of time what was coming up and could choose to read the stories (or not!), then we tried to put up a reminder of what the story would be early in the week. The story rec would be posted by a volunteer - and it could be as short as "I liked this story because Doyle was sexy in it. What did you think?" or as long and windy as a long windy thing, depending on the volunteer. People would then comment to the post to say what they thought/ask each other about their opinions/thoughts, ask questions, etc., and that would go on for as long as it went on - days or longer if people were still chatting (though usually up to the next week's rec *g*).

We'd better have another poll to sort this out, if you're up for it, cos clicky buttons are relatively quick and will give an idea of how well that might still work or if we need to try something else.
[Poll #2019727]

As usual - any other ideas or thoughts please comment to let us know!

Comments

For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

Q.1 - although I do occasionally binge on authors or themes (where the filters allow); I usually read eclectically, often based on length of story dictated by the time I have available. So I'm thinking, if I do that, others might also, which in turn led me to thinking [see long and windy :o)] an eclectic approach to discussion might be more inclusive, since a particular theme or author might not be someone's cup of tea and would therefore exclude them from several discussions.

Q.2 - I have no real opinions either way as to Thursdays, but if it worked before, it seems as good a place as any to start.

Suggestion:- can we sometimes include vids?

RE: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

When the reading room started it was random recs that people volunteered, and eventually it evolved into themes, for what was then a sort of freshening-up of the room. *g* I take your point about some people being potentially excluded from a few discussions in a row - I don't think that happened last time, though of course it's hard to tell! So far it's looking as if people are happy to go back to more random recs, so I suspect that's where we'll start from again.

Thursdays are often quite a nice discussion day, I think - if people have a working week, then it's coming to the end and they're able to let themselves be a bit more distracted, but it's also not the rush of a weekend that people might have to spend out in the real world with families and so on (*g*). Again it worked well last time, but if it turns out that people don't really start joining in until Friday, for example, then we could always move it.

And ooh yes, I like the idea of vid recs - maybe even as a separate thing... the Vid Room... Hmmn! *g*

Re: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

(irrelevantly trying out some new icons)

Vids: my thinking was to keep them in the reading room to change things up a bit when it got stale (it must have died a death for some reason?). Maybe two or three at a time every now and then?

Also I thought, perhaps in tandem with the normal rec, a longer fic that would take some time to read (perhaps every quarter? to give everybody enough time to get through it), as another way of keeping things lively.

RE: Re: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd describe the Reading Room as dying a death, it really just faded as lj faded, sadly. It ran from 2009 to 2013, after all! There were a few pauses in that time, and a changes in the person organising it, but I really wouldn't say it went stale at any point. One thing I've found about lj, running various comms, is that there seem to be tides - sometimes (like now) there's a nice, reasonably high tide and people seem to be around and able to spend time here, and then people's time flows backwards again, and things are quieter. One of my co-mods and I tried to work it out once, to see if there was any pattern to things, but there wasn't anything at all, that we could see! Sometimes weekends were busier or quieter, specific months could be either busy or quiet, summer or winter didn't seem to make much difference, school holidays or not... It's just some chaotic internet-tide, I think! *g*

The other reason I was thinking separate fic-discussion and vid-discussion is that for me they're very different things, so one wouldn't really substitute for another, and different people would perhaps be involved to some extent. I can't imagine discussing two or three vids each time either, cos to me each vid is very individual in its story, too... maybe if there was a theme attached - vids about... something... Maybe we could do it the way crack_van used to do it - have "movie night" once a month on a Friday night...

Hmmn - we did have longer recs in the past, too - memorably for me, Redemption by Kate MacLean. They worked pretty well because we tended to schedule the recs a month or so in advance, so people had that time to read the longer zines and stories. Maybe if we dedicated the last Reading Room of the month to a longer story, perhaps, and saw how that went...

I think we'll have to kick it all off and see how we get on this time. See what the tide's like. *g*

Re: Re: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

Well you never know until you try (and I see you already have!)

Themed vid recs seem like a good idea, I could see that working with vids (maybe better than with stories). I bow to your better judgement, I was just throwing out ideas, some might work, others not, I scatter the seed and see what takes :0)

Not to blow my own trumpet (okay blowing my own trumpet) but I only discovered the crack_van by accident in its last few months because someone asked if they could rec an MFU of mine.

It's such a glorious mine of treasures, I found some of my favourite vids there, not mention some great stories. It seems such a shame that it's finally hung up its keys and trundled off to the great garage in the sky. Still, it remains a fantastic archive.

RE: Re: Re: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Hee - we clearly have different ways of seeing things (more fun that way *g*), cos I can't imagine how themed vid recs would work, to be honest! Well, I can imagine how it might be attempted, but... not convinced! *g* I still like the idea of some kind of vid night though, so let's see how we get on with the reading room on Thursday maybe, and then take it from there. *g*

Lol - you have a very pretty trumpet... *g* I've actually never seen a MFU ep all the way through (at least not that I remember, it might have been on when I was a very wee bairn), and I suspect I may need to catch up one of these days!

It is a shame the Crack Van closed, though I'm glad it's still there to be a fab archive of recs. Like most things, you had to spot which reccers your tastes matched, and there were some who seemed to mostly rec their friends, but the very early recs launched me off in various directions when I first found Pros and done my first runs through the Circuit Archive and the Hatstand... *g* I suppose like most of lj it suffered from the various faffs which sent people off to other forums - such a shame!

Re: For clarity, because I'm of the long and windy school

[fiorenza-a.livejournal.com]

I've always loved MFU, but it's not everybody's cup of tea :0)

Happy to go with the flow, whatever everyone is happy with, I'm looking forward to it all kicking off, so many great stories in Pros to choose from.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

For me Wednesday would be the better day because Thursday is one of my sportsdays and so it would be difficult for me to join.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Rats - it's looking like most people are happy with Thursday, I'm afraid. But that said, the discussion isn't just for the day the post is made. In the past it tended to spread over both Thursday and Friday night, and often into the weekend. It didn't really fade until Monday the week after, so hopefully you'd be able to find time to join in then...?

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

There definitively will be time to join if it goes for more days. And I'll try to join on Thuresdays after the training session. Usually I don't fall asleep to quickly afterwards.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

You're playing snap-icon... *g*

I meant to say too - if you'd like to volunteer to post, it's no problem if the post goes up on Wednesday or Friday occasionally, we can totally schedule around things like that! Which is quite an important thing to say really, and I can't think how I managed to not say it - sorry about that! *g*

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

>You're playing snap-icon... *g*

No, not really. ;-)
But I think it is the best fitting icon I have.

And by the way: I hate my tablet because it put letters into words that normally not there. ;-) Therefore I will give you the "e" from my false Thursday. *gg*

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Shame you're not playing, you'd win this round cos I haven't got a Macklin icon... *g* (No, wait, that's not Snap, that's Concentration (Pelmanism)...!)

Anyway - thank you the for 'e'! *g*

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

I really don't mind which day - I'm hopelessly overbooked on all days! But it'll be lovely to see it up and running again, thank you!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Lol - somehow life seems to be overbooking lots of people these days... Hopefully you'll get a few quieter moments and be able to join in, though!

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

I am happy with the choose your own approach - maybe it can evolve into themes later. Every day is unpredictable for me so they all work. I cannot get into the poll with my granny kindle, so these are my answers.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Starting out with choose-your-own is pretty much what I imagined would happen this time (it's how we started last times, as well) but I thought I'd throw the option out there. *g* Thanks for replying to the poll, no matter how you were able to do it. I'm picturing a lovely knitted kindle now, with gold-rimmed glasses propped along its top... *g*