Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brightknightie) wrote2023-01-06 07:55 pm
brightknightie) wrote2023-01-06 07:55 pm
Entry tags:
a possible side-effect of the HLH_Shortcuts author-guessing game
I love the annual ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hlh_shortcuts exchange, which brings us fresh new HL stories every winter. Read this year's works. I've been reading in the event for many more years than I've been writing in it.
I worry, though, that its author guessing game can sometimes discourage newer players who couldn't possibly guess its effects, and might feel hurt while relatively few comments and kudos come in through the posting period and guessing game. Newer players might interpret this as their stories being rejected by their fellow players. I hope and believe that's usually not what happens.
Here's what I think I understand about what happens in this exchange, which makes it different from most events:
Back before the A03, the writers emailed their stories to the moderator, who then posted them herself, one by one, on the HLH_Shortcuts LiveJournal community, anonymously. People read the stories and commented (and you could comment on your own story there). At the end of posting, the community made a game of guessing who wrote each story. Then the moderator edited each LJ post to add the author's name and announced the winner of the guessing game.
When the AO3 came along, and then DW, the exchange moved. When you post your own story on the AO3,you can't comment on it or kudo it [per comments below, we can comment on our own AO3 stories! I never knew]. So if you choose to comment or kudo on all the stories except the one you wrote, you've revealed which story you wrote, by process of elimination. So folks who want to play (or just support) the guessing game will deliberately not comment on all the stories -- indeed, they may particularly choose not to comment on stories that they hope others will think they wrote!
This should all come around to a happy ending with folks coming back to comment and kudos on more of the stories after reveals. Often they do! Sometimes, though, this approach can seem to encourage less total interaction than an otherwise similar event might earn during an equivalent play period. No momentum.
Anyway, that's just what I think, myself. Many of you may know more; I could be misguided. I just would like everyone to know, in this exchange, silence may actually mean folks hope to be mistaken for you!
hlh_shortcuts exchange, which brings us fresh new HL stories every winter. Read this year's works. I've been reading in the event for many more years than I've been writing in it.I worry, though, that its author guessing game can sometimes discourage newer players who couldn't possibly guess its effects, and might feel hurt while relatively few comments and kudos come in through the posting period and guessing game. Newer players might interpret this as their stories being rejected by their fellow players. I hope and believe that's usually not what happens.
Here's what I think I understand about what happens in this exchange, which makes it different from most events:
Back before the A03, the writers emailed their stories to the moderator, who then posted them herself, one by one, on the HLH_Shortcuts LiveJournal community, anonymously. People read the stories and commented (and you could comment on your own story there). At the end of posting, the community made a game of guessing who wrote each story. Then the moderator edited each LJ post to add the author's name and announced the winner of the guessing game.
When the AO3 came along, and then DW, the exchange moved. When you post your own story on the AO3,
This should all come around to a happy ending with folks coming back to comment and kudos on more of the stories after reveals. Often they do! Sometimes, though, this approach can seem to encourage less total interaction than an otherwise similar event might earn during an equivalent play period. No momentum.
Anyway, that's just what I think, myself. Many of you may know more; I could be misguided. I just would like everyone to know, in this exchange, silence may actually mean folks hope to be mistaken for you!
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I wanted to explain something that I thought newer folks would not know or understand, because I would very much have wanted it explained to me, in their places.
(Two stories still don't have comments from the people for whom they were written. And the fabulous long piece written for my prompt still has only 2 commenters (3 total comments, because I left 2) and that surely has less to do with the guessing game than with my request; I feel bad for leading that author down to the wide, lonely tundra of things I absolutely adore that not a lot of others do.)
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So I am happy to be led down the wide tundra with you. Truly one of my favorite years doing hlh_shortcuts. I gushed a little more on writing this story on my DW. Thanks for making the request!
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Your Randi story is amazing; indeed, anyone passing it by is foolishly missing out.
As you're here, you probably saw my original anon-period recommendation of your story, but in case not... link!
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