Subject: Concerns about your behavior
Author:
Posted on: 2017-01-28 00:35:00 UTC
From what I understand, you prefer clear and blunt feedback, and I will attempt to provide it. If, from your perspective, I am being vague or unclear, please tell me what you were uncertain about so that I can clarify it. If something I write below appears rude, that is not my intention.
One of my main concerns is that your expressed attitude towards constructive criticism and feedback is not the attitude expected of PPCers. Several people have provided you with critical feedback on your PPC writing, which included suggestions for improvement and often indicated that your stories had significant structural problems that required revision.
You have not (from what I can see) responded to this this concrit in the matter expected of you as a PPCer. There are (speaking generally) several possible responses to concrit we consider appropriate. (This is not written down anywhere, as far as I know. I'm attempting to imprecisely write down my view of social consensus.)
The first is to use the feedback by making edits and improvements to the work being commented on. This is effectively obligatory for unintentional typos and other minor errors. If you use someone's concrit, it is expected that you leave a message indicating this and thanking them for their efforts. If the concrit indicates a major structural issue, and you intend to resolve this issue through heavy editing, you are expected to take your story down until you have completed your changes. As a specific point, if you are told that something is unclear from the text, responding with a clarifying comment (but not changing the story) is not sufficient.
A second option is to discuss and possibly disagree with the concrit. Since writing is a somewhat subjective exercise, there will be times that you will receive concrit that you do not think you should implement, or which you will otherwise disagree with. When this occurs, you should still respond to the criticism and explain (to a reasonable extent) why you disagree with it, ask for clarification, or otherwise discuss the feedback you received.
A third option, which generally applies to large-scale issues that would be difficult to resolve but that are only minor problems (such as being slightly over/under-descriptive) is to acknowledge the feedback and apply it to future work. However, this would not be a reasonable response to the comments you have received on your previous mission, which point out much more serious structural issues.
(In addition, if a response includes multiple items of criticism, you should make some response to all of them.)
The main reason for these expectations is that the PPC is a community dedicated to good writing and improvement. You are expected to engage with the feedback you receive, and to make edits and revisions even after publication. (For example, in this mission, Neshomeh resolved a canon error four years after publication.) This expectation does not generally extend to full rewrites long after the fact, although they may be advised in your case. Your apparent refusal to do this ("the two linked stories are dead and I won't be working on them") is not an expected response. (If this was a highly abbreviated way to withdraw those stories from the PPC universe, please indicate that you are doing this.) Similarly, replying to concrit by simply indicating you have read it is not a correct response.
There have also been concerns about your interactions with your beta readers. In general, you are expected to engage with your betas' feedback like you would with concrit. You are also expected not to publish work until you have resolved your betas' concerns (or reached a state of mutual reasonable disagreement). Not doing this indicates an apparent lack of interest in cultivating good writing skills on your part, which is something I am concerned about.
Furthermore, you have displayed (though you seem to not be doing this as much recently) a pattern of posting on the Board for a day or two and then disappearing for a long period of time. While hiatuses are a normal part of PPC life, you should at least keep an eye on your own threads, and respond to those who reply to you as appropriate. This is especially the case with mission and interlude threads. Posting a mission and then (from out perspective) ignoring the replies is not the behavior we want you to exhibit. It shows that you are not acting as a member of the PPC community, and the PPC is fundamentally a community that writes in a shared universe, not a shared universe with an attached community.
There are no formal consequences if you keep acting this way. However, there are likely to be informal social consequences. That is, people will become annoyed with you because you are not respecting community norms. You may begin finding it more difficult to find beta readers if you continue to develop a reputation as being difficult to work with. Your work may go unread. You may stop receiving feedback because people will not want to waste their time giving concrit that will not be applied. This is not inevitable, and will (almost certainly) not occur if you change your behavior to better align with our expectations.
I hope that my attempt at writing down the unspoken conventions of the PPC will help you work with us better, and I look forward to reading your future writing.
- Tomash