Misha Route Collection

[Mirage_GSM]

Naturally.
The closer the submission is to the format we choose, the easier the job of the person responsible for updating.

Speaking of format - any suggestions for improving the format I ... suggested?
You mentioned "genre" but given that 95% of all the stories here will be romance, I'm not sure we absolutely need it. If the story is something completely different (like something Hoitash or Kosherbacon wrote) we can mention it in the disclaimer (which we can also call "remarks").

[BlackWaltzTheThird]

I'm hesitant to put forward an opinion. I've been considering a variety of angles but I'm finding it difficult to arrive at something conclusive. Apologies if this rambles.

Just having a compendium of everything would be a waste of time, because the Fan Fiction subforum is a compendium in and of itself. So, by default, this compendium should only house a fraction of the available content. But, what content?

Would it be fan-favourite stuff? Popular stuff? That's all subjectively decided, and can potentially cause a lot of trouble. And even if not, there already exists a recommended fics page on the Katawa Shoujo TVTropes portal (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/F ... tawaShoujo), which accomplishes more or less the same goal. Furthermore, JTemby has a similar "babby's intro to fanfics" compilation on Pastebin (http://pastebin.com/PpGnE3nc) which, despite only having a few fics in each category, is still a hefty reading list. That is ignoring the arguability of which fics deserve to be listed there, which can change regularly.

So then is it supposed to be some kind of organiser? Like, listing fics based on content or theme or other such things? Perhaps it might be convenient if someone were trying to find something of which they didn't recall the name/author, but all in all it would amount to a very pointless list, because literally all of its content would exist right nearby and able to be searched through using the forum's search function, which could achieve similar results.

If we take a look at some existing compendiums for reference, we may be able to gain some insight to the matter. As atw_ah mentioned, Mehkanik/Thatguy hosts a compilation of all the fics posted in KSG, which to my knowledge contains entirely Pastebin links. This is handy, because Pastebin is not a searchable archive and unless someone were to post a link, no one would know of the target's existence. However, it falls to Mehk to scrape the archives for links and update the compilation himself, sorting each fic by its content. A monumental task for sure, one which is often so time-consuming that, nowadays, Mehk doesn't update for weeks or months at a time.

The same could be said of whoever might manage a similar compilation here. It would require a considerable time investment just to read everything submitted and thus decide whether it is acceptable for inclusion and, if so, how it should be categorised. Also, a forum is a relatively limited format for a compilation, given post length restrictions and other such things, which places a finite cap on the number of included fics. And, if that person should no longer want to or be able to maintain the compilation, it may be difficult or inconvenient to involve a replacement manager.

I briefly considered suggesting a kind of "Fic of the Week" thread, where people could suggest something that deserves some spotlight and, each week, something could have a (VERY) little piece done on it with a link. The idea was inspired in part by the "Fangame of the Month" topic on Pokécommunity. But, the problem there was that the spotlight was consistently shone on the already-big projects, and especially in a discipline for which many artists never finish their work, no net gain came of it. The same thing wouldn't necessarily happen here, but the question remains as to how the spotlight is selected or who selects it.

It's also worth considering the rights of the authors. Do they want to have their fics featured? Do they want them to be featured alongside others'? If they aren't able to be contacted, what should be done? Are fics taken on their merits, or does the author and his or her reputation affect the decision? It's a complex problem.

I've not been able to formulate a sufficiently pleasing permutation to any of these solutions. With that in mind, I think it may be best that such a thing not go ahead at all. It isn't really necessary, and will inevitably devolve into a circlejerk less about Katawa Shoujo than people flaunting their e-peen for having been included or whining for not having been included. It reeks of a meta-posting vibe; something which I know from experience ends badly, as was the case for Crispychat/CAPSchat way back when. The Fan Fiction subforum is adequate as it is.

Holy shit I wrote a lot.

TL;DR: If you think a fic deserves some note, then by all means advertise it in your sig or something. But making a thread for it is not the way to go.

[Comrade]

Yes I have.
Name:
Author:
Type: (fan route, oneshot, poem, etc.)
Genre: this could be a lot of things, and romance could be combined with other things.
Main characters: here it could be specified if its an OC fic
Status: (completed, in progress, dead fic etc.)
Length: this could be either word count or number of pages
I think that's pretty good

[Silentcook]

Two administrative considerations:

-There is practically NO quality control on the Fan Works forums. Yes there are a few locked threads. Go look at them, I believe you'll get why I'm saying "practically".
This has to carry over to any archive threads, otherwise you can kiss the idea goodbye. Not gonna deal with the shit that would result from people who didn't make the cut and got upset.
This effectively murders any thoughts about any "best of" thing, obviously.

-While our "Recommend a VN" thread works halfway decently since making a VN is not exactly immediate, a "Recommend a KS fanfic" thread would be vastly more subject to bloating and sockpuppeting since writing a fanfic IS quite immediate. I'm saying "immediate", not "simple" nor "easy to do well".

Current leaning: more trouble than it's worth, people who can't click on a dozen pages and check the "views" column will have to find the strength.

[Comrade]

Hmm well, if that's what you think I can't really add anything on the matter.
What do other people think then?

[Mirage_GSM]

So then is it supposed to be some kind of organiser? Like, listing fics based on content or theme or other such things? Perhaps it might be convenient if someone were trying to find something of which they didn't recall the name/author, but all in all it would amount to a very pointless list, because literally all of its content would exist right nearby and able to be searched through using the forum's search function, which could achieve similar results.

If anything it would be this.
I think it would be a nice thing to have - some people are interested in certain pairings before others or might like to find stories where Rin is the protagonist or stories that are actually completed instead of breaking off in the middle, and it's kind of hard to find out stuff like that from the viewcount - but if I thought it was neccessary I would have pushed the idea a long time ago.
The workload would be manageable, and it would be vastly preferable to dozwns of "personal" recommendation threads like this one springing up.

[Comrade]

I agree whole heartily with mirage_GSM

[dewelar]

I think it would be a nice thing to have - some people are interested in certain pairings before others or might like to find stories where Rin is the protagonist or stories that are actually completed instead of breaking off in the middle...

Right here is the piece that would make it useful. I know, when I was starting "Developments", I was trying to find out if anyone had done anything similar (Hanako and Hisao dealing directly with the fallout of Lilly's departure after her -- Bad? Neutral? Ending? Still not sure which of those is the accepted designation), and had a devil of a time. I was fortunate enough to get pointed in the direction of "Hyacinth", and found that it was almost nothing like what I'd be doing, but it would have been nice if I didn't have to work so hard to chase it down.

That said...I tend to agree with Silentcook that it's likely to end up more trouble than it's worth.

[ewx]

All too often I've been reading something in the fan fiction section and ended up reading something incomplete, something that does not pique my interest (despite starting to read it) or just does not appeal to my tastes. For example, I personally prefer not to read one-shots but I've read nearly 5 in the last week because I've started reading and not bothered to check the rest of the thread to look for any signs to suggest otherwise.

While some threads are well sign-posted as to what they contain in terms of characters, plot and length, others are either cryptic or simply not there to give me a basic idea of what it will be without having to waste my time reading it.


In terms of something being too difficult a task, nothing worth having is easy.

[pip25]

So, if I may summarize what seems realistic given the above considerations:
- ONE compendium thread with ONE maintainer, containing (almost) ALL fics here and perhaps elsewhere as well. It would provide categories that would make stuff easier to find, and/or provide a sort of categorization that is harder/impossible to do with just topic titles (and the search function). Maintainer is a volunteer (with the mods' consent), and is responsible for topic contents as usual.

Either that, or nothing at all, it seems.

[Comrade]

Only the fics that the authors themselves suggest if anything.

[pip25]

The authors would be able to help the maintainer by submitting information about their fics if they are not yet included, yes. But the general goal of the thread would be to contain as many KS fics as possible, since any quality considerations may lead to unnecessary drama as Silentcook noted, and the forum maintainers do not want to deal with something like that.

[Comrade]

Categorizing all of the fics on the forums could be a little too much work for one man, maybe someone could help the maintainer, or a group of people, by filling out the catogry thing I made here, and then pm it to him.
It just seems unrealistic for one person to read all of the fics here and categorize them.

[pip25]

I guess I could have put that better. The maintainer would not be obliged to include all fics - it would be also a valid procedure if (s)he only included fics that were sent to him/her by others. It would be largely up to the maintainer how much "independent research" (s)he'd want to put into the whole thing. What I tried to stress earlier was that fanfic quality would not be a factor.

[Comrade]

Yeah, quality control could not be a good idea in this, however, there could w diffent sort of "fic of the week" thing which I have seen in different places.
So, what now? Anyone else have an opinion on the matter?