Katawa Shoujo Forums

I actually like the idea of a more organized index for all the works on the renai. I know Mehkanik has a list, but those are the stories that get posted on KSG (mainly on Pastebin). However, something like this requires a fair bit of work and there are a number of things that I have to ask/comment on:

1.Who is the person that is going to be in charge of the index? Is it going to be a joint effort or a solo endeavor? If more than one person is willing to do it, I think it would be better for there to be an account that is shared within that group so they can freely edit any post that is made for the index.

2. Unlike Mehkanik's example, the renai has a space limitation. There is no way that every work posted on the forum will be able to fit in one post. Also, since the forum is ever-growing, more and more stories will appear and would require the index to be updated. But due to space limitations, the index will have to be divided into separate posts and it will also have to find a way to deal with other people posting inside of the thread.

3. How will the index be ordered (aside from subject matter) and how can it prevent bias? Will it be ordered by the date of its release or how popular it is? How can you prevent one author from over-saturating the index with a large quantity of fics. How will the quality of the fic be judged?

4. (Kinda goes with the previous point) How will the index differentiate between one shots and routes. Will every single one shot someone has written be included or will it just have the thread the author has it collected in?

5. Will there be plot summaries for every entry? Who will write them, the authors or the readers? What about deadfics and authors that don't respond?

6. I like the idea that someone mentioned about a Feature Fanfic. How will it work though? Will one person decide the (daily? weekly? monthly?) feature or will the each member of the group (if more than one wants to do it) have their suggestion and make a list of feature fanfics?

7. I know it would just be an index but imagine what else we could do with a more centralized hub for the fanfics section: writing contests, collaborative stories, a place to find editors and preview readers, help new stories find an audience, and etc.

I already addressed most of the points you mentioned, so you should read my other posts.
I do like the idea of having one "communal account" for this, and let's say "electing" three people every month or so that will get the "job" of maintaining the thread. People who wants their fics to be featured will have to apply, and they would be responsible to give the information about their fics (what genre it is etc.)
On the issue of post size, I don't know the way it works here well enough, so I can't really answer that.

Comrade wrote:I do like the idea of having one "communal account" for this, and let's say "electing" three people every month or so that will get the "job" of maintaining the thread.

You people are not thinking things all the way through.

While having a so-called communal account would obviously be easy (create account, PM password to people, change password and repeat the process when it's time to pass on the baton) the communality completely removes any personal accountability. That is, if someone gets in a snit and performs vandalism or bannable offenses, or just decides that "my opinions > your opinions", that someone isn't going to get a kick in the pants - but the communal account is.

So a goodwill system is not going to work, exactly because it relies on lasting goodwill. A librarian system might work, as long as the one librarian does the job.

Also about five seconds after someone comes asking for a password reset because of some accident or fuckup I'm putting the whole thing into its grave.

A librarian system could work, with one person managing the thread itself and a few people could help him, I think that if there would be let's say there is one person who actively edits the thread and two people who gather the fics, or alternitavly, having people filling the forms I've mentioned so many times and sending it to the managers of the thread it could work fine, and there will be regulation on what fics get into the collection and what fics don't.
There could also be awards for superb fics or something, but that might be too much.

Like Silentcook said, using separate accounts which can potentially be shared is risky. I'd say it'd be more straightforward if the "librarian" would use their own account for the job. Should the need arise to change maintainers, the thread could be locked/deleted and the contents of the "library post(s)" be sent to the new maintainer. Even if the old maintainer is unavailable, mods can edit posts which aren't their own if I remember correctly, so post contents can still be recovered without much hassle.

You're all thinking about this too hard.

Step 1: Decide whether this is a list for recommendations or an index for reference
Step 2: Decide whether this is an internal list, focusing only on Renai fics, or an external list, highlighting (notable) KS fics regardless of location.
Step 3: Someone volunteers to maintain the list.
Step 4: (Assuming this is a recommendation list rather than a reference list) people can "petition" for a fic to be added by responding to the thread/PMing the custodian.
Step 5: If the list is abandoned and falls into disrepair, a new volunteer takes the initiative to maintain the list in a new thread. The old one is dropped and deleted/fades into the archives.

Even if there is one manager the burden of collecting all of the fics should not be only on him, I think it would be tè best if the author of a fic that wants his fic to be on the index should send a pm to one of the people who collect fics or the manager himself, and the authors themselves will have to categorize the fic in the pm.

I like the idea of a compilation thread, but I think it should be one for all kinds of KS Fics, not just those about Misha. Otherwise we'd soon have multiple threads for each possible pairing, genre, ending etc.
Sorting the stories by the major pairing might be a good idea, though.
I already did a list for myself a while back. It's neither complete nor up to date, but pending Silentcook's approval I could create a thread, maybe reserve the top three or five posts, put in what I have and edit in whatever other recommendations are posted further down.
I've been around for a while and barring influences outside my control I plan to stick around for a while longer.

As there are quite a lot of stories here, I think plot summaries - at least those exceeding one line - would be too much. Even if I reserved several posts, I expect I'd run out of room quite soon.
I rather suggest some condensed information like pairing, pov character, ending it sets in after, status of the story (completed, ongoing or discontinued), disclaimers (sex, violence etc) and maybe an approximate word count.
So for example:

Katawa Kijo by Mirage_GSM (completed, 46.862 words)
Set after: Act I
PoV: Hisao
Pairings: Hisao x Misha, Kenji x Hanako
Disclaimers: non-standard setting (magic)

Victory Day by Mirage_GSM (completed, 9.109 words)
Set after: Act I
PoV: Shizune
Pairings: Kenji x Shizune
Disclaimers: Comedy, Crossover characters (various), (intentionally) OOC characters

Tripping by Mirage_GSM (ongoing, 24.107 words as of 13/08)
Set after: Act I
PoV: various
Pairings: Hisao x Emi
Disclaimers: various OCs

I just used my own fics as an example because I could easily do the word count here.
Anyway, if others post suggestions in this format, it will be easy to edit them into the OP of the thread. Of course, I'm open to suggestions for improvement, and also of course, this is subject to approval by SC.

I think it should be a recommendation page, as prof aliaster said, because the whole point of it was to uncover buried gems, and by just taking all of the fics and putting it in one place would be no better then what we have.
It should include all kinds of fics, not only routes and in order to get a fic into the list there should be some sort of petition or something.

There are certainly some very good one-shot stories out there that I'd have no problem including.
And of course putting every single fic on the forums in the list would inflate it beyond usefulness.
However, I don't think organizing a petition for every fic before it is included is a) unrealistic and b) way too complicated.
Such a list would help new users find stories they might be interested in. They can see whether it is completed or abandoned or whether it contains topics they'd rather avoid without having to click through 16 pages of threads. Whether or not they like the story is a decision everyone has to make for themselves. While I feel consensus regarding the quality of a story is higher here on the forums than in almost any other place on the internet, that's a decision everyone should make for themselves, so I'd rather include one story too many than the other way around.
So if someone suggests a story on the thread and there's no immediate outcry of disagreement (and it's not an obvious troll suggestion) I'd be inclined to include it even without some requisite number of "ayes".

Still, any suggestion of a fic must be pm'd to one of the people who manage the page, that way the thread itself won't be full of suggestions.

Ok, so lets assume we don't include every KS fic ever. There are some out there that I personally would like never to see again. If others want it, we'd do it, but if no body recommends / mentions a fic, it can stay where it is. I'm not saying we should just forget about old fics, but there are alot of people from the beginning who would remember the best of them. Also, this forum, while having alot of fics, doesn't have all of them. For example, that guy's epilogues is headcanon for me but in his post bin he posts every day and has only uploaded a fragment of his stuff here. If we want to have everyone throw in their top 5's and then expand once we can catalouge all those, we can build up a good collection, without overflowing and getting lots of junk in there too. The collector would have no bias, and would put up the fics whatever they are, barring overlaps (Because at least 6 people are going to put sisterhood up there) and if there is a mass protest at one, it can be flagged or pm'd by a certain number of people to the catalouger or librarian and taken down. Just an idea.

That's ok, but should they be pm'ing the request or just post them on the thread?
I think that instead of taking everyone's favorites, people should be able to suggest all the time, otherwise thy will only suggest fics that already exist, and all new fics will be left out.
If this actually approved I volunteer to be one of the first maintains crew or however it will be called

- I don't see any rason for suggestions to be PMed. I can see that flooding the inbox of whoever manages the list whenever a new fic is posted. If there are a few reserved posts at the beginning of the thread, there is plenty of space for suggestions and/or discussions of suggestions afterwards - provided the devs don't mind and it stays civil. It would be a shame to have the thread locked because things got out of hand.

- There will be a single person who maintains the list by necessity. As SC stated there will be no group accounts on this forum.

- Nobody will program any kind of rating system for the forum either, so any kind of rating would be highly subjective. (Not that a five-star or percentile system would be much better.) A rating would also be a point of contention and a possible source of disagreement. That's why I'd rather avoid this can of worms altogether. If someone is looking for opinions on a story he is interested in, it is very easy to simply click on the provided link and read a few of the comments there.

Hmm, yeah I can see what you mean. But in that case then there should be rules on how to make a suggestion, just saying "please put ficnamexyz" should not be allowed, and instead every suggestion should include the name of the fic, author, genre, etc. it would make the categorization a lot easier.