Review Blitz 2022 Kick-Off Thread

[Negrek]

Review Blitz 2022 Kick-Off​

As the skies darken in the northern hemisphere and NaNoWriMo creeps up on the unsuspecting denizens of Thousand Roads, one of our most popular events looms on the horizon: Review Blitz, the wild festival of feedback where we work together to show as much love to the writers in the community as possible! Last year we achieved a new record of 740 reviews in four weeks, and we'll be looking to push that number even higher in 2022!

If you aren't familiar with Review Blitz, feel free to check out previous blitzes: I (2019), II (2020), and III (2021)!

Whether you're a blitz veteran or plan to join in for the first time this year, it's time to start thinking about your plans! As usual, we'll be looking for your help and feedback to set the timeline for the event, organize prizes, and handle the logistics work necessary to make the event run. With that in mind, a couple orders of business:

When is Review Blitz happening this year?

That's for you to decide! You can vote in the poll above for the period of time that would work best for you. The poll will close on November 28th. One way or another, Blitz will run through some part of December 2022 possibly into January 2023.

What's new this year?

Blitz 2021 ran pretty smoothly, so we're expecting most aspects of the event to remain similar to last year. The logistics team will be working behind the scenes to determine what tweaks may need to be made to the point structure, prize distribution, or other basic elements of the event. You'll hear more about that closer to the event's official start! However, if you have any ideas for how Review Blitz can be even more fun, feel free to post them here or send them to Negrek by DM!

Interested in helping out?

We can't have a blitz without all the awesome people who log reviews, work behind the scenes, and provide prizes to all our amazing reviewers. If you're interested in helping out with blitz this year, please reply to the thread with the following:

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? In the past we've had people offer art commissions, custom drabbles, reviews, poetry, and more. If there's anything you can make to reward someone for writing a bunch of reviews, you can offer it as a prize!

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? A drabble and a sketch commission? Three reviews? However many prizes you can offer, it helps the logistics team figure out prize tiers if we know roughly how many of each prize we'll have available.

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? Whether you can offer prizes or not, we're also in need of people to approve reviews, assign prizes, and generally run things on the backend throughout the event. These are active positions that run throughout the entire Blitz.

Get hype, everyone! Whatever timeframe ends up being chosen, it won't be long before Blitz is upon us again.

 

[Persephone]

As with last year I can cover higher end prizes with Alola Dex / World Myth Encyclopedia commissions. I don't really have an upper limit but the more people claim the longer it will take me to get through them. Just keep them towards the higher end of prizes and we should be good.

Caveat: if we end up with a situation like two years ago where we had, like, everyone claiming multiple high tier prizes I might put in a hard limit.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Depending on what the expected minimum commitment is, I can actually chip in reviews on my end as a prize contribution. Like I could volunteer some napkin scribbles for art, but... yeah, let's stick with reviews since that's what I'm actually good at at this point in time. :V

Though of curiosity, but is the scoring system going to remain the same as last year, or will there be any changes made to factor in the length of content read this time around? I can understand the argument either way for the scoring system and will survive either way, though I will say that RB3's point system was kinda structurally biased towards stories with lots of short chapters.

Also, I was wondering if there'd be any interest in some sort of officially structured set of review games for each week designed to be built around the weekly themes. Seems like it could be a fun sideshow to the normal events and help for bonus hunting, especially if there were any additional incentives given for participating such as an extra half point or something like that.

 

[spinaltapdancer3]

1. I can offer to draw art

2. I am willing to commit to one art piece, if there is a shortage of artists and someone wishes an art piece, I am willing to consider doing more. I will also offer the caveat that I will be on vacation in the middle of this, so there may be a week or two's delay on when I start depending on when I get a request.

3. I am NOT interested in doing back end logistics (I don't really know how things are run here anyways).

 

[K_S]

hmm while I'd like to participate (and maybe nab some art prizes) I could help a little as well..

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? My times a bit tight, but I could offer reviews and to make it fair when I participate pick tales a bit off the beaten path so there's min overlap.

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? Hmm I'd say ten reviews would be my absolute cap but I'd need at least a month and a half to produce them. five would be preferred though.

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? as my situation is tenuous I kinda can't contribute anything too in-depth so despite being interested in the mechanics I'll have to pass.

 

[IFBench]

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? I'd love to offer some item deep-dives, like the ones in A Comprehensive Guide to Items! The prize winner gets to choose an item, or set of related items, and I write as much stuff as I can about those items, from history, to how to make them, to botany, to uses, to dangers, and more, while presenting it like it's a section in a guidebook.

A few notes:

• This will be flavored as being written by a character from PMD, albeit one somewhat knowledgeable about the mainline Pokemon world.
• This does not mean only PMD items are allowed! Any item or set from the whole franchise is allowed, from berries to PMD seeds to the adamant crystal to origin ore to tera orbs to pretty much anything! So long as it's an item or set of them.
• For mainline and non-PMD spinoff items, there will also be some info about their appearance in the mainline world, though there will still be some PMD info about it if I can manage.

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? I'd be willing to offer up to five item deep-dives! Though I may increase that number if I'm feeling up to it. I'd like them to be a relatively low-tier prize, if that's ok. I love writing these, and I don't want it to be too difficult for people to get one.

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? No thanks.

 

[canisaries]

Would like to offer two separate character art prizes of a single Pokémon full body OR a human (or a generally human-proportioned creature, such as an anthro) from the waist up.

Examples: A real prize from the previous year and an approximation of what a human from waist up would look like. The art will be full color with shading and have clean linework like the first example unless a style closer to the second example is specifically requested. The background will be solid-color or transparent or have an easy pattern.

 

[Sinderella]

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? I can offer art prizes!

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? I think last year I maxed at two sketches and one partially rendered piece, so something like that!

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? That sounds like math, which I cannot do, so I will have to pass :')

 

[bluesidra]

Hello! I'd like to be on the logistics team again! Depending on where the Blitz falls time-wise, I might be able to do the logging alone if kyeugh is not available.

Prize wise I can offer
1 art prize (fully colored and shaded)
2 small art prize (linework and flat colors)
1 longer review (3-5 chapters)
art wise I prefer to do humans and mainline pokemon. I don't possess the anthro skills needed for pmd-style mons.

 

[windskull]

I'm open to doing art prizes! However due to an uncertain schedule, I only want to commit to one this year. Though I'm open to more if needed and my time permits.

 

[Negrek]

First of all, thank you to everyone who's offered prize and logistics support so far! It's wonderful to see people returning to offer prizes again this year, as well as a few new faces, and even new prize types! That's super exciting. Right now I'm keeping track of what people are offering so we can start to figure out the prize ladder. What will happen next, in about a week, is I'll send those of you who are on Discord an invite to the Blitz server. It's not required that you join--this is just to help coordinate prize distribution, and also to provide a place for you to show off the prizes you've made!

Also, voting is currently quite close on the timing poll, so if you care at all about the dates and haven't voted already, make sure to do so! Even a couple votes could easily swing things one way or another.

Finally, a belated reply:

Depending on what the expected minimum commitment is, I can actually chip in reviews on my end as a prize contribution. Like I could volunteer some napkin scribbles for art, but... yeah, let's stick with reviews since that's what I'm actually good at at this point in time. :V

We already talked prizes, but for the benefit of anyone else who may be wondering this: the minimum commitment is just one of whatever thing you want to offer! So, one review in this case. If you don't have a lot of time or aren't sure about the whole prize distribution thing and just want to give it a try in a low-commitment way, that's totally fine! Even a single extra prize helps.

Though of curiosity, but is the scoring system going to remain the same as last year, or will there be any changes made to factor in the length of content read this time around? I can understand the argument either way for the scoring system and will survive either way, though I will say that RB3's point system was kinda structurally biased towards stories with lots of short chapters.

At this time I'm expecting the point system to be very similar to last year. It is true that stories with a lot of short chapters benefit the most from the current system. My concern with giving points based on chapter length is just the extra lift for review approvers needing to figure out how much was read... assuming they'll be processing hundreds of reviews again this year, even a change that adds 30 seconds to each review adds up to a pretty substantial amount of additional time they'd need to dedicate to doing approvals. If you have any ideas for how this could be done in a time-conscious way, though, I'm certainly open to it! The only things I've thought of are approvers word counting story chapters themselves (big nope, way too time-consuming) and people submitting the length of all their chapters ahead of time so that review approvers can refer to that info (massive headache for all involved), but I'm sure there are other approaches.

Also, I was wondering if there'd be any interest in some sort of officially structured set of review games for each week designed to be built around the weekly themes. Seems like it could be a fun sideshow to the normal events and help for bonus hunting, especially if there were any additional incentives given for participating such as an extra half point or something like that.

I think this could be fun! Last year The Walrein did a special review bingo challenge during Blitz that I thought was a good time. Only thing I'd ask is that you run whatever you have in mind by me before Blitz starts so I'm not surprised by it.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

We already talked prizes, but for the benefit of anyone else who may be wondering this: the minimum commitment is just one of whatever thing you want to offer! So, one review in this case. If you don't have a lot of time or aren't sure about the whole prize distribution thing and just want to give it a try in a low-commitment way, that's totally fine! Even a single extra prize helps.

I'd be ready to commit to 1 chapter reviews for every week I'd get to turn in everything for prizes. e.x. if the horizon for turning in prize reviews is 12 weeks, I could commit to 12 chapters' worth of prize reviews. Potentially a bit more if the chapters that would need to be reviewed have an average length below 5000 words.

At this time I'm expecting the point system to be very similar to last year. It is true that stories with a lot of short chapters benefit the most from the current system. My concern with giving points based on chapter length is just the extra lift for review approvers needing to figure out how much was read... assuming they'll be processing hundreds of reviews again this year, even a change that adds 30 seconds to each review adds up to a pretty substantial amount of additional time they'd need to dedicate to doing approvals. If you have any ideas for how this could be done in a time-conscious way, though, I'm certainly open to it! The only things I've thought of are approvers word counting story chapters themselves (big nope, way too time-consuming) and people submitting the length of all their chapters ahead of time so that review approvers can refer to that info (massive headache for all involved), but I'm sure there are other approaches.

I mean, threadmarks can help with that, though the more robust solution would've been to maintain some sort of internal bookkeeping for chapter lengths (which would have meta value for allowing users to track chapter lengths outside of RB for events like Catnip) and then tape together some sort of Excel lookup function that could be used for scoring by the judges. Understandably, that's probably not going to happen in a comprehensive fashion this close out to the start of RB4, but it's something that might be worth keeping in mind for future Review Blitzes, especially if there were a few months to put it together and iron out the bugs.

But eh, I was ready to adapt to however Review Blitz's rules changed around this year, so I'm sure that I'll manage another year of RB3-style scoring.

I think this could be fun! Last year The Walrein did a special review bingo challenge during Blitz that I thought was a good time. Only thing I'd ask is that you run whatever you have in mind by me before Blitz starts so I'm not surprised by it.

I'll send you a more detailed line in the next couple of days, but the TL/DR version was the idea would be to have some number of review games kinda like last year's Blitz Special Catnip, except tied to weekly themes depending on how much of an audience and demand there was for different events. I can't speak for RB4's weekly themes this year, but RB3's weekly themes last year would've been fairly easy to adapt special rules fitting each one of them. Also, considering how RB in general is the peak activity season for the forums, it'd be a prime opportunity to try out new review game ideas others might have floating around like that "Review MLM" idea that occasionally rears its head like TRcord.

The main potential bottlenecks here would be:

A: Demand, since there'd need to be an audience for each game hosted during RB4.
B: Division of hosting, since as fun as it is to host stuff like Catnips, I'd ideally like to not personally be on the hook for hosting 4+ events on my own. ^^;
C: Any integration for scoring such as bonus points for reviews generated from participation. I don't think that it's necessary to have successful mid-Blitz games, since the Blitz Special Catnip from RB3 was well-trafficked, but an extra half-point here or there could potentially garner some extra interest in participation.

 

[Flyg0n]

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? I can handle doing probably reviews! I was thinking of offering to basically read up to 5 chapters/20k words or so of a work (exact stopping point to the author's discretion, within reason) and offering a more substantial review and trying to comment/critique on themes, characters and plot etc, probably 500 word minimum.

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? I think I can handle doing (2) of these reviews!

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? I unfort don't think I have the time to help out in this respect

 

[Venia Silente]

I've never participated before in a RB in any capacity, so this admittedly piqued my interest. Tho, owing to the kind of work I do, it's likely most of the help I could provide is some sort of prizes, as I'm hazy on the logistics/backend of the Blitz.


- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? — I can offer primarily two kinds of things: reviews, and Guest Appearance slots for my stories. Though, because of the nature of Writing, the latter would likely have to take the form of a more Delayed prize.

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? One review; two if the stories are sufficiently short (~4k words max). For guest appearance slots, up to two slots depending on the timeframe under which the prizes need to be delivered.

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? I'm not sure of what the logistics involve; I think I'll leave the decision to those in the team who know me to request my assistance if they think my skillset is of use.


For the reviews, here are samples for my review styles: for Weaversong and Of Sand and Shadows (offsite) so that you can get my Style. In general my reviews are focused on the things I like and how I "reinterpret" scenes of sorts for a more comedic or meta-ironic nature. While I don't usually do spellcheck (pretty much everyone beats me to it), I do could offer feedback on scene flow and on character design and character interactions if so desired.


For Guest Appearances, I am taking up to two Pokémon characters as guests. I can forward to @Umbramatic and @Spiteful Murkrow and their mons' appearances in Built for Risk (offsite) so that you can get an idea of the kind of way the guests would be featured. For the assigned prizes, the Authors would have important say on how their characters would be portrayed, as well as access to a number of proofreading rounds on relevant character dialogue and interactions so that their guest appearance is, to say somehow, "fanon-compliant" and satisfying to the authors where possible. And yes, I understand that this plus the nature of Writing would mean this kind of prize would not be delivered "instantly" but rather weeks or even a few months down the line (tho I'll try to avoid delays THAT long), so that's for the organizers to decide how practical would that be.

 

[Dragonfree]

Like in previous years, I'm available to do an arbitrary number of art prizes, since I draw something every day anyway. You can see samples of my work on my artblog; for prizes, I'd do a single character, human or Pokémon, colored with no background, probably in a style resembling this although a different style can be requested.

I'm also volunteering to do logistics (and programming) work.

 

[K_S]

so what happens if we tie?

because there's neck to neck and then there's neck to neck with three results and that makes it sound like we're racing hydras... or dodrios or something...

Well i stand corrected...

 

[Negrek]

Getting close to the end now! There's only a little time left to vote on timing. It's been great to see so many volunteers signing up in the past couple days, too! Glad to have you aboard!

I'll send you a more detailed line in the next couple of days, but the TL/DR version was the idea would be to have some number of review games kinda like last year's Blitz Special Catnip, except tied to weekly themes depending on how much of an audience and demand there was for different events. I can't speak for RB4's weekly themes this year, but RB3's weekly themes last year would've been fairly easy to adapt special rules fitting each one of them. Also, considering how RB in general is the peak activity season for the forums, it'd be a prime opportunity to try out new review game ideas others might have floating around like that "Review MLM" idea that occasionally rears its head like TRcord.

The main potential bottlenecks here would be:

A: Demand, since there'd need to be an audience for each game hosted during RB4.
B: Division of hosting, since as fun as it is to host stuff like Catnips, I'd ideally like to not personally be on the hook for hosting 4+ events on my own. ^^;
C: Any integration for scoring such as bonus points for reviews generated from participation. I don't think that it's necessary to have successful mid-Blitz games, since the Blitz Special Catnip from RB3 was well-trafficked, but an extra half-point here or there could potentially garner some extra interest in participation.

Seems reasonable! I'll take a look when you send me the full description. I think I have some ideas for your hosting/demand worries, but not sure I have a great grasp on what you have in mind yet. "Series of themed catnips" I grok, "Review MLM" not so much!

so what happens if we tie?

If a tie occurred, I would choose the winning option according to my preference from among the tied choices. As you say, though, that may not end up being an issue!

 

[Negrek]

All right, the timing poll is now closed! It was a close race all the way to the end, but ultimately December 24th - January 21st was the winner! With that in mind, Review Blitz 2022 will begin December 24th at midnight UTC!

What happens next? First, for those of you who volunteered to help out, I'll be reaching out to you with more information about how prize distribution and logistics planning will work this year. I expect to get those messages out over the weekend, and we'll go over whatever prep work needs to get done from there!

For everybody else, look forward to Blitz! I'll be posting the information thread and general chat thread about three days ahead of the event start date, in part because we'll be using some new software to handle review submission and approval, and I'd like to give people some time to get settled in with it and ask questions before they need to actually begin submitting reviews. It'll also give us time for a little hype! In the interim, K_S has also made a thread for discussing your Blitz goals, plans, and hopes for this year!

Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help with this year's Blitz! It takes a village to run this event, and I'm honored to be working on it with you all. If you still think you might be interested in offering prizes but haven't signed up yet, feel free to post in this thread or DM me about it and we can get something worked out. It's not too late!

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh yeah, I should be able to offer an art prize. Same as before, one prize, whatever the highest tier is.

 

[Adamhuarts]

I can provide a Celshaded artwork Blitz prize