Fourth Anniversary Celebration
- Thread starter Negrek
- Start date
Spiteful Murkrow
Busy Writing Stories I Want to Read
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
- Partners
-
I got in my Drabble Bingo card in time for the deadline, which I believe entitles me to a sprite buddy.
As such, I'd like a Kate:
As such, I'd like a Kate:
Cherry_BombBees
flying in the name of love
- Pronouns
- he/she/they
- Partners
-
May I get an Altaria please?
ShiniGojira
Multiversal Extraordinaire
Can I get a shiny Salandit, please.
Starlight Aurate
Ad Jesum per Mariam | pfp by kintsugi
- Location
- Route 123
- Partners
-
Thanks for hosting this event, Negrek!
For my companion, I'll take a lil' Psyduck this time!
For my companion, I'll take a lil' Psyduck this time!
IFBench
Rescue Team Member
- Location
- Pokemon Paradise
- Partners
-
I'd like an Arctozolt to join my ensemble!
Shiny Phantump
Through Dream, I Travel
Are there official gen 9 sprites yet? I know Showdown has some. I'd like to get a Ceruledge, seems fitting for what I wrote during the anniversary.
lichhen
gay
- Pronouns
- he/they/ze
- Partners
-
Shiny Phantump
Through Dream, I Travel
ty for pointing that out! Did a dig into Smogon/Showdown sprite credits, which after I lost track of time turned out to take over half an hour... to the best of my ability to tell, they're open for non-profit use. They don't actually seem to track credits for minis in their filesystem nor their forums, although they do for some other things like trainers.
Attachments
unrepentantAuthor
A cat that writes stories.
I'd like a zeraora companion, please~
- Partners
-
68x56. That should do it, she'll be my companion.
Okay. So, thoughts for the site.
- I know the Blitz is a big thing and a sort of tradition here, but I always disliked the idea that being rewarded for reviewing should only happen at certain times of the year. Especially since I (and no doubt others) can be very busy when it's ongoing. Back on Bulbagarden before staff shortages pretty much killed it, they had a Review League that did just that, which allowed you to build up points for your reviews and cash them out for rewards. Maybe something similar could be implemented here? It could coexist with the Blitz, giving more or specific rewards for doing it during the event.
- Similarly, BG had a neat event called "Trainers of Fanfiction" which was basically little interviews with characters from fics (not necessarily trainers), with volunteer artists pitching in to give a graphical spin. Most of them had a theme of sorts, like parents or "professionals". There were prewritten questions to answer, although it was open-ended and more could be submitted. Readers could even ask questions as they were posted! Just an idea for people to have fic publicity and interactions, at least.
- Actually, pretty much any formal things like that for exploring aspects of fics would be nice. There's lots of little informal threads, but they can be a little disjointed and chaotic. Basically, little hooks that might interest potential readers. BG used to have a (bi)monthly fic spotlight event, though I don't think that would work too well here for various reasons.
- Maybe separate games/roleplay and the mafia section so last posts in the latter don't become the most recent posts in the former.
- Speaking of, more wide-scale roleplay campaigns could be neat, but of course, would require setting some up. Have some ideas myself for that matter, but need plotting to do. Never had a chance to join one here.
- More sorting options/titles for fics. There's lots of sub-Pokemon categories, journey, PMD, etc. Having them all just be under Pokemon isn't really helpful on the fanfiction forum.
K_S
Unrepentent Giovanni and Rocket fan
- Partners
-
I have to admit last few blitzs i lost a lot of review time due to said timing of the events. So i can definitly second the time crunch complaint.
Okay, I've been going through and giving out this year's wave of companions! If you asked for a non-custom companion, you should have yours already. Unfortunately, while adding the custom companions, I discovered that we've run up against Xenforo's limit for how many options can be included in that postbit field, which means there is no room for all of the requested custom sprites. I had not realized that there was a limit on the number of options, but I had been planning to make changes to the companion system before next year's Review Blitz anyway in order to accommodate the increasing number of companions that some people have and also to implement some requested features (ability to reorder companions, Gen IX mon, etc.). This will also eliminate the space problem. However, I wouldn't expect that to be done before August, so if you are one of the unfortunate people to be caught out by this issue, you might be waiting a bit before you receive your companion.
These are the people affected and their requested companions:
- @Cresselia92 - Shiny Celebi
- @lichhen - Shiny Metapod
- @silurica - Shiny Arceus
- @Spiteful Murkrow - Sneasel Kate
- @ShiniGojira - Shiny Salandit
- @Shiny Phantump - Ceruledge
- @System Error - Suikaibuki
If your name is on this list, you have two options: you can wait until I upgrade the companion system, at which point these will be added for you, or you can choose a different, non-custom companion for this event. The catch is that it has to be a non-custom species that someone else has already chosen (e.g. you could get a Charizard but not Venusaur or Blastoise, since no one's claimed one of the latter two yet). If you'd like to switch, just let me know what you're thinking; if I don't hear from you, I'll assume you're okay with waiting and add your companion when it becomes possible.
If your name is not on the list above and you haven't received the companion you requested, that means I missed you! Please let me know ASAP so I can correct the problem.
At this time, companion claims are closed for this event.
Also, thanks to everyone who gave feedback about the event or about the community! I've tried to answer all of you below. It's always helpful to hear what people like and dislike about the community, and what they'd like to see in the future!
Events encouraging people to create works celebrating others' stories/characters sounds like a great idea, too. I'll think about what might work well there.
The reason I don't tend to go in for long-running reward schemes like a review league is that in my experience, these sorts of systems tend to generate a lot of interest and activity early on, but then fall off considerably in participation after a few months. I think this is because people tend to respond well to something that feels fresh and exciting, but lose interest in something that feels routine. Time-limited events are ones that people can anticipate and which feel special whenever they come around, so I think they tend to get more consistent participation. However, if you have any thoughts about how a constantly-running background system could be sustained long-term, I'm willing to consider giving it a shot!
These are the people affected and their requested companions:
- @Cresselia92 - Shiny Celebi
- @lichhen - Shiny Metapod
- @silurica - Shiny Arceus
- @Spiteful Murkrow - Sneasel Kate
- @ShiniGojira - Shiny Salandit
- @Shiny Phantump - Ceruledge
- @System Error - Suikaibuki
If your name is on this list, you have two options: you can wait until I upgrade the companion system, at which point these will be added for you, or you can choose a different, non-custom companion for this event. The catch is that it has to be a non-custom species that someone else has already chosen (e.g. you could get a Charizard but not Venusaur or Blastoise, since no one's claimed one of the latter two yet). If you'd like to switch, just let me know what you're thinking; if I don't hear from you, I'll assume you're okay with waiting and add your companion when it becomes possible.
If your name is not on the list above and you haven't received the companion you requested, that means I missed you! Please let me know ASAP so I can correct the problem.
At this time, companion claims are closed for this event.
Also, thanks to everyone who gave feedback about the event or about the community! I've tried to answer all of you below. It's always helpful to hear what people like and dislike about the community, and what they'd like to see in the future!
I gave you a Groudon, but just to clarify for you: you can always request any pokémon, including legendaries! You could also have a golden sudowoodo, but you'd need to give me a sprite that fits the necessary parameters (.png 56 px high by 68 px wide).
Fantastic, I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed your time on TR thus far! I can see how we might slip in more drabble bingos (or other drabble-related events) in the future. If you'd like to do some drabbling right this minute, you might enjoy lichhen's drabble RP or Drabble Tag!
Thanks, it's great that you enjoyed the event as-is. Good luck being more social, it's always fun to see your posts!
Awesome, I'm glad you had fun with everything! More review exchanges is something we can look to foster... There's actually something the mods have talked about kicking off to fill this need that I just haven't gotten posted yet, so hopefully that will be ready to go in the next couple months.Hi! I had so much fun for my first celebration. And thanks to everyone who made it possible! I really appreciate all the work that goes into this community, its very obviously loved and well-cared for.I would personally love more review exchanges. I'm all about those :3
Good to hear that you enjoyed the anniversary! Some kind of collaborative banner sounds like a great way to celebrate five years. The primary hurdle to be worked out there, I think, would be how to fit everybody's contributions onto a reasonably-sized banner while keeping them to a legible size... but that strikes me as highly solvable!
I'm glad you had a fun time during the anniversary! Thanks for letting me know you're interested in a banner project as well. I'll think more about how we could make that happen!
A zine/collab is something people have been talking about for a while now, and I think it's a really fun idea! Look out for a project along these lines coming out later this summer.
Thanks for all this lovely feedback, and I hope you continue to have a good time on TR! I'd definitely like to see how we can run more speed catnips and roleplay events, and I think the banner collab is a great idea. Thanks for mentioning what you enjoyed most!
Events encouraging people to create works celebrating others' stories/characters sounds like a great idea, too. I'll think about what might work well there.
Thanks for giving so many thoughts and suggestions! I'll address each in its own quote.
The reason I don't tend to go in for long-running reward schemes like a review league is that in my experience, these sorts of systems tend to generate a lot of interest and activity early on, but then fall off considerably in participation after a few months. I think this is because people tend to respond well to something that feels fresh and exciting, but lose interest in something that feels routine. Time-limited events are ones that people can anticipate and which feel special whenever they come around, so I think they tend to get more consistent participation. However, if you have any thoughts about how a constantly-running background system could be sustained long-term, I'm willing to consider giving it a shot!
This sounds like a fun event! Definitely something we could do in the future.
When you say "formal things for exploring aspects of fics," do you mean catchall kinds of threads like "What have you been reading?" or "Looking for a Name"? Or more threads where people could talk about specific aspects of their fics or characters?
For the most part I think the rarity of having a mafia game and large roleplay running simultaneously means this isn't a big problem, but it's something to consider if that changes.
I would expect more large-scale roleplays to occur in the future, and in fact I would be looking for one to start up sometime this summer! If you'd like to host one yourself, that should be an option down the line as well. You'll have some time to get things prepped; I'd expect the best time to start one would work out to be a couple years in the future at this point.
Are you looking for more subcategories within the fanfic forum, or more thread prefixes (currently Pokémon/Non-Pokémon/Original)? Something else?
It does suck that having Blitz once a year means that people who aren't free when it's going on end up missing out. If we were going to run a second review event in a year, is there any particular time you think would work well for it?
- Partners
-
I'll wait until August for my companion.
Yeah, I can get where you're coming from. It shows in a couple of the informal (and even some formal) event topics. When you look at it one way, it makes sense. But here's the consequence: it also means there's no incentive to review when the Blitz isn't happening. Which means there's very likely some people silently holding off on reviewing until Blitz time because of it. That's certainly not healthy for a community. Like, I feel that way for one (on top of that time being busy), and more importantly, if I do a bunch of reviews over the year, what's left by the end if I've already read/reviewed all the things I've wanted? In a sense, the Blitz format also indirectly punishes consistent reviewing. Because the more reviews you do before, the less you can do then. This is especially bad since the Blitz rewards you for volume!
That's why I feel there needs to be something persistent in place. So people who can't make the Blitz, want to review en masse earlier, or want to go at their own pace rather than cramming it all in can still get something like Blitzers.
So how to deal with the problem of keeping it fresh? I'd propose the following. It's by no means inclusive, just some things off the top of my head.
- Monthly review challenges. Set a goal for members to fulfill for extra points. Like read X chapters or X fics of a genre you normally wouldn't touch, read X amount of chapters of a longfic you haven't before, and so on. Basically the themes in the Blitz. This would give some direction and encourage people to check out different things.
- Give bonus points for checking out a featured fic. This would also encourage people to check out more and different things. The only problem I can see here is how to balance this and how to define a feature fic. BG used to do Fic of the Month way back then, but that could easily get into clique or favoritism-based selection (i.e. not give lesser fics exposure). Maybe tie it into the forum events like Trainers of Fanfiction I suggested?
- A early review points bonus, rewarding for reading chapters faster. Bulbagarden had this in their iteration. I'd give way more leeway than they did however: say up to a week after posting, and partial points for two. This would encourage active readership.
- Maintain the Blitz. There is nothing stopping the two from coexisting. They could be entirely separate events, and participating in the Blitz would net you points in the persistent thing as well. It could even be the review challenge, do X number of reviews during it. Still, there's ultimately no getting around the problem of "reviewing before the Blitz means less for the Blitz". Kind of a flaw inherent in the system, really. :P Both being around would fix some of the problems at least, and it'd be up to the reviewers to figure out which balance they'd want to strike.
Just some ideas. Really, I'd certainly go hog-wild on reviews like I used to on BG if there was something year-round here.
Yeah, I can get where you're coming from. It shows in a couple of the informal (and even some formal) event topics. When you look at it one way, it makes sense. But here's the consequence: it also means there's no incentive to review when the Blitz isn't happening. Which means there's very likely some people silently holding off on reviewing until Blitz time because of it. That's certainly not healthy for a community. Like, I feel that way for one (on top of that time being busy), and more importantly, if I do a bunch of reviews over the year, what's left by the end if I've already read/reviewed all the things I've wanted? In a sense, the Blitz format also indirectly punishes consistent reviewing. Because the more reviews you do before, the less you can do then. This is especially bad since the Blitz rewards you for volume!
That's why I feel there needs to be something persistent in place. So people who can't make the Blitz, want to review en masse earlier, or want to go at their own pace rather than cramming it all in can still get something like Blitzers.
So how to deal with the problem of keeping it fresh? I'd propose the following. It's by no means inclusive, just some things off the top of my head.
- Monthly review challenges. Set a goal for members to fulfill for extra points. Like read X chapters or X fics of a genre you normally wouldn't touch, read X amount of chapters of a longfic you haven't before, and so on. Basically the themes in the Blitz. This would give some direction and encourage people to check out different things.
- Give bonus points for checking out a featured fic. This would also encourage people to check out more and different things. The only problem I can see here is how to balance this and how to define a feature fic. BG used to do Fic of the Month way back then, but that could easily get into clique or favoritism-based selection (i.e. not give lesser fics exposure). Maybe tie it into the forum events like Trainers of Fanfiction I suggested?
- A early review points bonus, rewarding for reading chapters faster. Bulbagarden had this in their iteration. I'd give way more leeway than they did however: say up to a week after posting, and partial points for two. This would encourage active readership.
- Maintain the Blitz. There is nothing stopping the two from coexisting. They could be entirely separate events, and participating in the Blitz would net you points in the persistent thing as well. It could even be the review challenge, do X number of reviews during it. Still, there's ultimately no getting around the problem of "reviewing before the Blitz means less for the Blitz". Kind of a flaw inherent in the system, really. :P Both being around would fix some of the problems at least, and it'd be up to the reviewers to figure out which balance they'd want to strike.
Just some ideas. Really, I'd certainly go hog-wild on reviews like I used to on BG if there was something year-round here.
Basically, staff-hosted events that feature elements of a fic. Like the Trainers of Fanfiction thing. You can see how the previous edition (2020...) ended up here. Don't have it be like a free-for-all, because anyone can post anything in Fic Discussion, and those tend to suffer from the problems of being more about people posting their stuff with not enough discussion in-between postings.
So translation, there will be one in the summer? :>
Yeah, more prefixes for Pokemon fics specifically.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this! Some good suggestions here for sure.
Bonuses for early reviews, around a monthly theme/for a particular featured fic, etc. are all good starts. I don't know that they're enough to maintain activity long-term, though, at least not alone. It doesn't seem to have worked for other review leagues/leaderboards that have tried it. But they're definitely things I would incorporate just to keep things feeling fresh and to encourage people to e.g. work on catching up on chapterfics they've fallen behind on or support new authors' works.
If we started any kind of ongoing review event, I'd definitely keep Blitz around. If nothing else, I think the two would probably be helpful to different kinds of readers/reviewers, although plenty of people would no doubt take part in both. Cross-promotional elements between them (e.g. bonus points for a certain number of Blitz reviews completed) would definitely be a thing.
In setting up an ongoing review event, my primary concern would be creating a sense of rhythm and seasonality even though the event is going on continuously. People get tired and overwhelmed if stuff is Always Happening (and no one can go hard all the time), but on the flip side they lose interest if there's a prolonged lull where nothing changes. Adding some internal deadlines and mini-events would help keep people engaged, I think, and help lend a sense of completion urgency for people who work better in well-defined chunks of time. Having time-bounded elements would make for more natural hopping-on points for new people to join, too. A hypothetical example would be a "league challenge" with year-long "seasons," with a champion being crowned at the end of each season and the points being wiped clean as the next season begins, possibly with some special bonuses/achievements carrying over for people who completed them in previous seasons.
In some ways you've kind of anticipated something I've been thinking about for a while, so it's good to hear there would be interest in this sort of system! I can't promise that it will be ready to go soon, but I am hoping to introduce some fun stuff in 2024, when the community will turn five.
Unfortunately it is true that there isn't a lot of incentive to review outside of various events and review exchanges, and people, as a result, largely don't. It's something I'd like to change, so that would be my primary interest in setting up some kind of ongoing review event. Fortunately I haven't seen much evidence of people hoarding reviews for Blitz time/running out of stories to review during Blitz--even people who write a lot of Blitz reviews seem like they often don't catch up with all the stories they've been meaning to review during the event.
Bonuses for early reviews, around a monthly theme/for a particular featured fic, etc. are all good starts. I don't know that they're enough to maintain activity long-term, though, at least not alone. It doesn't seem to have worked for other review leagues/leaderboards that have tried it. But they're definitely things I would incorporate just to keep things feeling fresh and to encourage people to e.g. work on catching up on chapterfics they've fallen behind on or support new authors' works.
If we started any kind of ongoing review event, I'd definitely keep Blitz around. If nothing else, I think the two would probably be helpful to different kinds of readers/reviewers, although plenty of people would no doubt take part in both. Cross-promotional elements between them (e.g. bonus points for a certain number of Blitz reviews completed) would definitely be a thing.
In setting up an ongoing review event, my primary concern would be creating a sense of rhythm and seasonality even though the event is going on continuously. People get tired and overwhelmed if stuff is Always Happening (and no one can go hard all the time), but on the flip side they lose interest if there's a prolonged lull where nothing changes. Adding some internal deadlines and mini-events would help keep people engaged, I think, and help lend a sense of completion urgency for people who work better in well-defined chunks of time. Having time-bounded elements would make for more natural hopping-on points for new people to join, too. A hypothetical example would be a "league challenge" with year-long "seasons," with a champion being crowned at the end of each season and the points being wiped clean as the next season begins, possibly with some special bonuses/achievements carrying over for people who completed them in previous seasons.
In some ways you've kind of anticipated something I've been thinking about for a while, so it's good to hear there would be interest in this sort of system! I can't promise that it will be ready to go soon, but I am hoping to introduce some fun stuff in 2024, when the community will turn five.
Got it. I can see what sort of small events we might be able to put together like that--encouraging people to discuss their stories in more detail.
@Cresselia92 @lichhen @Shiny Phantump @System Error @silurica @ShiniGojira @Spiteful Murkrow
All sprite companions earned for this event have now been awarded. Sorry for the long delay. Let me know if there are any problems or anything I missed.
All sprite companions earned for this event have now been awarded. Sorry for the long delay. Let me know if there are any problems or anything I missed.