Admin Post: A Few Ways to Get Involved in the Site Rebuild ...

[dawn_felagund]

I am continuing to make good progress on the site rebuild. Because our new software will be much more flexible than our old software, I can build several "wishlist" items that people have asked for. As I work on this, there are a few tasks with which others can be of assistance:

• We will be adding two Relationships fields: Major Relationships and Minor Relationships. These will include both romantic/sexual pairings and platonic relationships. Authors will be able to tag their fanworks with the relationships that feature and occur in the background, and readers will be able to find fanworks with those relationships. I have started a list of relationships to add to the initial list on the site. (You will be able to request a relationship that is not on the list--and through a much easier process than our current process to have new characters added!) If you'd like access to add to this list, please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.



• Likewise, we currently have some character groups on our Character list, e.g., the Valar or the Noldor. However, this list is far from complete. If you'd like access to this list as we continue to build it--same instructions as above.



• We have always accepted fanworks in languages other than English. However, this is not prominently expressed on our current site, and we'd like to change that. On the new site, you will be able to choose the language your fanwork is written in. If you want to post in a language not on the list, you will be able to add it. However, I'd like to start with a pre-populated list. I currently have received requests for Polish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. If there is a language you'd like to see that is not on the list, let me know by commenting here or emailing. Please note that we are looking for real-world languages, not Tolkien's languages. (There will be a separate way to identify fanworks that work with Tolkien's languages.)



• As before, we will have our Site Etiquette and Terms of Service translated into as many languages as we can. Since we just rewrote it, unfortunately, our existing translations are no more good, so we have to start from scratch. If you're interested in translating, again, comment here or email. We already have translations in the works for French, Spanish, and Portuguese but all other languages are still available.



• Finally, our inclusivity focus group is always open for new members from marginalized groups who would like to contribute to making the SWG as inclusive a place as possible. We're about to start working through our FAQs and other supporting documents on the site. Let me know if you'd like to join this work and other inclusivity discussions moving forward.

Comments

[heartofoshun]

Major Relationships and Minor Relationships -- two questions 1) is there a way to distinguish romantic/sexual relationships from platonic? 2) I do not understand what makes "major" or "minor." Major being a bedrock of the story/plot or being a long-lasting or permanent one or Minor being peripheral tp the main plot or not at all important in the context of character development. Or what? Maybe I am out-of-loop.

In choosing a story I might be in the mood for a relationship being central or avoiding the same. I might like a particular relationship as one of friendship and loathe it as a romantic one. I suppose this has been discussed and I just missed the discussion or is obvious in the culture/context of AO3 or other past websites and I have not been one of the Cool Kids.

[dawn_felagund]

1) is there a way to distinguish romantic/sexual relationships from platonic?

Yes. Romantic/sexual is the traditional slash. Platonic is an ampersand. So "Finrod/Turgon" would be a slash story. "Finrod & Turgon" would be a friendship story. This would be explained in the help text that appears below the field on the story submission form.

The advanced search will allow readers to search specifically for relationships, as well as exclude relationships from searches. So if you can't stomach a particular relationship, it is possible to exclude it from searches altogether.

2) I do not understand what makes "major" or "minor."

Your summary is a good one. I haven't built the Relationships fields yet, but here is the help text I have for Major Characters and Minor Characters:

Major Characters: Include characters who play a central role in the story. When deciding if a character is major, it can help to think about whether the character moves the story forward.

Minor Characters: Include characters who play a background or supporting role in the story.

Beta testers may eventually nitpick me on that wording, but that's what I have so far! The help text for the Relationship fields will be similar. Basically, what we're trying to avoid is the old problem of, say, Finrod and Turgon appearing as a background pairing in a femslash story about Galadriel and Aredhel, and authors worrying whether to choose it. On the one hand, Finrod/Turgon fans are frustrated that the story isn't really about their OTP, but by not choosing it, the author runs the risk of irritating the reader who hates any mention of Finrod/Turgon.

Also, the Minor Relationship field lets readers of rarepairs find stories that even mention their OTP, which for a rarepair fan can be huge. (Or so I've been told by rarepair fans! :D)

[heartofoshun]

Those definitions are terrific. I could see myself possibly nitpicking but am cooking dinner and they work as-is! And here I thought rarepair was anything I had never seen them or thought one was weird! Do they actually count them to see if they qualify?

Thank you for your patience!!

[dawn_felagund]

This will definitely be a living document. I expect I'll get nitpicked a lot during beta testing, but even once that phase is done, if someone can find a better, clearer way of expressing the help text, then I will be open to it! Very little is carved in stone ... even less so with Drupal than eFiction.

I still expect some will overthink which to use, but I hope the decision will be less anxiety-inducing than deciding whether to include a background character/relationship at all.

[hhimring]

I saw part of that discussion on the SWG Discord, Oshun.
(1) Yes, I think there will be a way to distinguish kinds of relationship. People over there were referring to the distinction between A / B (romantic or sexual) and A & B (platonic). Not sure whether Dawn is planning to use those symbols but that is the idea.
(2) I think "major" is actually important to the story and "minor" is background relationship. Sometimes, I suppose, the "major" one is the one readers might actively be looking for, the "minor" one is the kind readers might possibly want to be warned for, if they really dislike it, although there are other scenarios and permutations.

(Oh, I see Dawn has already answered, so forget about my comment!)

[heartofoshun]

Thanks Himring! I was getting anxious. I feel that during this period I have been so distracted and so much discussion takes place on Discord where I find it hard to participate that I was feeling terribly out-of-the-loop. Looking forward to the updated website as a way to be in-the-loop again. So any clarification is appreciated.

[dawn_felagund]

Thank you, Himring! ^_^

[hhimring]

I added some stuff, to the doc linked in the Discord

[dawn_felagund]

I see that! :D Thanks so much!