Forum:Quality Concerns

Poor Quality Merits Deletion??
Yun, deleting stories for poor quality is a really bad move. First, there's no rule that says only good stories can stay, and while some stories are severely underdeveloped, deleting stuff unilaterally won't make it better (raising awareness of those stories and encouraging would-be contributors would). Second, if you delete things just because you consider it poor, people that consider your stuff poor will have a good reason to delete them. --Nonimportant 23:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Uh huh, and not to be rude but, Then what's going to prevent Novelas from turning into the junkpile which it already half is? 00:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

So writing an unfinished short story that you consider of poor quality warrants deletion? If you had at least asked at talk pages or forums if that was a good idea, or even just made a poll, I'd say that no, and then other people could actually pose questions, agree, disagree, offer solutions or nominate stories that warrant deletion. But all that I can do now is protest after unilateral action, so gimme ten examples of what you consider the "junkpile" just to see if I at least agree with you on that principle. Novelas has more than two thousand articles, if half of death is a junkpile, I'd be impressed. --Nonimportant 00:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Ya,I felt awful after posting about deleting that weird story about clones and space drugs and stuff.Unicode was half a joke to me.I don't know what issue you have with the bloating of Novelas,but I don't think that this should be done without vote.There are talk pages,use themUser:Serprex 02:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, poor quality merits deletion
By junk, I mean stories that are of so poor quality, or so simplistic, or haven't gotten to anything more than a bit interesting because they're overly short, or ones about random stuff that doesn't even classify as fiction proper, or are merely scripts or plots that have not been developed. Those stories' existence would only degrade the quality of this site due to their poor work, giving readers a sense of unfulfillment and displeasure. These things don't merit saving because there's less than a 1% chance that anyone who's left this site for good will come back to develop them, and less than a 1% chance that anyone else will want to develop it.

Seriously, why would you want to keep all of this stuff? Every other site has rules about what can and cannot be accepted, either due to mods or posting rules or user criticism. Wikipedia has some really stringent rules for all it's worth, and it's as wiki as Novelas. But this site has become too much of a free-for-all, with some common users on this site (Serprex, Nonimportant) advocating for the poor-quality works to remain and undeleting them, while some uncommon users happily submit below par stories and then criticize me for a poor rating.

Now, you could argue that this stuff theoretically has value and could be improved, but as far as I've seen (and I've seen much on this site), no one has really taken the time to improve what would otherwise be a really bad work. Prove me wrong--go improve some of these stories listed below. But please keep away from unbridled randomness and surrealism, those "genres" are just weird and at least to me don't seem to be a hallmark of good writing. This site is for good writers, not for BS writers.

If this place were to actually have a standard, maybe others would see Novelas a bit higher and actually want to be part of this group.

Here's a list:


 * 1) Timelord of the Rings - DrWho Does Middle Earth
 * 2) The Devil's Blade
 * 3) Darkness Has Fallen: The Last Stand
 * 4) Sealoft Island
 * 5) Reckless Playing
 * 6) Rachel Hears a Voice
 * 7) Shadowland
 * 8) No Way Out
 * 9) Squirrel vs baloon
 * 10) The Race to the Treasure
 * 11) The Poppyverse - though this one is recent
 * 12) A Deathly Alliance
 * 13) A prophecy in stone
 * 14) Air and Space
 * 15) Ahasuerus
 * 16) An Ending
 * 17) Amoebas Have Feelings Too
 * 18) Arsenal FC match reports
 * 19) Back to the Future
 * 20) Battle of Shanghai - I'm not afraid to list one of my own works
 * 21) Brainstorm!
 * 22) Cripple-Girl 2
 * 23) FBI Spy:Volume One
 * 24) Ghost wars
 * 25) I Am the Tinman
 * 26) Hell Hath no Fury: An Ice Queen's Saga
 * 27) Hundred Days
 * 28) Pandora's Box/0
 * 29) Outlier
 * 30) The Haunting
 * 31) Unicode - this can't even be referred to

Check out Archives, there's a whole list of works you should look at and take the time to consider whether they should remain or be deleted.

16:01, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Reply by Nonimportant
I can, in theory, agree that really small incomplete stories that authors left alone for a long time and no one wants to make better can be deleted (like Pandora's box), but seriously, Ahasuerus and A Prophecy in Stone are completed, are rather good, and the author of one stopped for less than a month and the other is still writing (he posted one less than a week ago). Poppyverse was barely started, so you can't say it'll not continue yet (though I, too, have my suspicions). FBI spy is amusing, if incomplete. Many others are only listed because you think they're not good which is an opinion, one that has to be respected, but still an opinion. Saying that surreal and random are worthless is like a guy that doesn't like Fantasy saying Tolkien sucks. And Battle of Shanghai and Brainstorm are not stories, they're reminders, roadmaps for a story that someone may write (I'll even move Brainstorm! to an user subpage).

And "Wikipedia has some really stringent rules" because the goal of Wikipedia is being a trustworthy encyclopedia, this wiki's goal is becoming a repository of amateur writing, that are, by definition, not perfect; trying to institute a "quality standard" in a project of this kind (even a non-skewed one) is oxymoronic, an "effort standard" could, in theory, be a good idea though. If I was a good writer, for instance, I wouldn't be here, I'd be out there writing books, becoming rich, sending my clothes to be washed in Paris, bribing politicians into stop doing dumb things and funding socialist revolutions around the world. And in case it's not obvious, I'm not doing any of these things. I believe the situation of other contributors to the site are similar. --Nonimportant 21:36, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Why We Need To Delete Bad Works
I'm also into Starcraft.org, and they have rules too about the content that can be submitted. Works go through a short review; some works which are clearly below par are not posted. They don't like accepting incomplete content unless it's a complete chapter or episode in a series. That is the case even though we can modify our submissions on that site afterward, so it's actually quite similar to Novelas in that aspect. But NO ONE there complains about voting, about article deletion, and about their own "elite fiction" section. Everyone there falls into line, because it's a tradition they all respect--it's a meritocracy, where those who are good at it get to the top, ie. get "Exceptionals", become moderators, etc. Hence, the quality of fiction on that site is generally higher than it is here, at least in my opinion. And they have a LOT more contributors too.

Here, it's entirely the opposite, where it seems everyone wants the bad articles to stay and everyone hates raters who give out low ratings. Why do you want to keep the bad pages? It's not like that many people are actually benefiting from their continued existence. And what's with all the random/misc/literotica/surrealism/nihilism that we're getting on this site? Other sites aren't so laden with those kinds of works, primarily because they don't favor them. Really, it attracts the people who can't write well to this site, and we don't actually want Those kinds of people contributing either. With the voting issue, it's like everyone here is afraid of getting criticism, can't stand it, as if they were really horrible with their writing. IMPROVE! That's what one of the goals of this site is, right? And then the people who want reviews, LIKE ME, don't get enough.

I think the problem with "rather good" here is that you all haven't seen enough of the actual "rather good" stories. Check out the library--the bookstore--even some online places such as Starcraft.org--and you'll know what Novelas is missing so greatly. It's the good stories we want on this wiki, not the generally disreputable stuff that would never have a chance of making it into a publishing house.

If we started doing some serious rating, giving bad ratings to bad works, that would actually discourage people from submitting bad content, and either get them to submit good ones or not submit at all. And I'd think not submitting at all is better than submitting bad content and then:


 * 1) Refuse to let it be deleted (ie. Serprex and Unicode);
 * 2) Descry the bad reviews and ratings I give (ie. Shaolu);
 * 3) Making "ugh" sections (such as Random, Purposefully Bad Writing (ie. Long Livveth Poj), Literotica, incest, etc.) into standard sections on Novelas;
 * 4) Claim that their 5kb story is a Novel (ie. Nails, Seventh Denotation);
 * 5) Use their works and similarly poor-quality ones as "examples" to others when debating on the merits of their work;
 * 6) Get encouraged and start producing more similar works.

Also, some works which have barely no effort in them shouldn't be kept either; it's especially bad if the author promises to write more "tomorrow" and that were like 2 years ago and never touched it since. Nearly all of my works are particularly long, because I actually care about the quality of my writing. There's been quite a lot of people writing extremely short BS on this site, (such as An Ending,) if you hadn't noticed, and that's why there are so many scattered things all over the place. And you certainly can't say that Rachel Hears A Voice is of any literary merit whatsoever.

Random works are by definition random, and it gives me the same distaste as putting "abstract" / "modern" art (you know, with simple stripes on a white canvas, which takes 2 minutes) inside a museum for $100,000,000. It's the same BS--claiming an extremely bad work to be a "work of genius" is just implausible.

You may argue that works ought to be kept on this site because the authors may get better over time. Have you noticed that almost nobody stays on this site consistently for long, maybe with the exception of me, Serprex, Nonimportant, and Nardek? No one really "gets that much better" over time. No one really holds up to their promises. Not even me, who promised, with 10,000 edits behind my back, to get Quest.wikia really going. So let's stop acting as if we believed others' empty promises, and do our best to improve the average quality of our current collection.

Serprex already agrees that outlines don't belong. Works like An Ice Queen's Saga and Battle of Shanghai ought to go, since--if you hadn't noticed already?--no one has actually followed up. NO ONE, after all the months, and years! No one has, no one is, and no one will, follow up on "planning". So I suggest we delete them all.

Another main problem with keeping is that the majority of stories we'd otherwise delete are incomplete, and thus the casual reader surfing our site will be disappointed by the abrupt end. True, most stories, even the good ones here, are not complete, but they at least are longer and have more content with which to go on. And don't think anyone would want to contribute to a work they find of poor quality. Noticed? I only contributed to works of similar quality as 2084, The Heir, Chronicles of Kings and Knights, and Secret of the Were-Virus, because they were well written. No one wants to see their good works mixed in with the bad and not have any forms to distinguish between the two. And deep down, you know which one deserves more credit--To Mance a Mance, or The Race to the Treasure. Do you really want others to think that they are equally good? Because that's how people's logic runs, especially in the absence of a rating system.

Consider this: Person A writes good works and puts them on Novelas. Person B writes really bad works but doesn't want the good writers to have all the glory and so puts them on Novelas also, reducing the site's average quality. Person C stumbles upon Person B's work via Random page, finds the content absolutely horrible, and decides not to participate. Person D, meanwhile, likes another form of disreputable work and contributes it. Person A abandons this clearly going-downhill wiki, leaving only B and D left. Person E sees potential amid the morass and tries to improve via deletion and rating (E is me), but is outvoted by the remaining B and D, who each legitimize their works based on the other person's work, claiming them to be okay, even "outstanding". What should Person E do at this point? What will Person F think?

You know, this whole debate reminds me of the income inequality issue. In this metaphor, I get a high salary (from good works, I guess?) and works like Long Livveth Poj give low dividends. Rank yourselves based on how much "literary quality" salary you're getting--and if it turns out most of your works fall into the 'pauper' category, you know that you have a bias in favor of low quality works.

22:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Resolutions

 * 1) Delete bad works.
 * 2) Rate the remaining works, even if someone else (like me) already rated it.
 * 3) Take an aggressive stand against works of poor quality.
 * 4) Improve works that you actually see potential in. If you can't get yourself to do it, it's probably not very dear to you or others for that matter.
 * 5) Close off the "minimal", "random", and just-weird sections--don't allow any others to contribute to it.
 * 6) Consider creating an "elite stories" section to which others can strive, and which can separate the chaff from the wheat.

22:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Novelas's Goal: to be a collection of really good stories
And no, the point is that deleting bad works IS making this site better because it brings up the average--important on the internet and especially with 'random page'. Meanwhile, raising awareness would just make it more obvious to newcomers that this place is a junkpile, and no one will bother improving a work that's obviously considered bad by other readers--no one has ever done such a thing to my knowledge during my nearly one full year here. Raising awareness won't do a thing.

Also, technically about the "half is junkpile" thing, if works cover a spectrum of qualities, and we define junkpile as the poorer quality half, then there will ALWAYS be half a junkpile. So you can't take it all literally--the point is to steadily bring up the quality of fresh contributions to the work, and perhaps eliminate those bottom-level ones.

Heck, look how much effort I'm putting into writing this long string of essays. If a story can't be even as long as THAT, then obviously the writer has put in too little effort to be merited serious consideration on this site.

Oh, and The Battle of Shanghai isn't a reminder or roadmap for anyone in the forseeable future, it just is a possibility for being one that has less than a 1% chance of becoming reality.

AND WHO THE HECK SAID THAT NOVELAS OUGHT TO BE A REPOSITORY FOR AMATEUR WRITING?!!!?????!!!???

'''Novelas isn't intended to be a junkpile, which the declaration above would suggest. NO! Novelas has the same goal as a lot of other fiction sites on the internet--to be a stockpile for GOOD works, not BAD ones. Bad ones go OUT!!!'''

Wikipedia's goal is to be a reliable encyclopedia. Novelas's goal is to be a collection of really good stories, not a place where dabblers can write jibberish and post it on here forever claiming it's a brilliant piece of work.

22:47, 16 September 2007 (UTC)