Thanks to thedeadlymoose, blaroth, and photosynthetic for feedback and the use of their characters. Extra-special thanks to Mann for "Molotov II"
Girls' Night Out: Getting Drunk / Discussion
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This is the discussion related to the wiki page Girls' Night Out: Getting Drunk.
Plot hole: when does Adams get back from the bathroom?
Otherwise, neat story.
This is a Clef tale.
Imagine for an instant Undefined Asian Woman Stalking is Spider.
Reminds me a lot of "At Worlds End" which i hilarious in its own right, so i loved this. Cant wait for part 3.
+1'd. Clef, you did it to me again.
One little thing:
Despite her oddly sinuous movements, the Adams' eyes were bright and alert
You have an excess "the" in the above quotebox, marked with the bolding.
This whole "bar crawl" thing was starting to wear a bit thin
That was exactly what I was thinking after the first bar scene. I don't mind some of the stories being transition stories or set-ups as long as they are interesting, but I didn't have much fun with this one. Aside from the little bits of Foundation work, this felt rather cliched with first timer girl as well as excessive drinker girl, with token "just following suit" girls. I know this is supposed to lead up to a third part, but there was nothing here that I haven't seen before. No-vote for now, but I might change it depending on the third part.
(account deleted)This is a story in which people get drunk. That's pretty much it. There are the barest of nods to a story in that we have a Mysterious Stranger that shows up for some reason, but other than that, there's really nothing to this and no real reason to be interested.
This is one of the main problems with Resurrection, and it's amplified every time another one of these is posted. Let's set aside for a moment that an organization supposedly dedicated to suppressing knowledge of anomalous phenomena is taking an anomalous person out on the town for drinks, which makes exactly zero sense. The story is completely uninteresting, and the only reason it's even here is because it name-checks established characters from other stories that also don't really make any sense and also don't really have any sort of inherent interest.
This is the sixteenth article in this new canon posted to the site in the last two weeks. If the staff is going to flood the site and use their influence to purposefully affect the overall tone of the wiki, diluting the audience for non-Resurrection tales in the process, it would be nice if quality were considered more than building up a self-referential body of works. Which, to me, seems to be the main purpose of this and many of the other pieces submitted so far in this effort.
Thanks for your feedback. It's okay if you don't like things. :)
Piggybacking on Clef's post here to offer my own thoughts: "there is no canon" applies. I haven't really read any of these tales since I got back, as they're not really my thing (other than All They Want is the Blood, I've honestly never read anything with the SSAAs in it), but I really don't get the whole bruo-ha-ha surroudning it. Like, if staff was explicitly saying "the SSAAs are now canon and 'Resurrection' is the established lore of the site", then I'd get pissed. But as it stands, you can choose to simply ignore these works if you don't like them. As far as I can tell, offering another canon-verse satisfies those who like this sort of stuff, and doesn't prevent anyone who doesn't from rejecting it from their headcanons.
Also: lolFoundation was kind of a proto-Resurrection in that it attempted to capture the "wacky researcher antics" feel of the old site, and nobody complained about it at all. So why's this any different?
Like, if staff was explicitly saying "the SSAAs are now canon and 'Resurrection' is the established lore of the site", then I'd get pissed. But as it stands, you can choose to simply ignore these works if you don't like them.
I think staff, under the auspices of their position and reputation (as Mann described below) actively pushing something crosses a line. It may not be the ultra-clear, incontrovertible line that everyone would like to use as the yardstick, but it's not something I'm comfortable with. I understand that not everyone sees it that way. But it is a preference in style being expressed and supported by officially sanctioned site leadership. Personally, I don't think that can be ignored.
Also: lolFoundation was kind of a proto-Resurrection in that it attempted to capture the "wacky researcher antics" feel of the old site, and nobody complained about it at all. So why's this any different?
Because this one has an official blessing and has had sixteen articles in support of it posted. They're not the same thing.
I think staff, under the auspices of their position and reputation (as Mann described below) actively pushing something crosses a line.
Why? Staff are community members and writers just like everybody. They just also have big reputations and quality writing skills. I don't follow your position that a group of community members actively working toward creating something that they enjoy is somehow crossing a line. Ressurection is not established lore. It is not the official canon.
The staff members are excited about this canon, so they are writing things for this canon. That does not mean that they are forcing the hand of the wiki or attemping to change the tone. It means that the staff members are excited about this canon, so they are writing things for this canon.
I can agree with your assessment of this tale. Yes, it's a story about a couple girls who get drunk. In a lot of headcanons, this tale doesn't make any sense at all. I happened to enjoy it. If you don't like it, cool. Feel free to go do something else, because no one is forcing you do have anything to do with this canon.
I've been a lot quieter on Resurrection than most because it's just one of those things that is Not For Me, but I have to agree with what Kalinin has said here1. A lot of these tales seem to have no raison d'etre other than "welp, let's write something for Resurrection now". I mean, not everything has to be some earth-shattering, innovative work, nor should we expect them to be. But honestly, the signal-to-noise ratio for the entire canon is approaching shameful.
Footnotes
1. With the exception of the audience dilution argument, which I find suspect not just here but in all applications.
With the exception of the audience dilution argument, which I find suspect not just here but in all applications.
Let me elaborate upon this. Because let's be honest, mostly that argument gets trotted out when someone gets butthurt that their articles don't have the rating that they think they should.
Under normal circumstances, I don't believe in the existence of audience dilution. Trends and preferences evolve on the wiki, but I believe that to be a natural process driven by the membership as a whole. No single member or group of members has their hand on the steering wheel, and thus there is no concerted effort to marginalize material that does not meet whatever standards happen to be in fashion at the time. The path is always open to people who want to force their way into a new direction, if they can write it well enough. Usually.
Resurrection is a change in those circumstances. I've already stated my thoughts on how inappropriate I feel it is for a group of established staff members to be guiding the style of the wiki as directly as they are with this project, so you can take or leave that part. The sheer volume of these pieces, however, is a unique circumstance. As I said above, there are sixteen of these and counting within a two-week period. Outside of a contest, I have not seen this many things within a single canon get posted in that compressed of a time period since I joined the wiki in 2012. And obviously more is coming.
There is a finite amount of reader attention to go around. Ordinarily the relative quality of each piece posted to the wiki is a fair way to allocate that attention; generally speaking, the better pieces get more readers, for tales or articles. With this many entries, combined with the Resurrection "brand" and the fact that you have site admins openly declaring that This is What We Do Now, audience dilution becomes a very real consideration. Since the beginning of this canon, a little under half of all the tales posted have been Resurrection-related. It would have been a much higher proportion had Faminepulse not released a good chunk of his Old Kansas Sector series during that time. At what point does this crowd out other styles and voices? Readership for tales is supposedly a concern amongst this group; if that's actually a problem, I cannot see how this does anything to help that.
With each entry that is intended more to advance what is essentially an out-of-universe political agenda than to actually be a piece of entertaining writing, this exercise is feeling more and more like a filibuster.
I don't mean to be rude or to what, but I've been writing my unrelated vignette series separate and unrelated to Resurrection. I haven't noticed any kind of lack of attention to my tales or a dip in such. Old Kansas Sector's ratings hasn't really fluctuated dramatically with the introduction of Resurrection either (that can't be explained with like, that it's a series or that the most recent tales are relatively recent).
So if Resurrection is in fact drowning out other tales, am I just not seeing it?
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
I, personally, do absolutely have a political agenda in throwing my support behind Resurrection. But it might not be the one you think.
The arguments regarding Audience Dilution rely on a single fallacy: that the audience we currently have is the only one that we can have. If that is so, then yes: Resurrection will take away readers from the rest of the content of the site.
I don't think that's the case. The truth is that there are a lot of people off the site who do not, for whatever reason, choose to join the wiki. The number one reason they have given for not wanting to participate has been that they don't want to get involved in the toxic atmosphere of the wiki.
That is, to a large extent, my fault, and the fault of the old-timers on the wiki. Mea Culpa. We were younger then, and we were dumber, and we had no idea the impact that our decisions would have years down the line. We didn't need to be such a dick to our userbase. We didn't need to ban arbitrary categories of stories because we didn't like them. We really didn't need to be so hostile to new users on the off-chance that one or two of them would turn out to be disruptive trolls.
I was one of the first members of senior staff to create an official tumblr. I was also one of the first members of the old guard to start seriously taking a look at the fanart that was being created on sites like DeviantArt and Pixiv. What I noticed was that the fanart tended to focus largely on the monsters from Containment Breach (Not unsurprising!), but also the characters from the older tales.
But not just the Four Horsemen of Clef, Bright, Kondraki, and Gears. Iceberg too, a character whose major accomplishment is being a tragic figure with a close relationship with Gears. The Pitch Haven series is hugely popular among the Chinese userbase. People like stories with interweaving storylines and character development, and that's something that we've been extremely hostile to because of a single user back in the day who made us gun shy of the whole thing.
I did my own part to try and address that, mostly through GOC Casefiles. But when Moose came by and told me that they and a few other users were "considering a thing," you bet I joined in. Would Resurrection have succeeded without Senior Staff backing? I don't believe so. Not out of the quality of the writing, but because there are enough people who would arbitrarily dislike it for what it stood for.
I don't believe that the popularity of Resurrection means that Res is "drowning out" other content. I think that it means that an underserved audience is finally getting what it wants. One comment I have heard over and over from off-site readers is this: "I always thought that SCP Foundation was interesting, but when I went by, the stuff I liked, everyone yelled that you guys don't do that any more." As TroyL said in his KaktusKast: there is absolutely no reason why we need to keep acting like dicks.
Dilution only works if you add more solvent without also adding more chemical. If you also introduce more chemical in the process, the concentration of the solution stays the same.
e: collapsed long post —Photosynthetic
I have been avoiding responding to comments like these because I don't want a wanky debate, but: Responding by request.
The story is completely uninteresting, and the only reason it's even here is because it name-checks established characters from other stories that also don't really make any sense and also don't really have any sort of inherent interest.
You're claiming that everyone who likes this stuff (and all the old stuff) is wrong, and isn't actually interested in this stuff they think they're interested in.
Yes, some upvotes are probably coming because we're meeting acceptable writing standards. This is true for almost everything on the site. But that does not count for everyone.
With each entry that is intended more to advance what is essentially an out-of-universe political agenda than to actually be a piece of entertaining writing, this exercise is feeling more and more like a filibuster.
This is totally and completely false accusation. :/
Yes, this is not for everyone. For one, the pace is quite slow, and there's a lot of character buildup that's not traditional for the wiki (well, in recent years).
But we have put an absolutely nonsensical amount of work into these pieces. I personally have spent literally hours critiquing almost every single one of these pieces (with one exception, Crayne's piece, which I only got to give a quick once-over). I am sorry, but their quality is not non-existent. They may not appeal to you, but they do in fact have some value to an audience normally not catered to by this site.
You are, in effect, claiming that a group of staff & veteran writers saying "we're going to write these things because we want to write them and because we've realized there's an audience there for them" is an overreach. Something malicious.
Also, yes, we have formed a writing group that bypasses the established writing groups on the site, because the established ones explicitly shot this kind of material down, brutally, for years. A lot of people who jumped on Resurrection (such as Roget) are well aware of this, because they were (and are) part of these groups.
We are writing a shitload because we are super excited to write for this canon. In fact, we are writing far more than we should be writing, because we're having a lot of fun. Enough fun that it's an acceptable sacrifice to have to deal with this kind of hostility, accusations of malice, etc.
e: collapsed long post —Photosynthetic
I have been avoiding responding to comments like these because I don't want a wanky debate, but:
How kind of you to deign to respond then. Next time just tell me "fuck you, I'm not coming down to your level." It would be a more honest exercise and less passive-aggressive. I was under the impression that this was to be a discussion of some sort.
You're claiming that everyone who likes this stuff (and all the old stuff) is wrong, and isn't actually interested in this stuff they think they're interested in.
Um, I'm pretty sure I didn't say up there that this piece was emblematic of all the "old stuff" ever in the history of the wiki and that everyone who enjoyed it on any level is wrong. Don't put words in my mouth.
But we have put an absolutely nonsensical amount of work into these pieces.
I'm sure work has indeed gone into these pieces. The amount of work is not somehow directly commensurate with the quality of a piece.
I am sorry, but their quality is not non-existent.
Once again, I didn't say that. What I said is that the pieces are more geared towards advancing this "we must have more SSAA-related stuff on the wiki" agenda than being the best pieces of fiction they can be. Some quality is there, yes, otherwise they would most likely be deleted. But quality has taken a back seat to the mission you're all on here. That's what I'm saying. Disagree with my actual arguments.
You are, in effect, claiming that a group of staff & veteran writers saying "we're going to write these things because we want to write them and because we've realized there's an audience there for them" is an overreach. Something malicious.
Clef did this too. You are completely glossing over the fact that what you are trying to do is create more space for this kind of material. You are advocating for more of it. "We all just happened to want to write these things" is not at all an accurate representation of what's going on here. There is an intent here that you are not acknowledging. Whether that's "malicious" I can't tell, I'm not you. If you read my remarks in the hub page comment thread you'll see that I specifically, at numerous occasions, extended the benefit of the doubt to you all that this was not done for nefarious purposes. But regardless of the purposes, we all get to live with the consequences.
Also, yes, we have formed a writing group that bypasses the established writing groups on the site, because the established ones explicitly shot this kind of material down, brutally, for years. A lot of people who jumped on Resurrection (such as Roget) are well aware of this, because they were (and are) part of these groups.
Explain to me what "shot this down" means. Do you mean downvote brigading? Because that's something that could have been addressed with the existing rule structure. If what you really mean is "telling authors that they don't like this," I completely fail to see what the problem is. Sometimes certain sectors of the site don't like things. I was unaware that they were not free to do so. I was also unaware that the old school SSAA stuff was immediately shot on sight, which is something that once again I addressed back in the hub comments.
Enough fun that it's an acceptable sacrifice to have to deal with this kind of hostility, accusations of malice, etc.
Where's the hostility? You guys have an agenda. Pointing that out appears to be something you interpret as a personal attack, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm responding to what I consider to be the facts of the situation. Apparently that's "wanky debate" to you, which, you're welcome to have that opinion. But this effort is not somehow immune to criticism, and just as you state that you are not acting maliciously, neither am I. I am reacting based on my desire for the long-term health of the site.
e: collapsed long post —Photosynthetic
Senior Staff Agenda: Have fun writing stuff we like writing.
…Yup.
Admin, SCP Wiki
How kind of you to deign to respond then. Next time just tell me "fuck you, I'm not coming down to your level." It would be a more honest exercise and less passive-aggressive. I was under the impression that this was to be a discussion of some sort.
I mean that when I get involved in debate, I tend to make them wanky debates myself. That was not aimed at you, it was aimed at acknowledging a flaw of mine. One which I have been attempting to rectify.
Don't put words in my mouth.
Your words stand on their own. I quoted them above my interpretation. I don't see any other way of interpreting them. I'm just confused as to what's going on here. If you didn't mean this… well, what did you mean?
Once again, I didn't say that.
Then what did you mean by "The story is completely uninteresting, and the only reason it's even here is because it name-checks established characters from other stories that also don't really make any sense and also don't really have any sort of inherent interest"?
What I said is that the pieces are more geared towards advancing this "we must have more SSAA-related stuff on the wiki" agenda than being the best pieces of fiction they can be.
You have no way of knowing this unless you can read minds. All I can do is assure you as someone that lives in my own head, it is not the case. I am sorry.
You are completely glossing over the fact that what you are trying to do is create more space for this kind of material. You are advocating for more of it. "We all just happened to want to write these things" is not at all an accurate representation of what's going on here. There is an intent here that you are not acknowledging.
I'm fully acknowledging it. We are explicitly trying to create more space for this kind of material. And this only exists because "we all just happened to want to write these things" and there was no space for that kind of material.
Why do you think there's this sudden explosion of productivity? I would imagine that it's because it's been pent-up for quite a long time. Because of exactly this sort of thing.
Explain to me what "shot this down" means.
If what you really mean is "telling authors that they don't like this," I completely fail to see what the problem is. Sometimes certain sectors of the site don't like things. I was unaware that they were not free to do so.
Of course that's what I mean. And it's not a problem from a disciplinary standpoint. We aren't forcing people to stop, except when it gets to the point of shitposting, or presenting their opinions about what you Cannot Do as if they were facts (unless they ARE facts — ex — you do have to use metric in an SCP, using Imperial is a Cannot Do), both things that go against our rules.
It IS a problem because a lot of writers are tired of having this kind of thing shot down. Which is a reason why some people (not all) are writing for Resurrection. (Actually, some of the writers don't think that's an issue, they just also like Resurrection.)
I was also unaware that the old school SSAA stuff was immediately shot on sight, which is something that once again I addressed back in the hub comments.
This has been repeatedly acknowledged to be the case and constantly happened for years, and still happens now. If you don't think it happened or happens, then okay (and I certainly don't begrudge anyone not noticing), but this has been the experience of many writers, including writers who don't like Resurrection. And myself.
Where's the hostility?
If you don't see it, fair enough. Though I would like you to extend the same courtesy to me.
But this effort is not somehow immune to criticism
Not one person involved with this canon has ever said that, and implying otherwise is not fair. Please stop.
I am reacting based on my desire for the long-term health of the site.
So are we, man. So are we.
e: collapsed long post —Photosynthetic
I want to clarify something. We are not saying "We're doing things this way now." What we're saying is that "We'd like for this to be okay on the wiki now." We are using our influence as popular writers to do so, yes, and some of our staff position. But it's not about making people step in line. We are not mandating anyone's votes. You are perfectly free to downvote. You've done so, and if anyone has censured you for downvoting, then they are entirely in the wrong.
We don't want to force anyone to have to write this. If you liked the sort of stuff that we've been doing for the last five years, then keep writing it! I love the stuff we've done in the last five years too. If it's good, I'll upvote it, even if it smells nothing of Resurrection. What we do want is to make sure people don't feel they have to write that way. You might not have seen it, but we have. We've had newbies tell us they'd like to write different stuff, but they feel it won't be welcomed on the wiki.
Our names certainly helped build a certain amount of acceptance. At the least, I think people have built up a certain amount of trust in us, that we can write decent things, and so we're extended the benefit of the doubt. But there are newbie authors who've done things contrary to the established "meta" of the wiki and found success. Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking wasn't like anything else on the wiki when it premiered. It was Digiwizzard's first and only SCP. Fantem's Pitch Haven series features anomalous characters who were SCP personnel (albeit approached in a far different way) and has a tone that's much more fantasy-oriented than other articles. My own Lombardi Tales are purely character-driven. These are things that have done well.
The issue we've seen is that people look at these things and they think, "Well, some people can do that. But nobody else can." Either they think it's a one-off, or it's something that only certain writers can get away with. And it's a shame, because when someone does get over that fear and posts it, it's often received decently well, so long as the writing's good. But there's still that stigma.
That's what we're trying to fight. We're not trying to force people to write this way, we're trying to show that it's okay to write this way if they want, to give them a framework where they can play with it. And if they want, write their own non-resurrection stuff that does the same thing. Or, if that's not their thing, write other stuff.
Last I checked, there were seven downvotes and twenty-seven upvotes. You're not the only person who isn't enjoying this series, but the majority of the comments (albeit not an overwhelming majority) have been positive. People like this stuff. Not everyone, and that's okay, but a decent number. They're having fun with it. Again, you don't need to like it. You can downvote, say why you don't like it, but you're getting pretty close to pissing on people for liking different things than you, and that's not okay.
We're not trying to make anyone write any particular way. We're just trying to make an environment where stuff like Resurrection (or different from Resurrection or the established meta) can be posted and live on its merits. We knew that a lot of people (including ourselves) liked the old stories, even if they did have their faults, and we wanted to bring some of that back. If we've made anyone feel like they should feel bad for not liking Resurrection, we're sorry. If we've made anyone feel like they shouldn't write anything but Resurrection, we're sorry for that, too. That isn't our intention. We just want to let people write what they like, and let the wiki vote on it.
There's a lot of Resurrection stuff coming now. And yeah, there's some bloat. A lot of people are throwing ideas at the wall just to see what sticks. Most of it comes down to the fact that people are excited. If you're worried about Resurrection taking over the wiki, don't be. It's like when Orientation articles were all the rage. I posted one, and a month later there were ten. Once the initial rush lets off, the pace will slow down a bit. We'll see other projects, some similar, some not. We'll see regular SCP articles. We'll see more horror-oriented tales. This isn't the end of the Wiki as you know it. Give it a couple of weeks, and only a few of the Most Recently Created pages will raise your blood pressure.
Too long, didn't read version: We're not making people write this way now. We just want them to feel like they can if they want to.
I seriously disagree with your insistence that the continued writing in this canon is solely a political agenda to to completely reinvent the style for which this wiki is known for and the standards to which every work on this site is held, but that is an argument for another day. (Okay, I can't resist one shot. You say this is more an agenda than it is an attempt to write something entertaining. Yet, by its continued existence and ratings in the 30's, it proves itself to be found entertaining by a group of people that does not solely consist of site staff.)
Your core argument here seems to be that the high volume of work posted by staff within a single universe, in this case the Resurrection universe, will draw readers away from the other tales posted during this time period. I will admit that I am biased in favor of Resurrection. So, let's go straight to the numbers. Every tale since the first Resurrection piece:
| Name of Tale | Rating | Resurrection? |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate Actions | 37 | Yes |
| Clock Multiplier | 77 | No |
| Scramble Order | 22 | No |
| Hunting Anderson | 18 | No |
| "I Quit." | 47 | Yes |
| The Seed of an Idea | 35 | Yes |
| Contingency | 46 | Yes |
| The Coming Tide | 1 | No |
| Just A Formality | 30 | Yes |
| Greener Pastures | 41 | No |
| Waffling About | 42 | No |
| Insurrection | 23 | No |
| Hugo Hijinks | 20 | No |
| Resurrection HUB | 41 | Yes |
| Integrity Project | 25 | Yes |
| What's In A Name | 37 | Yes |
| Boss of Me | 27 | Yes |
| Null-Terminating String | 62 | No |
| Old Kansas Sector ~ 5: Sinopec Dark | 17 | No |
| Old Kansas Sector ~ 6: The SCP Foundation | 15 | No |
| Minerva Lifted | 17 | No |
| Coming of Age | 6 | No |
| Old Kansas Sector ~ 7: The Stairwell | 16 | No |
| New Tricks (or: Youth Culture Killed My Dog) | 38 | Yes |
| The Wolves at the Door | 29 | Yes |
| Let the Games Begin | 11 | No |
| Deals with the Devil | 30 | Yes |
| 'dad', you're too fucking late | 41 | No |
| Girls' Night Out: Dressing Up | 36 | Yes |
| Old Kansas Sector ~ 8: Gersha | 9 | No |
| Old Kansas Sector ~ 9: Retribution | 11 | No |
| Involuntary Isolation | 16 | No |
| A Matter of Faith | 10 | No |
| sex at frigid temperatures | 27 | No |
| The Space Soldier | 21 | No |
| Museum of Idiots | 27 | Yes |
| Additional Resources | 18 | Yes |
| Like We Were Ever Kindergarten Teachers to Start With | 26 | Yes |
| Girls' Night Out: Getting Drunk | 20 | Yes |
Resurrection Tales: 17
Average Rating of All Posted Resurrection Tales: 30
Non-Resurrection Tales: 22
Average Rating Of All Posted Non-Resurrection Tales: 24
Analysis: Older tales are more highly rated than newer tales, but that's a function of the vote system we have in place and can be ignored. Resurrection has a slim lead by a margin of 6 votes on average. This is actually more surprising for the fact that it isn't larger, given that Resurrection is headed by a group of people who were chosen partly for their ability to create consistently high-quality material.
Individually, the highest rated Resurrection tale is in its forties, a milestone which multiple non-Resurrection tales surpass.
Now, to address the idea that Resurrection is drawing site readers away from other specific material:
Average Rating of Old Kansas Sector Tales Before Resurrection: 37
Average Rating of Old Kansas Sector Tales After Resurrection: 13.6
Analysis: Old Kansas Sector had a significantly higher rating before Resurrection. However, individually, this isn't the damning evidence it seems. The first three tales in the OKS series were posted almost 2 years ago, The most recent tale, posted before Resurrection, is rated 19. The time-bias of our voting system is largely to blame for this upset. To make it clearer:
Average Rating of OKS tales posted before 2015: 43
Rating of OKS tale posted during 2015, before Resurrection: 19
Average rating of OKS tales posted after Resurrection: 13.6
Average Rating of LtA tales before Resurrection: 35
Average Rating of LtA tales after Resurrection: 18
Average Rating of LtA tales before resurrection without its first tale: 29
Analysis: Again, this seems like evidence, but it isn't. Anart Antics, rated 66, was posted more than a year ago. Without it, the other tales average 29, and even then, that's after two-thirds of a year accumulating votes.
Average Rating of AIAD tales before Resurrection: 94
Average Rating of AIAD tales after Resurrection: 69.5
Average Rating of AIAD tales before Resurrection without its first tale: 80
Analysis: AIAD, being written entirely recently, is a better example by which the pre- and post-Resurrection votes may be tallied. However, given the fact that every single tale is rated more highly than any Resurrection tale at this point, there isn't much that needs saying. I will, however, note that AIAD demonstrates the type of experimental style and creativity that Resurrection is somehow supposed to be discouraging, according to the post on the hub, and people are still loving it.
Average Rating of SotM tales before Resurrection: 22
Rating of SotM tale after Resurrection: 17
Analysis: Finally we reach Straight On Till Morning, a fully-2015 series that doesn't utilize an attention-getting format screw(beyond that sexy sexy swapped palette for the tales and a few beautiful technical diagrams). And yes, it appears that the single tale posted after Resurrection has fewer votes than the series average. However, the margin is a measly 5, and it is not the lowest rated tale in the series.
Average Rating of all Singualr Tales Before Resurrection: Near impossible to determine
Average Rating of all Singular Tales After Resurrection: 22
Analysis: For completeness, the average rating of all singular tales posted to the site following Resurrection has been posted here, and it does lose to Resurrection. Specifically, it loses by only 8, and that is including a tale that is at 1 as well as several tales in their 40's.
Final Analysis(tl;dr): Resurrection is slightly more popular, on average, than the other tales posted to the site following its inception. However, the audiences for individual series does not seem to be greatly diminished when time bias is taken into account, and even the margin by which Resurrection beats the other tales is not huge. I'm really not seeing any evidence of serious audience dilution.
EDIT: Damn, this post took me two hours. I should've refreshed to see how the argument had progressed in that time.
Unfold
Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection by 
Bryx, 07 Apr 2015 02:10
Re: Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection
Honestly Bryx that is not only super impressive but helps clarify the argument a lot like wow. 10/10. Bryx for head cabal admin 2015.
/joking
Living the dream, or dreaming the life?
Re: Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection
Don't know how many times we're going to beat this dead horse… guess till we're bored with it.
If you don't like it, downvote and move on (EDIT: Or downvote and comment on the work itself) This community is a democracy, we all get to vote (and a voice) on content, resurrection is no exception. We got canons about catgirls, and space arks, and lolz, and 1970's themed sci-fi (all of which are great in their own way); so how you propose we remedy this? By putting restrictions on what we can't write about or who is not allowed to write things? All I hear is alot of negative gripe and '0' ideas for solutions.
Sorry for derailing discussion on Clef's tale. This debate should have not been started here, but it did.
Unfold
Re: Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection by 
LurkD, 07 Apr 2015 04:20
Re: Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection
If you don't like it, downvote and move on.
Quibble: I disagree with this sentiment, because it implies you can't post about your displeasure at length, which… well, I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to argue against that.
I had to say this because I'd already asked another person not to use that phrase, haha XD;
EDIT: Don't wanna double post. Holy fuck, Bryx, that's a lot of data. :O
Unfold
Re: Analysis of Audience Dilution Based on Tales Posted After Resurrection by 
thedeadlymoose, 07 Apr 2015 04:23
A lot of these tales seem to have no raison d'etre other than "welp, let's write something for Resurrection now".
I assure you, that's not the case. That doesn't mean it doesn't seem that way, though… I just want to be clear that this is, frankly, a labor of love.
But honestly, the signal-to-noise ratio for the entire canon is approaching shameful.
I hope you're wrong, but I am seeing the bloat myself. I don't see it here — I see this as the sort of material vital to this canon, more character-relationship focused stuff that will not work for everyone, but serves a specific audience that loves this kind of thing. And audience of which I am a member of.
However, yeah. I am the one who's planning the story structure for this, and I will fully admit we're doing way, WAY too much setup. But the reason I didn't crack down on this is because there are so many people who are finding this kind of thing to be a lot of fun.
(Actually, I //have/ cracked down a little… but not enough that there aren't a few stories left for Phase 1 of this canon.)
Basically, I am prioritizing the fun people are having over the structural integrity of the story, to some extent. I do think we've/I've gone slightly far with this, but despite the sheer head-crushing effort that's gone into this canon so far, we are far from perfect.
Also, I want to be clear I welcome this sort of feedback. Frankly, this is the kind of feedback most tale series badly need on the wiki, and almost no one gives it… and I am one of the people who usually gives it, but I'm too close to this project to give the best feedback possible.
So: "But honestly, the signal-to-noise ratio for the entire canon is approaching shameful." — is a very helpful thing to know; it tells us we need to compensate for the issue. That will almost certainly not be perfect, but it's valuable advice to take into account, harshly phrased or no.
e: collapsed long post —Photosynthetic
This discussion has gotten out of hand, and has become completely detached from the piece itself.
As a reminder, all critique is bound to our Criticism Policy. To give an absurd simplification (although most of us already know it well enough): critique the piece, not the author. That line has been crossed here, more than once. It would behoove folks to reread that (we all need to on occasion, as all its nooks and crannies can be hard to remember); Rule 1 and Guideline 5 are particularly applicable here.
It's more than okay to not particularly like this article, or Resurrection as a whole. Honestly, both of those statements apply to me. But you still have to follow the critique rules.
I hope this isn't on the wrong side of shit posting but reading the comments section in the hub and the articles for Resurrection is way more compelling than reading the actual tales. This is the ultimate meta submission in my mind, its got drama, its got not paucity of unique voices and takes, people really sticking up for visions that extend to the end of the wiki and people who are more focused on whats in front of them. Lots of persuasive arguments and interesting angles coming across in a really honest and earnest way.
The tales aren't horrible, but there is no way I'm going to be able to read them all (I might circle back once the bulk of it is out and try to chew through it, but I haven't got the patience for it right now) but taking a peak behind the curtain on this project is downright fascinating. I'm really interested to see if some of the criticisms (and defenses) the authors and the community have constructed end up folding back and shaping some of the canon as it reaches its later stages (I'd imagine the thrust of the story is pretty much worked out by now, but some of the thematic through lines and dominant voices are clearly still waiting to be established) especially now that there is so much discussion out there where I can get a real appreciation for what the vision of several of the authors is.
A meta-meta analysis of this when its all over could be mindbending.
/forum/t-1164762/girls-night-out:getting-drunk#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
