Upcoming changes to The Writers Circle by Carl

I thought I might make you aware of upcoming changes to The Writers Circle. I want to make this site an excellent resource for aspiring writers, not just a place to post your work and forget about it.

1. Allow visitors to comment anonymously on other people's work.

I shall introduce this as an experiment and will dismantle it if it doesn't work. Many visitors and authors on this site probably don't feel qualified to comment on or critique another person's work. This new feature will provide anonymity to the person doing the critique, so embarrassment should no longer be a factor! It is my belief that everybody is entitled to and able to critique. You don't need a degree in English literature, or even a GCSE for that matter. Just your first impressions are very valuable to an author! Commenting on another's work is an invaluable learning experience.

Authors should not worry that their work will suddenly be harshly and unjustly criticised however because authors will still have to log in to comment or critique. The identity of the person doing the critiqueing will be logged but not displayed. Hence both parties should be protected. I will only refer to the log if extremely unkind comments are posted, which I should hope will never happen.

2. Introduce a new competition whereby the most active reviewers will win a prize each month!

In order to give an incentive for writers to also critique each other people's work, I intend to introduce a new monthly competition. Every comment and critique (even those submitted anonymously) will count against your score each month. The most active reviewer (hence most valuable contributor to the site) will win a prize at the end of each month.

3. Receive an e-mail (optional) every time somebody comments on or critiques your work.

This is an attempt to make the site more interactive.

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Thank you, Rowland, for some of these ideas!

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If you can think of any further ways to improve the site, please add your comments below!

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Please note anybody can sell an e-book on this site. If you have an e-book you wish me to reformat (for free) and advertise on this site (for free) don't hesitate to contact me!

All articles on this website by Carl are copyright ©Carl and should not be reproduced without the author's prior written consent. All opinions are the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily the opinions of The Writers' Circle.

Comments

kemmylim

02 November 2008

I love the new initiatives, especially anonymous critiquing and an email prompt whenever someone reviews or comments. In fact, I was just thinking of the latter just before I read this.

Thank you once again for this fabulous site!!!

Carl

04 November 2008

Two of the initiatives are now in place.

1. There is no need to be shy about commenting on or critiquing other people's work anymore. You can now comment and critique anonymously. To do so, comment as before (requires you to log in) but tick the tickbox which says 'post anonymously' before posting your message or critique.

The comment will be listed against a special contributor called 'Anonymous' rather than against your own name. In order to moderate the site I do log the real originator of all messages but the real originator is never displayed on the website. The only reason for logging originators is to enable me to moderate the site...

2. The author whose work you are commenting about / critiquing will now also get an e-mail as soon as you post your comment. The idea is to make the site a little bit more interactive. It may have the opposite to the desired effect however so I will see how it goes. i.e. people may post work then only visit the site again when they receive a comment... This isn't what I had in mind!

If you find any problems with the new facilities please contact me so that I can sort them out :D

Also see: Website outage (Carl) • The Writers Circle has been upgraded (Carl) • We now have Facebook (Sarah) • Hello! (BCSimmonds) • Do you like the Kudos system? (Carl) • Would you sell on The Writers Circle? (Carl) • The Writers Circle has been upgraded (Carl) • Kudos, what's that? (Carl) • Enter our competition! (Carl) • Create your own website on The Writers Circle (Carl)

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Writer Carl	Total posts: 471
Roles: Editor , Moderator , Judge , Writer

North Wales, UNITED KINGDOM

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