Mod Note: New Co-Mod and Other Big Changes

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

Mod Note: New Co-Mod and Other Big Changes

Please welcome sanguinity as your new overlord co-mod for the comm. As you may have noticed, sanguinity does more reccing and work on the comm than I do. *coff* So now it's official! She is already cackling over her new access to all the knobs and dials -- I mean, she has made some good suggestions to make the comm easier to use.

So we'll be doing things like: adding the list of tags to the sidebar; adding links to the sidebar and perhaps a widget for the 50books_poc del.icio.us list; and a FAQ. For this last -- if you have questions you'd like to see go into a FAQ, leave a comment.

quivo wrote to ask about the possibility of including short stories in the challenge for people who have less time to read. Very short books and novellas do already count, but it might be fun to carry on a mini-challenge for short stories, essays and poems. I like the idea of reccing short stories, especially if they can be found on the web. This mini-challenge would have its own tag, and would count separately from books. I can't think of a snappy name for it -- the best I could come up with in the middle of a very busy week (TGIF, *thud*) is 50shortsPoc, which sounds like…underwear. The last thing I want to do is start a boxers vs. briefs kerfuffle on the comm. 8-) Can anyone think of something better?

I also want to publicly and in front of everybody thank rydra_wong for all the work she does on this comm. She does helpful stuff like adding tags, gives smart answers to questions people have, and is a walking compendium of useful resources. Plus she posts many many recommendations. 8-) She doesn't want to be an official mod, but I hereby declare her a Community Treasure.

Last but not least, I want to welcome all the new people who have been joining. Hello, new people!

Comments

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

I for one welcome our new sanguinity overlord!

A few new members have been asking similar questions recently about "what counts?" I think that's probably the most important question to answer in the FAQ -- actually, it's two questions: "who counts as a POC?" and "what counts as a book?" I.e. can you count re-reads, separate books in a series, short books, children's books, comics, etc. There are a couple of members who don't count manga, but that's a personal preference and not a community rule, and it might be worth spelling that out.

I also think it would be good to have a question along the lines of "Is this going to be really hard and depressing and just like having homework again?" To which the answer would be something like: it may take a slight mental effort at first, simply because of the unconscious preconceptions you've picked up from society, but experience shows that once you get over that hump -- and it is just a hump, not a mountain -- the challenge is enormous fun. This isn't supposed to be a penance. It's okay to enjoy yourself. It's okay for it to be easy. It's okay if your entire 50 consists of urban fantasy, chicklit and children's books.

Um, and maybe something about how not every write-up has to be a brilliantly polished gem of the reviewer's art, too. Because this isn't homework and no one is grading you. But that might be more aimed at myself than at a general audience...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I agree with this, totally.

[sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com]

Definitely concur with the two parts to the "what counts" question.

[sanguinity]

Thanks for the suggestions and proposed answers. :-)

And yes, reviews do not have to be brilliantly polished gems -- it's a problem I have, too. Too much time editing and re-editing reviews, and thus the reviews don't get done.

[alias_sqbr]

That stuff all sounds great, you guys rock. Even if I'm going to get into trouble with the library for having too many books out past their due date :)

[sanguinity]

I just perpetually renew mine -- if I could put them on an automated renewal, I totally would. ;-)

And I figure that me and my fines of yore (from the days before I could renew over the internet) were a signifier of how AMAZINGLY civic-minded I was. ;-)

[alias_sqbr]

You are a very bad influence on me :)

[sanguinity]

Oh, good. :-D

[anatomiste.livejournal.com]

Yay sanguinity! Yay new people!

[sanguinity]

Sure, go ahead and post them. Or link them. Or whatever. While we ALWAYS encourage you to read more books by POC (go read! more books!) recs and discussions of books by POC is well within the scope of the comm.

[mizchalmers.livejournal.com]

Hi mods! Thanks for creating this space; it's been a revelation for me.

[sanguinity]

Oh, yay! This challenge has been amazing for me, too -- I'm glad to hear that others are getting similar returns from it. :-)

[chipmunk-planet.livejournal.com]

Congratulations to the new mods!

I need to redo my numbering; I realized that last entry was an anthology, and should have only counted for one.

[deepad]

Thank you to all three of you for your hard work!
I'd love the FAQ to reflect that many of us are in this community for the recs and reviews, and don't necessarily participate in the numbered challenge. So posting reviews to POC authored books should be encouraged to add to the resources, even if the poster isn't otherwise participating.

[sanguinity]

Thanks, I'll make a note of that in the FAQ. That's one of the reasons we thought that people wanting to do 50 short-works should be encouraged to post here, too -- more authors, more reviews, more recommendations.

[sophinisba]

Yay mods! I love this comm! (I have only read three books this month eek.)

[sanguinity]

Then go read! Go read! :-)