coaltide | Coal Rivalry

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2025

Coal Rivalry

All the things Coal said, running through my head.

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I think most of the time if a recipient has two authors and one defaults, the recipient doesn't get sent out to pinch hit.

Because if so, the other author is likely to say "Hey! I'm assigned to this person! I'm working on [or have posted] a gift! What's wrong?"

In this extremely extended hypothetical, I would HOPE that the mods would say, to a hypothetically alarmed Bean10, either "Oh well, we made a mistake! Sorry about that!" or "Yeah but... we've seen your gift."

It does show the weakness of using double assignments for such a wide range of situations.

Double assigning with a preference for somebody currently assigned to a high default risk but otherwise good participant is just insurance. The likely-defaulter might always come through, and if they don't you've just got one extra pinch hit to worry about later. But with somebody who always turns in their assignment and it's coal, then the recipient really only had one writer who just defaulted. It's not really a good fit at all. People just do it because they don't want to put their foot down and admit that there's a "participant" who can't meaningfully participate.

I mostly like that exchange events don't exclude weak writers. The opposite seems appalling to me. But there still seems to be a minimum standard that this person, unfortunately, cannot meet.

Oh sure, but I don't think just being a weak writer means getting always double assigned. At that point the mods know this person can't hit the standard but don't want to say anything.

It's very Cult of Nice, yep.

Fuck it, but I'm commenting. They had six weeks to make it presentable. Might not be the done thing to tell people they need a beta, but their level of self awareness merits it. I'm going to volunteer myself as tribute and damn well say it. Nicely.

Kudos for trying - genuinely - but betas aren't a magic fix either. IME plenty of coal has betas, but a beta can only do so much if the author isn't willing to take their advice.

CYRT

Oh I totally agree. But hey, if nothing else it might be a channel for some blunt truths

DC

I get the impulse but the beta would either have to rewrite the whole thing for them or it's still going to be, well, that but with a bow on. All putting a bow on coal does is drag out the should they be banned for giving coal argument longer.

If someone could get them to really improve that'd be great, but I don't think it can be done by encouraging them that they're basically fine and just need a few tweaks.

A beta won't help. The person has to be aware that sentences start with capital letters and that you put a space after punctuation. If the writer cannot bring themselves to care about proper capitalization and punctuation at the bare fucking minimum, they should just be banned or the fic should be removed from the collection by mods when they see it, the author is defaulted, and the recip sent out as a pinch hit. I really think proper capitalization and punctuation is the bare minimum in the way that unlined paper is the bare minimum requirement for art.

+1

Even assuming this person got an ao3 account at one year old, they're old enough to know how to start and end a sentence correctly by now.

Yes. There's only so much a beta or any kind of editor can do, especially if the author is uncooperative but even if they're not.

Volunteer Coalie again.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a quick once over; it would be a full and very blunt teaching-edit. (My side-gig is editor of a short fiction market. I don't expect they'll take me up on the offer though...)

I’ve had various strangers ask me to beta over the years and have learned very well that there’s a certain level of ignorance/lack of skill that you just can’t get anyone out of except by them reading widely and absorbing the rules of good writing and wanting to make theirs like it. You can try to draw their attention to really basic, fundamental errors and they don’t even know what you’re talking about because they don’t know it’s a thing and don’t care. In those situations I make a couple of broad suggestions (usually never taken) and vague encouragement and drop it (I actually just don’t beta for strangers at all anymore because it never works out).

Hey beta volunteer coalie. If you have some free time to do arduous beta jobs, would you consider signing up on the

fffx beta post? It's here:

https://fffx.dreamwidth.org/65531.html

Deadline is January 24, reveals are late February, works are 5k/10k or if you have art expertise there's art beta work to do as well.

Thanks for considering it!

/fffx participant staring grimly at own draft

Oh. Another Coal angle for bullying.

dc

If you think offering to beta (with full knowledge you might have to say some things that are harsh but objectively true) is "bullying," but anonymously circling up to gawk and sneer at this person's work without them knowing isn't, IDK what to tell you. And I say that as one of the gawkers and sneerers in this thread.

I think the comment they actually left on the fic is polite enough, but boasting about the blunt teaching experience they’re planning because they’re such a great fiction editor - well we sure have a badass over here.

Frankly, at this point I think the blunt truths should come from their recipients. If someone gifted me this kind of crap, I don't think I would be able to respond with a nice thank you comment, but what's more important: I don't think responding with a nice thank you comment is helpful here. They need to hear that this is an unacceptable gift.

Pretty sure that message is a given when the gift is refused

I honestly wouldn't be so sure. Maybe they don't even pay attention or notice.

Re: Actual Coal (or, what were they thinking)

(Anonymous) - 2025-12-28 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

But that person would also have to take one for the team and be ready to get wanked about. Some people would be mad they said anything mean, some people would debate about rejecting the gift instead, some people would argue you owe a nice comment even on a rejected gift, more people would be dissecting exactly how mean the comment was and how that compared to exactly how mean they felt the ideal comment should've been, other people would go diving into the requests and DNWs and if the prompts were too detailed or not detailed enough so they could say that everyone's an asshole here.

Ayrt

I don't think anyone should "take one for the team" and force themselves to be blunt if they are uncomfortable with it. But if I was the recip in this case, I'd prefer to speak frankly rather than force myself to say thank you and hate myself for it, and if someone thinks I'm mean and avoids me over it, then that's their right.

I think it should come from the mods.

Which it may have already.

Doing god's work, coalie.

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