TWE deleted? · 12:41am Dec 3rd, 2012
I have to say, I definitely think this was the wrong decision. I'm trying to be as objective as possible here (as I am [or was,] a member of the group), and I still think that so much went wrong here. For one, the main reason, it seems, is because authors were complaining about being insulted. TWE expressly forbids hacking at authors. There's a world of difference between insulting someone and criticising their work, and as a reviewer for TWE I exclusively did the latter. I feel like what happened here was this: newbie authors misinterpreted negative reviews as hate towards them (I've seen this happen often enough) and reported or complained to the mods. The mods, or perhaps just Knighty, decided that the easiest way to fix it would be to delete the group. Well, as far as I can tell, that's really not going to fix anything. Shitty stories will always be trolled, and the only real effect of deleting the group will be to destroy the place where shamed authors could go to figure out why their story was poorly received.
Eh, that's enough ranting from me. What do you guys think?
I think the name of the group was poorly chosen and that the group could easily be recreated under a less insulting name.
566993 Eh, I always thought it well reflected the sense of humour involved.
All it did was bring the issue to the forefront and now what ever group pops up is going to be that much more popular and polarizing, since what I've seen of the comments, and my own experience, not a lot of people actually knew about it or were aware that this was a problem.
567020
Oh, I get the humor. But I can understand why others wouldn't and honestly humor shouldn't be a large part of it. Including humor in a critique is fine, but like in a good serious fic it should be the sideline, not the main attraction.
You aren't ingratiating yourself to an author you are trying to help by putting their story in a group titled 'Train Wreck' unless the story is about trains. If the real goal is to help than a title like 'Critics Corner' or something like that is more appropriate.
I don't agree with the deletion of the group. They should have just made them change the name or at least taken some intermediate steps first.