sgarecfinders | May is for Month of Amnesty for Unanswered Requests

sgagenrefinders is proclaiming an Amnesty for All Unanswered Requests throughout the whole month of May!

Starting now and until June rolls around, we are encouraging everyone to come and browse through the posts under the unanswered requests tag and help out by reccing and pimping their favorite stories. Additionally, all of you who have previously posted searches here now have free reign over the unanswered requests tag to use at will, if you feel your requests were not fulfilled or are simply hoping to get yet more responses. (Come June the tags will be edited back to business as usual, so take advantage of this opportunity while you can!)

In the spirit of May being the month in which everyone makes their own fun, and spreading that joy,

sgagenrefinders is hoping that the introduction of tags to the community and the new tag friendly layout will help finally ~~eliminate~~ fulfill some long-standing unanswered requests, and generally make finding and reccing stories that much easier for everyone. Remember, one small rec from you could mean someone's request answered!

You all might have noticed the slight upheaval this community has had in the last few weeks while the new layout, animated SGA mood theme (made by

_wwsd_) and tags were being set up. What happened was that yours truly, i.e.

debris_k, was ~~foolish~~ kind enough to volunteer to undertake this project, and

notpoetry, i.e. resident comm mom, jumped on me the opportunity, slapping a co-mod authorization and all kinds of nice words on me. Lots of choice words aimed at specific blog customizers and many tag editing later, all were happy because of the new changes. (Well, 2 out of 2 mods were, and 1 out of 1 random user/friend approved too. If you beg to disagree, now is the good time to speak up.)

As you can see on the community's home page the new layout has a pretty spiffy list of all the available tags in the right-side bar. All the tags are in use, and all can be added and edited on all posts by all comm members (not just their own). All posts are tagged and up-to-date (according to this month's Amnesty for All Unanswered Requests), so you do not need to rush and tag your old posts, it's already been done. But it would be greatly appreciated if you checked to make sure the tags represent the genre(s) your post is about.

I think the tagging system, if you check any number of posts, is pretty straightforward and self-explanatory. The mods will continue to keep an eye out to make sure all new posts are well tagged, but you are all encouraged to add tags to new posts yourselves. In addition, you can help others out by tagging their untagged posts; not all are lj-savvy enough, so you shouldn't consider tagging posts other than your own as meddling, but rather as helping the mods out. Add a tag, spare a mod!

You might have noticed that while there are many and varied tags, a few of have been left out (for now). So far the pairings used are just the more mainstream ones, while the rarer pairings have been all clumped together under the other pairing tag. The same with all the genres that can now be found together in the miscellaneous (misc.) tag. Sorry, can't have a million and one tags for everything. But new tags will be added when the need for them arises, or if anyone brings up the subject along with a good argument for the new tag(s).

Let us recap the importance of feedback here: if you want any changes made, you have to speak up. Hey, I wanted tags on the comm, and even though I ended up doing the work myself, you can't deny the results! So don't be afraid to comment with your two cents.

(A side trip into the world of unused tags: both mods agree that "whum", "whumpage" or "whumping" are not valid genres that would benefit anyone if they got their own tag. Simply put, these terms encompass more than one regular genre; thus a post on the lookout for "whumpage stories" should probably also have the "angst", "abandonment", "abuse", "hurt/comfort", "dark", etc. tags as well. That's altogether too many tags beside the "whumpage" tag, don't you think? It's much easier to just tag the post with as many available genres as are appropriate, plus it narrows the search down. Your understanding of the mods' stand on this point is much appreciated.)

For the grand finale,

sgagenrefinders would like to remind you all that answering requests with referrals to other rec lists or pages (such as on the ever popular del.icio.us) is only half the job done. Unless the rec list you're pimping is specific to the genre(s) requested in the post, please take the time to point out specific stories from the list that you think fit the request best. (You can do as few as or as many as you wish, with or without proper links; the point here is to help show your own knowledge of the rec list you're pimping, and disabuse the feeling that it's a cat-in-the-bag rec.) Again, your cooperation and understanding is much appreciated.

sgagenrefinders thanks you for participating, and hopes you'll continue to have fun. And remember: for every answered request, you can earn a virtual cookie!