A Wild Discussion Post Appears!

[hhanon]

Because I suppose we all need somewhere to squee.

Venting frustrations is what anon memes are made for, but keep it respectful.

You are allowed to talk about the show, the actors, their other projects, the twitter RP, the forum, and what you had for breakfast.

Comments

Part 2

[(Anonymous)]

I know it's frustrating when you post a prompt and it doesn't get filled - or you see a prompt from someone else and really want a fill for it - but you can't force people to be inspired by prompts. If there weren't (as many) new prompts being posted it doesn't mean someone would suddenly be interested in a prompt they've never had any interest in filling before. And if someone is interested in filling a prompt, but haven't done so because they're busy - with real life, or with writing other fics - you wouldn't actually increase the amount of fic being written. You'd just swap a fill for one prompt for another. But if someone's not writing because they're not inspired by any of the prompts that are already there, and then a new prompt goes up which inspires them? Well, now the fic count has increased by one.

So reducing the number of prompts might increase the fill percentage, but in actual terms I think it would result in a decrease in the number of fills being posted. And, really, would you rather have a lovely high fill percentage that we can all sit around and feel proud of - or would you rather have more fics to read?

And what's wrong with an unfilled prompt, anyway? What harm does it do? (Other than reduce that percentage.) The archivers have to file it, yes, but I've not heard any complaints about their workload. You might have to scroll past the prompts you're not interested in - but just because you're not interested in that newly-posted prompt doesn't mean someone else won't be. In fact, just because nobody's been interested in a months-old prompt doesn't mean nobody ever will be - things from round 1 are still getting filled occasionally.

Also, consider that prompting and filling are not the only ways to interact on the meme - reviewing is too. Have you ever met a writer who didn't love receiving reviews? I think that can be a valuable way to contribute. So you don't have to be a fic writer to "give back" to the meme.

I do think it's a good idea for people to think about what they're prompting - does it have all the information it needs? is it logically laid out? is everything spelled correctly? - but I would never advise someone not to prompt.

In fact, if you think it's a good prompt and you'd like it filled? I think you should post it. Whoever you are.