I know there are people on my flist who contribute to older_not_dead in some way or other from reading to submitting prompts to writing stories/doing artwork.
If you are one of those people, I'd appreciate it if you could spare a minute to pop over to the comm and fill out this poll on the future of OND.
Day by day you, my dear flist, eliminated them until only one remained.
In the end nine votes separated the two men. I had thought it would have been a wee bit closer to be honest, but on the other hand it wasn't a run away win.
The one who remained is . . . Drum roll, please.
MARK HARMON
Many congratulations to Mark for being the hottest man! I certainly do not disagree with his hotness!
And congratulations to Harrison Ford for giving Mark a run for his money and for being the runner up in hotness.
I confess that I had called it this way even before the poll began, i.e. Mark would be the winner. Other than that though overall the results were a surprise, with men going off earlier and later than expected - it just goes to show, hotness (as with beauty) really is in the eye of the beholder.
What I found fascinating is that the three younger men (i.e under 45) were in the first four to be voted off and two were the first two to go. Now that I really do find surprising and interesting.
And because all ten men are hot, I'm going to remind you of the order in which they were deemed 'hot'.
As a few of you know I have signed up for this year's NCIS Big Bang - I did it last year and wrote My Son's Boyfriend and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Last year I had no problem with deciding what to write, none at all. However, this year I'm not that sure.
I have three main ideas vying for 'attention' so I thought I'd do a little poll to get a feeling for what grabs people. Even if you don't actually read Gibbs/Ducky, I'd welcome your opinion.
NB I'm not promising that if there is a 'winner' I will write that. As all writers know the muse can be a fickle thing and can decided to go its own way no matter what the writer might want to write - and that's not mentioning Bob of course *g* I might even get bitten by something completely different, but I'm fairly sure it will be one of these three.
As some of you may possible be aware *g* I am shall we say a tad devoted to NCIS in general and the pairing of Gibbs/Ducky in particular and maybe some of you wonder why, and what I see and where I see it.
So with no new episode this week, I decided to put together a post about the pairing insofar as shipping episodes go - i.e. the episodes I would show to someone if they asked me to show them why this pairing or indeed were actively looking to be pimped into the fandom/pairing.
If anyone is vaguely interested in my ramblings you can find them here.
Two warnings though:
a) The post contains spoilers for all six seasons. b) The post is image heavy.
I had hoped to get the results posted before Season Six began; however, things have conspired and I have a couple of largish things I need to get finished before the end of the month, so I'm going to leave the polls open for voting until 30th September and will do the results/analysis after that.
If you haven't already voted it would be really great if you could do so. And you don't need to have seen all five seasons to vote there are two separate polls for the seasons: one for people who have seen all five seasons (or enough of all five to give an opinion) and one for people who haven't seen all five.
For the last two years I have posted polls (2006, 2007) to see if there was any consensus as to which season of NCIS was favourite.
Both years (2006 & 2007) showed there was. Season Two was considered, in both years, to be the best; Season One, again in both years, was considered to be the second best. In 2006, Season Three was thought to be the least best season; in 2007 the least best season was considered to be Season Four.
So here we are in 2008, Season Five has finished and no doubt there will be more changes in people who are in NCIS fandom/watch the show (some will have left/stopped watching, others will have come into the fandom/started to watch), I thought I'd try it again.
I appreciate that for people outside of America who are not able to obtain the episodes and as such are reliant on their TV station airing it, that you might not as yet have seen all (or any) of Season Five and because of this, I have left it as long as possible before posting the polls. However, with Season Six 'just around the corner', so to speak, I wanted to give myself the chance to also get the results posted before Season Six airs.
I have amended the wording slightly this year and also made it clearer that the poll is broken down firstly into 'I have seen all five seasons, or enough of all five seasons, to be able to judge' and 'I haven't seen seen all five seasons or haven't seen enough of one or more to be able to judge'. I have also changed the wording slightly as 'worst' could be seen as being very emotive and people may not wish to use it at all.
And again I am doing a second poll about favourite episodes. Last year proved there was not much of a consensus at all, which have my doubts as to whether there will be a consensus here, given the amount of different ships, as well as multi-ships and non-ships that exist within the fandom, is not surprising However, the results were interesting, so I'd like to see how they compare twelve months later.
You don't need to have watched all five seasons in order to vote in this poll. If you've only seen two seasons, then just vote for your favourite episode for those seasons.
Please feel free to pimp these polls as appropriate. I'd really appreciate it if you did so; I'd like to get this out to as many NCIS fen, be they avid or casual viewers as possible. Thank you.
ETA: Please ignore the fact that the number of people who say they have taken the second poll will be at odds with the results - but in order to actually see at a glance the results I had to say I was taking it. Come on, LJ, make it so that poll creators can see their own results without having to take the darn poll.
When I did the various 'Five Questions' meme, one of the questions londonronnie asked me was: If you had to choose between watching your main fandom show or writing fanfic based on it, what would be your choice and why?
My answer, after consideration was I'd choose writing fanfic, because as much as I love seeing the show as a whole and watching my pairing(s) interact, I just love writing Gibbs/Ducky (and Abby/McGee) so much. In fact I love writing NCIS fanfic full-stop, all the characters have something, and it's lovely to be able to put them into stories, etc. And on top of all that, I just enjoy writing so much; it's very important to me, and helps me keep a degree of sanity and my life would not be so full without writing. So writing it is.
Ronnie said that she wouldn't know how to answer, in fact she probably wouldn't be able to choose.
This got me thinking, as I often do, as to whether people in fandom generally could answer the question. To those ends I'm going to do a short poll (Ronnie was kind enough to say I could use her question and do the poll). I am also extending to cover both writing fanfic and reading it.
I appreciate that not everyone is into TV/Film fandoms (i.e. what you can watch) so have expanded the question to include book based fandoms (reading) and also bandom (listening). I hope that's covered all bases - but if I have inadvertently missed one out it should be clear by the use of 'canon'. Also I appreciate that you might have more than one fandom you consider to be your 'main' or indeed you don't have a 'main' fandom or only have one fandom, but again I hope 'canon' covers it all.
Also of course I know not everyone both writes and read fanfic, so just answer which question(s) applies to you.
This is 'gun at head' time, so there are only two options and no ticky boxes (Nikki can be cruel *g*)
By all means please feel free to expand on why you've chosen what you have chosen in comments, but equally don't feel you have to. This really is just a 'quick and dirty' poll (but as you know, I never turn down the chance to talk about fandom).
ETA 1: Obviously the end of the question should read 'what would you choose'? not just 'what you choose' - but I spotted it too late and you can't edit polls.
ETA 2: As more than one person has said, their habits might well vary between fandoms (and mine might well do the same). However, remember the poll is aimed at your 'main' fandom (or fandoms if you have more than one you consider to be of equal 'importance').
ETA 3: Remember, you can't have it all - as much as you want to. It is 'gun at head' time. I like it all too, watching canon, writing fanfic, reading fanfic, but if push came to shove (as this poll is asking) and I had to choose, I could do so.
aingeal8c says: Even if you took part in previous years please take part again, even if your fandom preferences are the same, as it will help in looking overall at the state of the fandom.
When I write songfics I have always tried to use the name of the song for the title of the story. The one exception to this is when I used the song Friends by Razzy Bailey and called the story Friends Make The Best Lovers, but at least the song title was in the story title.
However, I'm currently in the middle of a couple of songfics but find the song title really won't work as a story title. The song title, unlike the lyrics, really won't fit the story.
Does this matter? Am I putting undue pressure on myself trying to always make the title of the story and the title of the song the same? Is it okay, as long as the theme of the story fits with the lyrics to use a completely different title from the song title, indeed any of the lyrics?
Does anyone on my flist use the Message Centre as their only source of keeping a track of comments, tracked posts, etc.?
The reason for the curiosity is that recently where was a suggestion in suggestions about having a 'Delete All' button, so that to empty it you don't have to do so a page at a time. I know quite a lot of people never clear out their Message Centre, thus it always has 2,000 messages (the maximum in there).
Back in January someone else made a suggestion to the effect that we be given the option of only receiving comments only via email, only via the Message Centre, or both. You can currently opt to receive them via only Message Centre, but if you select Email, you get the message twice (once emailed to you and once in the Message Centre).
Despite great support for it, LJ decided not to implement the suggestion: This suggestion has been rejected by staff members at this time, though it may be reconsidered at a later date. It was rejected because our stance on this is that your Message Center should be keeping records of email sent to you as a fallback in case the emails do not come through. Okay, I hear what they say, but surely it's our choice if we want to risk the emails not coming through?
Anyway, that's a by-the-by, back to the main purpose of this: how do people use the Message Centre? From what I've seen around LJ, on the above two threads and other places, I've yet to come across people who only use the Message Centre. I was wondering if I just hadn't stumbled across people who do use it and only it.
I personally only use the emails. The only times I go to the Message Centre are: To clear out my messages, and to tidy up my Manage Settings.
Yes - I don't want to clog up my computer with emails.
1(4.0%)
No - I use the emailed comments.
13(52.0%)
I have done on a rare occasion when I haven't wanted/been able to download emails to my computer.
4(16.0%)
I use it for certain type of notifications; e.g. when tracking a thread on someone else's journal, etc. I choose to only have the notifications going to the centre.
Roughly two weeks ago I ran two NCIS polls to see if there was a consensus concerning favourite seasons and episodes.
The results are pretty much as I expected with few surprises.
(Please note that the figures here will differ slightly from the figures shown on the polls as I needed to correct a couple of minor discrepancies in the voting. I have also rounded the figures, so the percentages may add up to slightly more (or less) than one hundred.)
For anyone who is interested in comparing these results to last year's (even though far fewer people took the poll last year than this) the results can be found by following this link: 2006 Results.
Season Two was considered the best season Season One the second best Season Three the worst
So a year on, with Season Four now finished and no doubt a change in people who are in NCIS fandom/watch the show (some will have left/stopped watching, others will have come into the fandom/started to watch), I thought I'd try it again.
I appreciate that for people outside of America who are not able to obtain the episodes and as such are reliant on their TV station airing it, that you might not as yet have seen all (or any) of season four and because of this, I have left it as long as possible before posting the polls. However, with Season Five 'just around the corner', so to speak, I wanted to ensure that I could get the results posted before Season Five airs.
The second poll is about favourite episodes. I have my doubts as to whether there will be a consensus here, given the amount of different ships, as well as multi-ships and non-ships that exist within the fandom. However, it will be very interesting to see if there is any kind of consensus at all.
You don't need to have watched all four seasons in order to vote. If you've only seen two seasons, then just vote for your favourite episode for those seasons.
It seems that the theme (Component) that I use for my Journal is causing one of my newest friends problems. Indeed the problem exists on other personal journals/communities that use this theme. It does seem to be a general LJ problem rather than specific to this me, and as such I'm thinking about changing the theme.
However, I would be interested to know whether there is any tie in with a particular browser and/or your LJ viewing options. Component seems to be one of the more popular themes on LJ (I have quite a few people on my flist who use it either for their personal LJs and/or their Communities). In fact I believe it is one of the default schemes, and I would have thought that this issue would have arisen before now. I can get in, quite happily, with Internet Explorer 6, Opera (which is my default browser) and Firefox, and I still use XColibur for my viewing scheme. Thus, I am wondering if the problem is tied in with Internet Explorer 7, maybe.
I would therefore be obliged if you could try visiting my LJ not via your flist, but by clicking on nakeisha and seeing if you have any problems at all with it; e.g. it takes a long time to load, your computer/browser hanging/crashing, etc. etc.
I know that people might use a variety of browsers, in particular, depending on where they are at any given moment, hence the reason for asking what your 'main' browser is.
I would appreciate it, for those of you who do use different browsers, if you could also let me know in comments whether you have problems with one browser and not with another.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All. Participants: 35
Do you have any problems getting into nakeisha or any other Community/Journal that uses Component, when you try to access the Community/Journal directly, rather than via your flist?
N.B. For those of you who are on ncis_gibbsducky, no your eyes aren't deceiving you, I have posted a very similar post over there, as I use Component there too.
When I first go into fandom some seven years ago, I had two things drilled into me:
1. When writing in an American show one should write in American English with American spellings, and vice versa. 2. That you should write in the language of the country in which the story is set.
Which is fine if you happen to be writing about an American show set in America, or a British show set in Britain.
However, one thing on which I've never seen a consensus is, what happens when you set the story in a different country from where the show is set? For example, you set a Professionals story in America, or an NCIS story in England. What then do you do? Because you cannot keep to both rules. Some people say you adhere to the country in which the show is set. Others say you adhere to the country in which the story is set.
I am now writing an NCIS AU story that is set in England - so which spelling should I use?
- American (because the show is American) - British (because it's set in Britain)
The language will, as with all my NCIS stories be a mixture, in speech, of American and British terminology, because although the story is AU, Gibbs will still be American and Ducky British. And the story, which is set in 1980, will be entirely from Ducky's POV (third person).
It doesn't really matter, because whatever you do you'll irritate some people. Just pick whichever you are more comfortable with and stick to it throughout the story, that is far more important.
7(29.2%)
As all your other NCIS stories are written using American spellings, go with American. If you use British spellings it will look odd on your website/in any archives.
1(4.2%)
I doubt if anyone will actually notice, use whatever you instinctively feel is 'right' and are more comfortable using. Stop angsting about it and just write the story!
12(50.0%)
Not really to do with the poll just briefly what I tend to do
Out of habit, I do tend to follow the 'rule, at least to an extent. I set my spell checker to American English when writing NCIS, and unless I'm writing Ducky in speech or his POV in first person, I try not to use blatant non-American words. I think, at least from what I've seen written, that I'm one of the few British NCIS writers who does this. And as I've never seen any American pass comment about it, generally it seems that the above 'rules' don't matter in the NCIS fandom.
From a reader's perspective, I have never been bothered by English spellings in American show fanfic, or vice versa. As with typos, etc., I find that if I'm consciously noticing them, then I'm not really enjoying the story. But that's just me. I do it myself, purely because that was how I was 'taught' when I first got into fandom. As I said, it's habit.
I start with the most recent entry (i.e. the one that appears at the top of my flist) and work my way down the page(s) until I come to the final entry I read on my previous visit to LJ.
I also when posting, as the same time, a multi-part story/series of stories post them so that the first part of the story is, in effect, the last post I make. That is, if I have a series of three stories I'll post the third story first, then the second, and finally the first story. My rationale being that this ensures that the first story/part of story appears at the top of my LJ/the relevant Comm, thus it will be the first part to be seen (at least by people who read their flist in the order that I do).
However, I was pondering whether, in fact, more people read their flist in the opposite way to me. That is they scroll through their flist until they get to the final entry they read on their previous visit to LJ, and then work their way forward to the most recent post to be made. Thus, in a multi-part story/series of stories they will in fact come across the last part of the series first.
On various Comms/LJs I've seen people do daft polls that 'sort' the characters of their fandom into the Hogwarts (Harry Potter) Houses. So I thought, why not try it for NCIS?
For anyone who is interested, the poll can be found here.
Thank you to all of you who took my most recent poll, and also for expanding on your choices in the comments - it made for some very interesting and educational reading.
On one hand, given the comments for my previous poll, together with bits and pieces I'd picked up around fandom, I wasn't surprised by the results. On the other hand, part of me still was (I know, logical as ever, Nikki).
When I first got involved with fandom, just over seven years ago, the term OTP meant:
I will only read and/or write about my pair together. The only exceptions are if the story is before they meet, or they are with another person when the story begins, and the story ends with them being together.
This didn't (and to me still doesn't) mean that they are the only viable pairing in the fandom and that anyone who doesn't like this pairing is wrong, simply that they are my pairing within the fandom.
And as both a reader and a writer this still holds true. And when it comes to another character before they get together, for me that stuff should mostly take place 'off-screen' so to speak. With my fandom pairings it's impossible to ignore the fact that they did have women in their lives, either as girl-friends or indeed wives, thus they can't always be completely ignored in stories. However, their place in the stories should be little more than a passing mention, or off-screen stuff; ditto in previous homosexual relationships. It won't stop me from reading the story completely if there is a lot of on-screen stuff, but I'll skip it, until I get to my pairing.
However, other than this kind of mention, then the only way I'll ever read about my OTP with anyone else is if I am doing any form of beta'ing for a friend, who has asked me to help her out. And I have done this for a handful of people.
This however is no longer the case for the majority of people.
It is safe to say, albeit based purely on the results of this poll, which obviously only constituted a tiny proportion of fandom (however, that's usually the case with polls) that the meaning of the term OTP has indeed changed. And not only has it changed, but there is no longer one meaning for it, it means different things to different people.
How people defined OTP also tended to differ, as I had expected, between being a reader or a writer. People were often less rigid in their definition when answering as a reader, than they were when answering as a writer. One reason, possibly the main reason, I believe this to be the case, is because I think we put more of ourselves into stories as writers, we are more involved with the stories at a deeper level, than we do when reading stories.
Thank you to those who took my poll on reading slash in fandom and/or shared more details of their reading habits.
Here are the results.
Q1. Assuming that you have a OTP in any of your fandoms, would you/do you ever read (excluding beta-reading) slash fanfic that puts one half of your pairing with another character?
131 people who answered this question and their answers were as follows:
66 (50.4%) said 'occasionally' 39 (29.8%) said 'often' 18 (13.7%) said 'never' 08 (6.1%) 'didn't have a OTP/didn't read slash
Q2. Would you/do you ever read slash fanfic whereby at least one half of the pairing is a character about whom you do not particularly care, and/or the story is about a pairing that you cannot see?
130 people answered this question and their answers were as follows:
91 (70.0%) said 'it depends on certain things, e.g. the writer' 24 (18.5%) said 'no' 15 (11.5%) said 'yes' 00 (0.0%) 'didn't read slash'
The results of question one in particular really surprised me, and go to show that my understanding of the term One True Pairing (OTP) appears no longer to be the 'norm', (if one can ever use that term to define anything in fandom), and that the definition of the term has, like so many other fandom terms, evolved.
For me OTP means that the pairing are together and that one doesn't read/write about half of the pairing with another character, unless it's before the OTP get together and by the end of the story they are indeed together. They are the pairing and are not put with other characters.
I was less surprised by the high number of people who said that they would read slash fanfic even if one half of the pairing was character for whom they did not particular care and/or the story was about a pairing they could not see. However, the overall percentage (81.5) did surprise me; I was expecting it to be lower than that.
The most popular reason given for people reading slash about half of their OTP with another character and reading slash when one didn't particularly care about half the pairing and/or couldn't see the pairing was 'if the story is written by one of my favourite authors'.
I admit that I have never had to deal with this, as none of my favourite authors in any of my fandoms (past or current) have ever written outside of my OTP. Maybe this is because with the exception of NCIS (and to a lesser extent Due South), there has only ever really been one pairing, thus it has been the OTP.
Other popular reasons were 'the story has been recommended by someone I trust', 'my OTP is small and there isn't enough new slash fiction around', 'the summary really captivated me', 'I don't really have a OTP, I have more of a OTC (one true character), so will read slash about him/her with any other character', 'I'll only read it if it's before pre-canon, i.e. before the characters meet'.
So it appears that, given that I answered 'never' to Q1 and 'no', to Q2, that I am unusual in my slash reading habits.
I mentioned above that it appears that the meaning of OTP has evolved somewhat, and to continue my curiosity, I'd like to see what, if any, the 'norm', or most common understanding of the term is. As such, I bring you another poll.
Following on from my dilemma post yesterday susan_peri asked whether I could read the DiNozzo/McGee stories, and I said no, I couldn't.
The reason being that if I'm reading fanfic within one of 'my' fandoms then I have to a) really like both characters and b) see a possibility of the pairing, at any of my slash levels. The main problem with DiNozzo/McGee is that, although I really like McGee and I can see (at one of my slash levels) the possibility at least of him and DiNozzo, I don't care enough about DiNozzo to be interested in reading a slash story that features him. I don't actively dislike him, I just don't have enough interest in him to read about him. I could read McGee/Palmer, on the grounds that, although I wouldn't write the pairing, I can at least see the possibility of them, and I really like both characters.
Given that I know, both from yesterday's post and prior knowledge, that there are people on my f-list, people who say that they have a OTP in the fandom, would and do occasionally read outside of their pairing, and even read characters about whom they do not particularly care, I was wondering if my 'habits' were strange?
Do others, on my f-list, find that they are able to read slash fanfic within one of 'their' fandoms, whereby at least half of the pairing is a character about whom they do not particularly care, and/or they can't see the pairing?
And if you do/would read about a character about whom you do not particularly care and/or a pairing that you do not/cannot see, I'd be really interested to know under what circumstances and why you would do this.
Season Two - is considered to be the best season Season One - is considered to be the second best season Season Three - is considered to be the worst season
Four people liked all three seasons equally Six people hadn't seen them all
The results seem pretty conclusive (albeit based on a fairly small number). Whatever Mark Harmon, DPB and the rest of the cast might think, Season Three is actually considered to be the worst season by fans.
We can only wait to see what Season Four brings us.
Interestingly, this season order is in fact the same order in which I rated them.
I've just been listening to a Mark Harmon interview in which he says that Season Three is the best season thus far. Basically he feels that the show has got better and better as it's gone on, and that Season Three was really what it was meant to be alike all along.
Now I know that Season Three really seemed take off in America in a way that the previous seasons hadn't. It received consistent high ratings and that surprised me, as does Mark's comments. For me, and I know for several of my friends, Season Three was the weakest season thus far. We felt that the show had lost its way and was going down hill; and I'm not just referring to the introduction of Madam Director (although she didn't help); it was far more than that.
So being the ever curious person I am, I thought I'd run a poll to try to ascertain what the feeling is generally as far as the 'best' season goes.
Because I'm endlessly curious about how people do things, I thought I'd do a short poll on how people post.
I, for example, always, always, always use a LJ Client to make a top level post be it to my own journal or a community, be it two words or twenty-two thousand words.
Why?
Well I prefer the ease of formatting posts, the one I use is a little like MS Word in looks and 'feel', the ease of just popping links for pictures etc. into one of the options and all the coding is done. Also, the fact that I can spell check, and customise the spell checker as I go along (you can add to the dictionary), the fact that with one click I can insert a friend or community name. I can also change the place to where I'm posting with a single click, create polls, create filters, update friends, add tags, add the mood, the icon, etc. etc. everything you can do on LJ, I can do with this one thing. Oh, and I can save posts too, which I find immensely useful.
The Client I use is Semagic and it works for me. I looked at them all when I first got a journal, but this one just 'felt' right and very user friendly.
I have tried, when I first started to use LJ, to use LJ directly, but I personally found it terribly cumbersome and very unuser-friendly, plus it just didn't give me the flexibility I wanted.
A week ago I did a poll on death story warnings, whether people want them and what kind of warning they want.
Thank you to everyone who participated in it. Like most if not all of these things, it showed that not only is there no consensus, but often what people want/do, differs depending on the fandom/the circumstances.
The comments also revealed that quite a few people want/need something different from what they actually warn for, people need/want less than they warn for. For example they personally might only want/need a warning for the death of the major pairing, but they will warn for more than that. Some people even said that although they personally don't need warnings, they would, even though they weren't forced to do so by the rules of a community/list, be likely to give death story warnings.
I've been discussing death stories and warnings with a couple of people recently, and realised that different people have different views as to whose death should be warned for.
I tend, generally, to only warn for major character death/death of the one (or both) of the pairing in question; although I have on one occasion warned for other canon character death.
There has also been discussion as to whether you should warn for the death or a major character, when that major character is not part of your pairing. For example, in a Fraser/Vecchio story should the death of Kowalski be warned for? In a Gibbs/Ducky story, should the death of DiNozzo be warned for? My personal feeling here is that I normally wouldn't warn for the death of my non-pairing character.
And also what about stories that involve the death of a character who has been killed in canon? For example, every time a NCIS story is written that involves Kate's death, should that carry a death warning? Or is it dependant on whether Kate actually dies in the story, or whether the story is set immediately after her death? Or again, does it depend on whether Kate is part of your pairing?
I was wondering whether there was any kind of general consensus, so here be a poll:
maubast and I were discussing the other day how both of us suffer from a cold right hand from time to time, after we've been using our computers for a while.
Now we're both right handed and use our mouse in our right hand, so we're assuming that it's this that causes the coldness. And so we were wondering, as one does, whether this was limited to just us two, or whether this coldness was more wide spread.
So in order to satisfy our curiosity, herebe a quick, daftish poll. (created partly because I'm putting off editing the death fic I have now written ::sigh::).
Anyone who knows me will already know that I prefer established relationship (ER) stories to first time (FT) stories, and the longer I'm in fandom, the more I find myself wanting to read mainly ER stories.
It's not just as a reader that I prefer them, but also as a writer. Further down this post I show the break down of my stories by fandom and by genre.
What follows are my thoughts on why I prefer ER to FT stories, and how, IMO, it ties in with romance.
Following on from the, what was for me at least, interesting discussion re: fandom genres that arose on my LJ the other day (Genre & Meaning) and discussions on other LJs and also via email, I began pondering (always dangerous) about genres, and whether people generally read in more than one genre, or whether they stick to just one. Several people said they read across genres and knew lots of people who did too, generally my experience has been the opposite.
So I thought I'd conduct a short poll (yes another one) just to see what arises. I know the results were hardly be conclusive, as the sample will be very small, but I still think it's worth doing.
Last night I was having a little exchange with a friend of mine (waves to aingeal8c) who saw her first ever NCIS episode (and hopefully not her last). It was Red Cell and a comment that she made made me think that I have been reading one scene completely wrongly.
I'm going to pop it behind a LJ cut, as I know at least one person on my flist is still watching the first two seasons.
A few weeks ago I ran a Poll concerning whether people commented on LJ stories, both those they liked and those they disliked, and why or why not they did so.
Over 130 people took the poll, and I should like to thank all of you. Also, a special thanks to those who pimped the poll for me on their own LJs/Communities - please feel free to post a link to the results too, should you wish to.
I apologise for the amount of time it's taken me to post the results, life conspired against me. Unfortunately, due to needing to include several tables to show the results, the post was too large to post to LJ. To do so, I would have had to post it in four parts, thus it is being hosted on a website.
A friend of mine, aingeal8c, has made an interesting post and a poll on the subject of name order and top and bottom, and I said that I'd pimp them here for her.
What she says is something that I have never, in all my years in fandom as 'just' a fan and with studying it, heard before, and apparently nor had she. So we're both curious as to how wide this belief/explanation is around fandom in general.
A friend and I were discussing the whole process of commenting on stories, and I promised that I'd do a poll to see whether people commented on stories they liked/disliked and their main reason for doing so, or not doing so as the case may be.
So without further ado, here is the poll, please feel free to pimp this if you wish to.
About a week ago I did a little poll concerning whether people were prepared to follow links from LJs to read stories.
The results showed that most people (75.4%) would indeed follow a link to another LJ or website to read a story in a fandom/pairing they liked.
However, 11.6% of people wouldn't follow a link.
And 13.0% of people said it would depend.
The most common reason for 'it depends' was whether or not they were using a slow dial-up/other related computer issues. If they were using dial-up they probably wouldn't follow the link (although they might do so later if they had access to a faster connection), especially if the link took them off to graphic heavy pages.
Another reason was the mood of the reader at the time of the post, and also how much time they had.
Yet another reason was that it would depend on how much information was given in the post with the link. For example, if it included the kind of information (genre, brief summary, warnings, story length) that a lot of people put at the beginning of their stories, then they'd be more likely to follow it. If no information, other than fandom/pairing was given, then they probably wouldn't bother.
Overall 69 people did the poll, which I know isn't hugely representative, but it was interesting to see that although three-quarters would follow a link whatever, a quarter either wouldn't, or would if certain 'conditions' were met.
Thanks for everyone who filled out the poll and/or commented. I thought the results, whilst not necessarily being overly surprising, were interesting.
I've been pondering how people post fiction to their LJs, and whether where/how they post it has any bearing on whether the story is read or not. So herewith a little poll on the subject.
For the purposes of this poll please assume the following:
The story is in a fandom you know/love/read regularly
The writer writes coherently and with few if any technical errors
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All. Participants: 70
Question:
If someone on your flist or on a LJ your read regularly/semi-regularly posts a link to one of their stories - be it to a LJ Community or website - rather than posting the story to their website, is this likely to influence whether you read the story or not?
I've had this discussion on and off with various people and I thought it might be interesting to conduct a poll - albeit of course it won't necessarily be representative of fandom as a whole, but nonetheless...
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"You can't please all of the people all of the time."
"If you can't say something good; say nothing at all."
"Fandom is meant to be FUN."
"Never say never."
Achievement is the knowledge that you have worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success. - Helen Hayes
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire
"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause." —Mark Twain
"Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same." - Lois McMaster Bujold
"One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness." - Josh Billings
older_not_dead in some way or other from reading to submitting prompts to writing stories/doing artwork.
contemplative
content
productive
stressed
curious
irritated
tired
recumbent
bouncy
hyper
sick
determined