So for this to work, I guess we probably need some rules. We can and should revise these, depending on what people want to do, but here's a first stab.
1) A moderator is chosen. This can extend for as many Jams as desired. The moderator will select the topic from submissions from the members, and is responsible for posting the topic, pertinent information, and dates, as well as receiving submissions and calling a cutoff.
2) For each jam, all members may submit one (or many!) ideas. These will remain in an idea pool. The moderator will select from this pool, and post the announcement and details.
3) From the time of announcement, one week is allowed to write a short story related to the topic.
4) Stories must be from 2,000 to 8,000 words (more or less)
5) Stories must be submitted by the cutoff time. Partial stories are ok, as long as you're fine with someone reading it.
6) After the cutoff, the moderator will publish the stories in a way agreed upon by the members ( this could be public, posted here in .ePub format or .PDF, or private only to the group, depending on the desires of the group. I'd advocate public, because I think it is likely to help drive more participants, which makes it more fun.)
7) Critique - we could do this a couple of ways. Randomly selected critique assignments, or a ranking mechanism, or something. We don't have to, though. It seems that some sort of yardstick that we can all use to measure our improvement would be neat, but I don't want to do anything overbearing or that makes it a bummer.
8) Go to step 1! Change moderator as desired (after every 3 Jams? by volunteer? )
* The rules should change in any way that makes it more enjoyable!
Comment and discuss!
Want in? Email me at travisbaldree@gmail.com
Cheers!
Great first pass at the rules, I see no big issues. (=
ReplyDeleteIt may make more sense for the moderator to change more often, as everyone has different free/busy schedules, and it can be on a volunteer basis (e.g. everyone state your interest by a certain date) with a bias towards first-time moderators or those who haven't been moderator much. Either the current moderator or whoever emerges as leaders could choose.
I assume we'd have a topic in the Google Group for each Jam, where:
- The moderator would select and post the topic (and also post it here on this blog)
- Participants would have any related discussions
- Finished stories would be posted as attachments by a due date
- Participants would rank the submissions (maybe just top 3, depending on number of submissions) with optional short comments by a due date
- Critiques may be posted here, or sent directly to the author (not sure which is better)
After the moderator tabulates the rankings (3 points for each 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd?), they would post the results to the topic and also to this blog with links.
Format-wise, I think we should go with whatever is going to be the most accessible for those reading via PC or on any variety of e-reader or tablet. PDF or plain .txt seem like they'd be the most widely supported.
The only thing I'm unclear on would be the schedule; would a 2 week cycle make the most sense? 1 week for the writing, 1 week total for reading them all, ranking and critiquing, wrap up, selecting the next moderator and setting up the next jam be good?
And since some of us are from developer backgrounds who may or may not be familiar with agile development, maybe the moderator could be called the Jam Master. ;)
Great notes!
ReplyDeleteI'm open to anything as far as moderation. Ideally it won't be too onerous, but that may change if there are more than a few people participating.
As far as time for critique/ranking, we could let it run during the following jam. (I.E. voting/critique closes one week after the deadline) That's typically how it works with art jams. But I'm OK with a two week cycle too if that's the preference.
I'd say critiques would possibly best be kept private, just so we can be helpfully honest (and useful) without feeling like we're dumping on anyone publicly. Maybe just emailed directly to the writer?
PDF is nice because it retains italics and formatting that .txt destroys (unless we went RTF). ePub should work on just about any tablet, and there's a free tool called Calibre that will let you convert to most e-reader formats.
Jam Master it is ;)
A one week cycle is fine, reading and critiquing shouldn't take that long unless we get a ton of participants. (=
ReplyDeleteSo are we thinking the read/crit would be during the next Jam? It would make sense to me to do it the week after the Jam is done, or soon thereafter. Like Adam said, it wouldn't take long.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think that's the idea.
Delete