Yahoo Forum Archive

Hey guys,

In a few weeks, reviews will start showing up on our website. This means
that authors will be able to reply to their reviews. They essentially
send an email to an email address, which a volunteer then reads over to
make sure it's not a flame and passes on to the reviewer.

I'm looking for that volunteer. The main requirement is availability.
You'd need to check in every 2-3 days at least, from now through
mid-December, though another volunteer could take over if you need a
short break. You also need to be able to follow directions well. It is
essentially "grunt" work, and the kind of thing that doesn't attract a
lot of attention if it's done right. But it is a huge help to me for
someone else to do that, and while it's not exactly high profile you
*will* have my appreciation as well as an official "thank you" on the
list of MEFA volunteers.

If this seems like something you're interested in, drop me a line at
mefasupport@gmail.com - either to say you want to do it, or to get more
info on what is required.

Thanks!

Marta
(MEFA Admin.)

What directions are we talking about Marta? I am usually on the net every night for a few hours unless I have to be at work at like dawn or something. Tell me more. I am interested.

Brandy, Haldirsbaby

Life without laughter is not worth living!     THE wise one.....ME

--- On Mon, 7/5/10, telperion1 <marta.fandom@gmail.com> wrote:

From: telperion1 <marta.fandom@gmail.com>
Subject: [MEFAwards] looking for a volunteer
To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, July 5, 2010, 4:04 PM







 









Hey guys,



In a few weeks, reviews will start showing up on our website. This means

that authors will be able to reply to their reviews. They essentially

send an email to an email address, which a volunteer then reads over to

make sure it's not a flame and passes on to the reviewer.



I'm looking for that volunteer. The main requirement is availability.

You'd need to check in every 2-3 days at least, from now through

mid-December, though another volunteer could take over if you need a

short break. You also need to be able to follow directions well. It is

essentially "grunt" work, and the kind of thing that doesn't attract a

lot of attention if it's done right. But it is a huge help to me for

someone else to do that, and while it's not exactly high profile you

*will* have my appreciation as well as an official "thank you" on the

list of MEFA volunteers.



If this seems like something you're interested in, drop me a line at

mefasupport@gmail.com - either to say you want to do it, or to get more

info on what is required.



Thanks!



Marta

(MEFA Admin.)























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation of privacy.

This is usually not an issue, but in the past some of my review replies have been to people I know personally. I'll bear in mind that someone else may be seeing what I wrote.

Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer then not get to see it?

As I recall, MEFA story reviews (at least for the winning stories) have always been publicly viewable on the MEFA website. They're no more private than reviews anywhere else are. Certainly on most archive sites I'm familiar with, story reviews are always public.

Ithilwen


-----Original Message-----

From: erynlasgalen1949

Sent: Jul 6, 2010 10:13 AM

To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: looking for a volunteer

You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation of privacy.

This is usually not an issue, but in the past some of my review replies have been to people I know personally. I'll bear in mind that someone else may be seeing what I wrote.

Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer then not get to see it?

I'm talking about the review _replies_. Of course the reviews themselves are public.

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Diana Nevins <dlnevins@...> wrote:
>
> As I recall, MEFA story reviews (at least for the winning stories) have always been publicly viewable on the MEFA website. They're no more private than reviews anywhere else are. Certainly on most archive sites I'm familiar with, story reviews are always public.
>
> Ithilwen
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: erynlasgalen1949
>
> Sent: Jul 6, 2010 10:13 AM
>
> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com
>
> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: looking for a volunteer
>
> You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation of privacy.
>
> This is usually not an issue, but in the past some of my review replies have been to people I know personally. I'll bear in mind that someone else may be seeing what I wrote.
>
> Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer then not get to see it?
>

Sorry! I misunderstood you.

Ithilwen

-----Original Message-----

From: erynlasgalen1949

Sent: Jul 6, 2010 12:40 PM

To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: looking for a volunteer

I'm talking about the review _replies_. Of course the reviews themselves are public.

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, Diana Nevins <dlnevins@...> wrote:

>

> As I recall, MEFA story reviews (at least for the winning stories) have always been publicly viewable on the MEFA website. They're no more private than reviews anywhere else are. Certainly on most archive sites I'm familiar with, story reviews are always public.

>

> Ithilwen

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

>

> From: erynlasgalen1949

>

> Sent: Jul 6, 2010 10:13 AM

>

> To: MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com

>

> Subject: [MEFAwards] Re: looking for a volunteer

>

> You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation of privacy.

>

> This is usually not an issue, but in the past some of my review replies have been to people I know personally. I'll bear in mind that someone else may be seeing what I wrote.

>

> Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer then not get to see it?

>

Hi Brandy,

Thanks for your interest. I already had another person email me at the
mefasupport@gmail.com address, so we're all set this time. But basically
I was offering to answer any questions you had, if you thought you might
be interested but weren't sure.

Marta

On 7/5/2010 6:09 PM, brandy bartoli wrote:
>
>
> What directions are we talking about Marta? I am usually on the net
> every night for a few hours unless I have to be at work at like dawn or
> something. Tell me more. I am interested.
>
> Brandy, Haldirsbaby
>

Hiya Eryn Lasgalen,

> You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I
> would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation
> of privacy.
>

"Skim" is probably a better description than "read." The volunteer just
needs to make sure that replies aren't flames of some kind, because
they're going out under the "MEFA" name. (The email address they'll be
coming from is mefareviews@gmail.com.) To many people, this makes it
seem like the reply is somehow from the MEFAs as an institution, or that
we approve of what was said because we're passing it on. So a flamey
review might not only create bad feelings between the reviewer and that
particular author, but between the reviewer and the *MEFAs.* That's
something we need to avoid.

Believe me, we don't want it to be like big brother peeking over your
shoulder! Our volunteers have better things to do anyway. We're just
trying to strike the right balance between protecting the MEFA name (so
most people have a positive association rather than a negative one with
it) and giving authors and reviewers a service they have asked for. But
if you feel we're erring too far toward one side or the other, we can
always consider it in our post-mortem after the awards. If you ever see
something you would like us to consider changing, you can suggest it at

http://community.livejournal.com/mefas/1994/05/15/

and the volunteers will consider it for 2011 once this year's awards are
over.

> Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer
> then not get to see it?
>

If we decide a review is a flame, we'll reply back to the author saying
we haven't passed the reply on. So no, the reviewer doesn't get to see
it. But the author *knows* the review wasn't passed on for some reason
or another, so they can try to get in touch some other way if they like.

Marta
(MEFA Admin.)

Hi Ithilwen,

You're right, reviews are always public. When you enter a review you
give it a status, and if that status is Hidden or Final, the review will
be shown to other people eventually. (The difference is that with Hidden
reviews, you can keep editing them until the end of the awards, at which
point they'll be displayed.)

But Eryn Lasgalen was talking about something a bit different. When an
author reads a review, there is a link to *reply* to that review. This
opens up an email that a MEFA volunteer will pass on to the reviewer.
And that's not shown on our website at the moment, but it *is* read by a
volunteer to make sure we aren't passing along a flame.

Marta

On 7/6/2010 12:11 PM, Diana Nevins wrote:
>
>
> As I recall, MEFA story reviews (at least for the winning stories) have
> always been publicly viewable on the MEFA website. They're no more
> private than reviews anywhere else are. Certainly on most archive sites
> I'm familiar with, story reviews are always public.
>
> Ithilwen
>

Just to say - before the "reply to reviewer" link was programmed into the site, I would just go through the MEFA Yahoo Group member database and use it to get in touch with anyone whose e-mail address I didn't already have. It's not that much more time intensive (I found, anyway), and with probably three exceptions, I was able to find every reviewer who had written something for my stories, even if I had to branch out and look at FFN or some other archive site to find a means of contacting him or her.

So if you want to e-mail your reviewers and still have total privacy, it's completely doable.

Dwim

--- In MEFAwards@yahoogroups.com, "erynlasgalen1949" <erynlasgalen1949@...> wrote:
>
> You mean a third party will be reading our emails? I had no idea. I would almost rather risk having to see a flame than lose the expectation of privacy.
>
> This is usually not an issue, but in the past some of my review replies have been to people I know personally. I'll bear in mind that someone else may be seeing what I wrote.
>
> Idle question: what if the review reply is a flame? Does the reviewer then not get to see it?
>