HASA Announcement - Reviews

BIRTHDAY CARDS

The following members have birthday this week. If you're in the drabbling mood, why not write them 100 words as a birthday card?

Linaewen (June 17) requested "a tale of pre-Quest Boromir – specifically, a tale of him having an adventure on his way to Rivendell."

The following drabbles have been written in the following week:

Fording the Greyflood by Jay of Lasgalen for Linaewen
Arrival by Larner for Linaewen

And the July thread is up! If you have a birthday in July and would like a drabble about your favorite character or topic, you can request it here.

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This Week's Focus:

REVIEWS

The review process is probably one of the trickiest aspects of the HASA website. Here we ask members to decide whether a story should be recognized as examples of outstanding JRRT fanfiction. Whenever something is judged, especially something as subjective as good fanfiction, there is the potential for unfairness and hurt feelings. Members are provided with criteria to consider when evaluating a story, but the final decision in most cases rests with those members who choose to review.

For more on HASA Reviews, check out the following links (you must be logged in):

--- Reviews Overview
--- Review Policies
--- Review Criteria

As you can perhaps guess, member participation is crucial. The more people that are involved in the review process, the more opinions will be represented, and the less impact any one opinion will have on the process. Having more people involved also means that stories pass through review more quickly – which benefits everyone.

If you've been a member of HASA for thirty days and think this might be an area you'd like to get involved, it's easy to get started. Ready the pages I link above, and then click "Reviews Home" and click on the link to "Activate my status now." You'll be taken to a list of stories awaiting reviewers. Click on the title, read it, and enter your review.

Here's a simple thing to try. You're all familiar with the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." By submitting a story for review, you are asking nine other members to read and evaluate it. So why not do until other authors in reviews as you'd like other reviewers to do unto you: check out one of the stories already in review and give it a read. Put more simply: put one in, take one out.

There are currently fourteen stories waiting for reviewers. To whet your appetite, here are a few of the stories you can choose from.

"Here You Cannot Leave Me"
A poem about Arwen's final farewell to Estel.

"A Maid Waiting"
Some who came to Minas Tirith did so in hopes of pursuing a larger ambition. For Systerien of Celebstrand in Dor-en-Ernil and Ivormil of Bidwell in Lossarnach, to find themselves in the presence of the King Returned served to put those ambitions into perspective.

"To Establish Ties"
Gil-Galad meets his future herald for the first time. Drabble.

So go forth and review!

Marta

PS- Do you have something in particular you would like included in next week's announcement? If so, please contact me here.