Clean up your lit!

As spring is upon us, it is the time of year for refreshing. A fresh outlook, new life and of course everybody’s favourite job that involves removing muck from windows, throwing out old clothes, and of course reacting those cupboard tops you haven’t touched since last spring- yes its time for spring cleaning! In deviantArt, it is also time to wave your feather dusters about- it’s time to clean up you lit!

The literature galleries have been in a state for a while now. The huge amounts of miscats that plague the galleries are overshadowing the pieces in the right place, as well as leaving the deviant putting their pieces in the wrong place doing their own work an injustice. If someone is interested in a certain genre or theme and your work isn’t in the right gallery, who knows what you are missing out on?

In literature, this month is not only dedicated to reading and haiku, but to spring cleaning. The great news is you can be a part of this event! We want as many people involved as possible, whether it is involved in the main event or taking the personal approach to your own gallery- either way we want literature to shine and sparkle, jam packed with organised galleries and some quality reads!

Something for everyone

If you don’t want to participate in the main event, or if you are participating; there is something really important we want to encourage everyone who reads this to do. Even if you are not a literature member, you will be helping your own craft. This is to go through your entire gallery yourself. Look at every deviation and look where you have categorised it- is it in the right place? Clean up your gallery a bit- take out the old dusty pieces, maybe revive them in a new way! Move things around- remember you have folders now to organise your gallery anyway you want. Just please, check those categorisations.

Why should you do this? It benefits you more than anyone. Not only will you have a refreshed gallery, but you will avoid any miscat reports on your work. You may also find old pieces that with good polishing may create fantastic redrafts!


The Main Event

The main event is about cleaning up the entire literature galleries. For the duration of one month, starting from Monday 10th March you can volunteer to be assigned to a specific sub gallery in literature. Your mission, should you chose to accept, will be to sift through this gallery and report as many miscats or indeed any other policy violations you may find. The more you find, the better it is for this community, and the better it will be for you too. If you are particular to a certain genre, there is nothing more frustrating than finding 20 deviations in a row that shouldn’t be in that category- now we can start to redeem that.

There are 57 sub-galleries which include Poetry by genre, Poetry by style, Prose fiction and prose non-fiction. There may be a crossover in poetry, but if a miscat is reported twice, that is better than not being reported at all. Below I have numbered all the sub-galleries from 1-57. If you would like to participate in this cleanup, you will need to leave me a comment in this journal listing up to 5 sub galleries (and their numbers) you feel you would like to help filter. After the deadline, I will produce a full list of names and assign people to different categories, which they will then be responsible for reporting. If there is more than one of you assigned to a gallery, it may be work discussing your approach together to avoid too many crossovers.

Before you volunteer yourself for a specific gallery, please ensure you have a good understanding of what should be in this galley. Please don’t volunteer for genres you are unsure about. One key element is to check out the gallery info. This can be found in ‘Submit deviation’ > category> gallery info.

We don’t expect people to be sat on here 24-7 hitting that ‘report violation’ button- it will make you dreadfully cynical about the literature on here and we don’t want you to feel like this. All we are asking for is a couple of hours- I know from my own miscat reporting you can find on average about 20 per half hour, so please don’t hit the overdrive button! Of course we will be happy for any time you can give.

Identifying fan fiction

We are currently composing a list of common/popular fan fictions that people write, as not everyone will be familiar with certain fan bases. This list will include the title and several key words. If you wish to contribute to this list please send a note to `Beccalicious or ^StJoan.

For example:

Harry Potter - Key words: Harry Ron Hermionie Malfoy Snape Dumbledore Hagrid McGonagal Hogwarts Voldemort

Kingdom Hearts key words: Sora Kari Riku Micky Donald Goofy Anseem Darkness Nobodies Organisation XIII Roxas

A full list will be provided when everyone is assigned.

Tokens

We are considering some token or ‘rize’ to give to those who participate, but due to the volume of people we need, we are currently unsure how to approach this. We will be creating a ‘roll of honour’, as well as offering contributors some form of feature or critique. If you would like to submit any kind of gesture to the participants, please drop `Beccalicious or ^StJoan a note.

Key Dates

Monday 10th March: The list will be published and project launched.
Thursday 10th April: The project will close (but people are welcome to carry on)
Sunday 13th April: Roll of honour will be published.

We look forward to your participation and hope you will contribute!

Thank you

`Beccalicious and ^StJoan