Founded on Saturday, May 5, 2012

We hope to make this a helpful resource for writers, who are looking for a pleasant and supportive on-line community.

What do  we look for in a forum?

Well first of all a forum should be attractive to look at, and easy to navigate. In other words, no glitches, everything must work properly.

We also don't like to see restrictions placed on new members -- such as not able to PM, or post links, or in some extreme cases, even access all the boards -- until they achieve a certain number of posts. This is arbitrary and dictatorial.

Finally, the other members should be pleasant, friendly and supportive. No baiting, no nastiness, no pile-ons. If it's a writers forum then it should be concerned about writing, only.  It should not be a personality showcase and power trip for aggressive long time members. And it's the latter, incidentally, who are convinced their tenure gives them ownership rights, that cause the most problems on forums.

As for the critiques, even if they are not favourable, they can still be polite. There are forums which labour under the delusion that because their crits are nasty they must be more "honest."

So, starting alphabetically, we will review writers forums, giving them either a "recommended" or "not recommended," rating.

Update: It's been suggested that we review artists forums as well, and we'll certainly take that into consideration. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and support.

2 comments:

  1. Clancy6.5.12

    Neat idea to give writers who are often vilified and treated like throwaway trash on forums to have their say.

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  2. Anonymous29.1.15

    It should be noted on Mythic Scribes, I'm not sure why it's recommended. Sure it's better than Absolute Writers Water Cooler (what isn't?). But right when I made an introductory post, a couple of long timers started getting into a man-up-man-ship fight taking my thread way off course.

    Then you can't access all the forms, because you have to meet a five post count limit. Which granted isn't as bad as fifty posts, but wouldn't it be easier to moderate individual posts? Even KBoards suggests making your individual posts. Though we see how well they follow that.

    Then when the first story crit I got was asking me if English was my first language. And there was nothing else in the crit. Yea, don't complain about crits. True. But make them count please.

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