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Posted by: db105
« on: May 28, 2024, 11:02:00 am »

Yes, certainly we can talk about it if we want to. We understand that whatever we say will not change the MMSA policies, but then again many people enjoy talking about politics and the world's problems even though they have little possibility of influencing them.

The thing is, I totally appreciate and sympathize with Plagosus' point, but I also see that the point of the icons is to help readers find the stories they want to read and avoid the ones they don't.

So, let's say we have a story that seems to be a normal father-son scenario. The father is scolding the son but at the end they realize that whatever happened is actually the father's fault, and it's the son the one who ends up spanking the father. This would have a role-reversal icon, a family/other icon and an adult spanked icon. But the writer rightfully says that he intended the ending to be a surprise, and can they please not spoil it with the icons.

Then, if the request is honored, the story would get a boy spanked icon, a family/father icon and no role-reversal icon. Then, a bunch of people who just love role-reversal stories would never read the story, and a bunch of people who just hate role-reversal stories would read the story and hate it.

On the other hand, if the request is not honored, then a bunch of readers who hate spoilers will be bummed because the twist was spoiled for them. However, these readers now think: OK, I hate spoilers, is there a way to prevent this from happening again? And they have a way: they can choose to navigate the site without icons. Then they are protected from icon-spoilers at the cost of losing the help of the icons when it comes to deciding what to read.

Ideally, we would have three ways to navigate the site instead of two: without icons, with regular icons, or with non-spoilery icons. Then, for stories of this kind, the reviewer would mark the regular icons and the non-spoilery ones, and the reader would be able to choose what they prefer to see. However, it seems to me too much work for something that is not such a big deal, in my opinion.

To my reasoning, maybe Plagosus would say: OK, but you are thinking about the rights of the readers, but what about the rights of the author? Shouldn't the author get to choose how his story is presented, regardless of what the readers may prefer?

And we also have the rights of the site-owners, who generously offer the site for us to use without requiring us to pay for the costs. Shouldn't the site owner have the right to choose the rules for his own web site and how to present the stories in it?

Of course, for a story to be posted, both the site owner and the author have to agree. The author has to agree that he wants his story to be published in the site for free and has to accept the site policies about how it is presented. And the site owner has to agree that he wants to publish the story. So, if the site owner is not flexible about what an author wants, it may happen that the author may decide not to publish the story, which would be a pity, but I don't think we have a huge problem with authors disassociating themselves from the site for this reason.

Instead, if we are worried about disaffected authors, what we should do is close the MMSA forums, because it's much more likely that authors may decide to remove their stories, or not to write more of them, because of some brush with Flagellant there. While Flagellant is very generous with his efforts to provide us with this archive, he is, to put it mildly, not the most diplomatic person ever.

Back when I was a reviewer at MMSA, I used to do my best to smooth things over when Flag offended some writer, but I have given up, and accepted that there's nothing I can do. What will be, will be, and I hope the archive will exist for many years, that Flag won't get discouraged and close it, and that not too many authors will drift away because of some forum flame war. But the most important one of those is that the site will not be closed. It would be a huge loss. To cut my losses, I have saved copies of all the stories from the authors I like, but the future stories that we'll never get when there's no MMSA are still a huge loss.
Posted by: Emlyn Morgan
« on: May 28, 2024, 03:27:49 am »

Quote from: David M. Katz on May 27, 2024, 04:38:03 pm
This discussion should be moot.  Flag has addressed this.

[...]

It is his site so why do we continue to discuss these things?

Why not? Should we be afraid to?

But we can certainly discuss them here in Jack's friendly House, where there is not a feeling of walking on eggshells. And there is a feeling of us all being part of the site community.
Posted by: David M. Katz
« on: May 27, 2024, 08:38:22 pm »

Quote from: Plagosus on May 27, 2024, 07:13:40 pm
*I expect DMK will tell me I contributed to the thread!

 ;D  ;D You did - 4 times.

So did Daniel, Johnno, Bobby W., PJ, and Flag.
Posted by: Plagosus
« on: May 27, 2024, 07:13:40 pm »

I do not recall having read what Flag said in the reviewer's forum.* If I had I would never have started the thread on MMSA. As I have said, I started the thread because I have a story on the go where I would prefer the fantasy icon to be omitted and in the belief (which turned out to be erroneous) that the question had only been discussed in passing.

A quick Google reveals that it is indeed the case that some people prefer to know how a story is going to pan out. It is of course the case that one can read a novel or see a film twice and still enjoy it the second time, but I for one do not want the plot revealed the first time round. Anyone who does is surely treating reading as some sort of intellectual exercise to see how the author is working towards the resolution. That surely diminishes the emotion, fun or surprise according what sort of genre is involved.

*I expect DMK will tell me I contributed to the thread!
Posted by: David M. Katz
« on: May 27, 2024, 04:38:03 pm »

This discussion should be moot.  Flag has addressed this.

Back in February of 2017, I attempted to leave off icons on a story to prevent spoiling a twist in the plot. This is from the reviewer's forum.  I do not think it violates any confidentiality to post that excerpt from reviewers forum here:

 flagellant » 26 Feb 2017 20:30

AAARRGH!

This concept of spoilers in the classification is ridiculous. And there is research evidence that knowing the outcome of a story ADDS to the enjoyment experience of reading it more than having the surprise of not knowing.

Over-ruled!

Flag was not happy with me or the idea then and has restated all along that he wants all stories tagged properly irrespective of what anyone else thinks.  It is his site so why do we continue to discuss these things?
Posted by: Emlyn Morgan
« on: May 27, 2024, 04:04:15 pm »

Do you know, I almost never read any stories in mmsa.  In fact I read very little fiction of any sort.

If I did look at a recommended story in mmsa, it would have to be short, 20gb  at most, and have all the solid stars and shields.  Then I look at the little pictograms hoping to rule out the need to read the thing.

But if all that failed to deter me, I usually manage only a few sentences before I lose interest.

I just don't like fiction.
Posted by: Plagosus
« on: May 27, 2024, 05:22:55 am »

Quote from: db105 on May 26, 2024, 07:27:35 pm
After all, it's an archive of spanking stories (itself a spoiler that the stories will contain spanking). Our interest in spanking is the point, more than our enjoyment of plot twists being completely unexpected.

While a story has to contain a spanking or be about spanking, that does not prevent it also being, for example, a detective story. No icon is going to give away whodunnit. Most plot twists and surprise endings are not going to be given away by icons. Icons are only going to be spoilers in a very limited number of cases.

There is a film, I do not recall its name, where a character is dead but neither he nor the audience know it until near the end. We do not know it is a ghost story until we know the character is a ghost. A broadcasting company could put on a series of ghost films and include the film which would, at the very least, alert the viewer that there was going to be at least one ghost and the revelation would not be a surprise. If the film was not included people may protest at its exclusion.

There is a difference between a story where it is clear at the outset that it is fantasy and one where it only becomes apparent later. If the story is well written so that the reader does not suspect anything unusual is going on and when the truth is revealed he does not feel he has been cheated, then any indication that the story is fantasy is an unwanted spoiler. The question then is: Which is to take precedence, having a strict icon policy or allowing the author to surprise the reader?
Posted by: db105
« on: May 26, 2024, 07:27:35 pm »

The purpose of the icons is to help the reader find the stories he wants to read and avoid the stories he doesn't want to read. For that, they give some basic information about the contents of the story, and in some cases that might spoil a twist that the author would prefer to keep hidden.

I'd say that this kind of situation happens outside spanking stories too. For example, let's say I write a ghost story where initially it doesn't seem to be a ghost story, but in a final twist it is revealed that it is. The writer might, quite naturally, not want the reader to know in advance that it is a ghost story. But then, the story is published in an anthology of ghost stories, and that way fans of ghost stories that would otherwise never find the story can read it. People who hate stories with supernatural elements may avoid it. Yes, having the story in an anthology of supernatural fiction can be a spoiler, but most people tend to accept that kind of thing as a price to be paid for the convenience of being able to find the stories you like.

If a reader doesn't want to pay that price, then he has the option to disable the icons. The author, on the other hand, doesn't have the option to disable the icons in his stories, and I can see how it can be frustrating that the icons will reveal the twist in your story that it's the son spanking the father and not the other way around. But then again, if the icon is omitted, fans of role-reversal scenarios will probably not find it.

All in all, I think it's a price that can reluctantly be paid for the service it provides. Trust your readers to decide if avoiding spoilers is so important to them.

After all, it's an archive of spanking stories (itself a spoiler that the stories will contain spanking). Our interest in spanking is the point, more than our enjoyment of plot twists being completely unexpected.
Posted by: Plagosus
« on: May 14, 2024, 06:17:11 pm »

Jack: Thank you for your contribution to the new thread. I could not see your contribution to the old thread.
Posted by: Jack
« on: May 14, 2024, 05:35:18 pm »

I have submitted my thoughts on the MMSA forum, both in that original thread that touched on the issue and on the new one, so I"m just going to respond to Zyngaru.

As an author who does write occasional stories with those twists, and who has had them occasionally spoiled by those icons, my feeling is - this isn't real life, this isn't even a movie where you have to see something you don't write.  This isn't a food allergy, and it's not going to kill you to be exposed to something you normally dislike in written form.

I do understand that some readers might want to actively avoid something, but I also feel like an author has a right to present his work in a certain form if that's his choice.  I guess that means one could argue it comes down to Flagellant's belief, but even then, is it better for an author to just not submit his work because he doesn't like that policy, or for a reader to risk occasionally seeing something he might dislike?
Posted by: Zyngaru
« on: May 13, 2024, 08:27:52 am »

Quote from: ivor on May 13, 2024, 02:53:47 am
I'm with Plag on this. Having icons displayed can destroy the element of surprise that an author has striven hard to create.


I can see Zyn's viewpoint, but the example he gives is one of personal choice. If he comes across something he abhors in a story he can simply stop reading in the same way as you can switch off a TV or radio if it broadcasts something you don't wish to hear.

I won't bother to express my view about this on MMSA because I know it would be a waste of time. The 'powers that be' have made a policy and, as with other things in the past, they are not for turning.

Ivor.  Like Plag, I respect your viewpoint and understand it.  I have written stories with surprise elements in them.
As for my view being one of personal choice.  All views are from one's personal choice.  We read what we read because of our personal choice.  As for being able to just stop reading a story when we find something we don't like in it.  I do that frequently.  But it is very frustrating when I am enjoying a story and then come across an element in it that I personally abhor and have to stop reading the story because of it.  It is frustrating abandoning a very good story which I normally would not have even started reading had the icon been in place.

It makes me feel like I have been played for the fool.  Like the author thinks he knows better than me what I really like.  He will sneak this into his story and show me that I actually do like what I just think I don't like.

Now.  I just thought about this idea, so I haven't fleshed it out in my mind, but I think I would be okay if an author was able to request that "NO icons" be applied to their stories.  Maybe just a "Question Mark" where the icons would normally be.  But that would have to apply to all of their stories, not just select ones.  Then readers would understand that when they choose that author's stories, they will be surprised all the time by whatever the content is in it.


Posted by: ivor
« on: May 13, 2024, 02:53:47 am »

I'm with Plag on this. Having icons displayed can destroy the element of surprise that an author has striven hard to create.


I can see Zyn's viewpoint, but the example he gives is one of personal choice. If he comes across something he abhors in a story he can simply stop reading in the same way as you can switch off a TV or radio if it broadcasts something you don't wish to hear.

I won't bother to express my view about this on MMSA because I know it would be a waste of time. The 'powers that be' have made a policy and, as with other things in the past, they are not for turning.
Posted by: Zyngaru
« on: May 12, 2024, 10:19:23 pm »

Hi Plag,

I wasn't going to say anything here since I answered on the MMSA Forum.  I want you to know that I totally respect your question and thoughts on the issue.  I even understand your side of the issue.  It makes logical sense to refrain from showing an icon that could spoil the surprise of the story.   I get it.

That doesn't change my opinion on the need for relative icons to be posted for a story even if it has the chance of being a spoiler.

This is my reason for having this opinion.

The author is American.  He is writing a story taking place in a normal American School that allows Corporal Punishment.  Yes, they still exist.  In the story the protagonist has already been paddled twice.  Once by the gym teacher in the locker room and once by the principal in his office and neither paddling curbed the protagonist's behavior.   In the final epic spanking scene of the story, the principal has the protagonist drop his trousers and underpants to the floor and bend over his desk.  The boy smirks knowing that the principal can't do anything to him with his paddle. Then the Principal pulls out a British School Cane to use on the boy and he shrinks in fear of what the cane might do to him.  He is right to be fearful because the principal cuts his behind six times with the Cane, leaving wicked stripes.  The boy afterward changes his ways and lives happily ever after.  Great surprise in the story, because no American reader would ever think that an American Principal in an American School would use a British Cane on an American Student.

Because no American reader would ever expect a British Cane to be used in an American school it is a perfect Surprise.  The author wants to keep it a surprise right up until the Epic Caning scene, so he doesn't want a cane icon displayed.   The icon would be a spoiler for the story.  It would be a logical request by the author to not have the cane icon displayed.

The problem is, along comes a reader such as me.  I don't read any story that has caning in it.  It's a personal thing with me.  I despise the cane as a means of disciplining anyone.  So, how am I going to react when I get to that epic scene of the caning?  There isn't supposed to be any cane in an American School story, yet there it is, and it is cutting a boy that should never be caned.  I would be mad.  Very Mad.  It is not the kind of surprise I would be happy with.  If the icon where there I would have passed on reading the story.  But no icon, so I think I am reading a typical American School story and get Blind-Sided.

That is why I am for using the icons.  That is why I am against an author choosing whether an icon should be left off.  I totally understand he wants to surprise the reader.  I understand the motivation.

But is it right to blind-side a reader into reading something they absolutely abhor?
Posted by: Plagosus
« on: May 12, 2024, 06:44:28 pm »

I refer forum members to this thread on the MMSA forum: https://newforum.malespank.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9695&p=186352#p186352. Does P J Franklin have a point or am I losing the plot?

Whatever the case, what are members' opinions on icons as spoilers?