Transparency Initiative Explained

Hi, guys!

I hope you are all doing great.

I just wanted to clarify a few things about the transparency movement I am proud to be part of.

First of all, we are a peaceful initiative. We don’t want to argue with anyone, we respect other people’s point of view and, most importantly, we respect every contest participant, including the winners.

The initiative has never ever doubted or questioned the contest winners. We are happy that the hard work the authors put in their stories is acknowledged and celebrated. However, we also believe that those who didn’t make it to the shelf also deserve to be supported. Yes, they did worse and did not get the spot but we truly believe that releasing the scores would be enough appreciation of the time and effort invested. We want to develop and grow within this community and it’s hard to do so without any feedback from the contest organizer.

We are asking for two things:

  1. We wonder if every single contest entry is read by episode. If not, what reader engagement would allow the story to be qualified to get read? In the second case, we would like to request to make the reader engagement figures transparent and accessible to the authors.

  2. We would like to have an opportunity to request our scores. Both the reader engagement and the rubric scores. Assessing the story against the rubric ourselves is by no means helpful as we can be subjective and only the official episode scoring will help us understand where we did bad and how we can improve.

The reason we keep asking these questions in different threads is because these questions are constantly dodged. We only received one answer with a promise to come back to us, yet a few months have passed already and we haven’t heard back yet.

We will keep asking these questions until we get the answers we deserve.

I am sorry if that upsets some people. As you can see, we are doing that not out of disrespect for anyone’s hard work. We are asking these questions because we want to have a clear understanding of how the judging system works and we want to improve. That’s not a lot we are asking for.

If you have questions about the initiative feel free to leave a comment. However, if you have problems with me personally, i’d ask you to kindly dm me and talk privately. I am always open for discussion.

We will not eventually get tired and give up asking these questions. With respect to all the authors, we stand by our beliefs and we are ready to defend them.

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Hello @Alex_Af! This is Sydney the Moderator. This topic does not follow the Feature Request Guidelines in regards to the title. Please change it if this is intended to be a Feature Request. Also, note that what you are requesting may not be appropriate to request for the Writer’s Portal, as it seems to be more related to the Mobile App. Make sure you have created the topic in the correct category, or I will move it if it is not.

Thanks for reading and have a good day :sunglasses:

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Hi, Sydney!

Thanks for contacting me. I read the guidelines but got quite confused as I didn’t know where it would be best to place this. I’ve changed the title from APP to FEATURE. If you can move it to the section where you believe it’s most appropriate that would be much appreciated, as I was initially unsure of where to post it.

Thank you very much.

Hello @Alex_Af! No problem at all. :wink:

However, we need to clarify some things. Are you asking for a feature to be added to the mobile app or the writer’s portal, or are you trying to make a statement about how you think Episodes should review stories? If you’re making a request, then it should go somewhere in the Feature category (and I’ll move it to the category it best fits in.) The title would also need changing since it is still incorrect.

If you’re trying to make a statement about how you think Episode should review stories, that would fit better in the Episode Fan Community, and the title would still need to be edited to not look like a request title.

Just let me what you want it to be and we’ll take it from there! :wink:

Thanks for reading :sunglasses:

I think it’s then best to move it to Episode Fan community. How would I need to change the title? Just remove the word Feature?

Thank you very much for your assistance!

Hello @Alex_Af! All right! I’ll move it to Episode Fan Community for you. And yes, it would be best to remove the word feature from it, so that it isn’t confused with Feature Requests. :wink:

It’s been a pleasure to help you and thanks for being so understanding! Have a great day :sunglasses:

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Thanks a lot for your help! I’ve changed the title so that it fits the sections better.

Thank you very much for your assistance and I wish you a wonderful weekend!

Cheers,
Alex

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bump :triumph:

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What is it TT?

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just making sure that more people see this

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You are the sweetest!

:blue_heart::blue_heart::blue_heart:

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I totally agree with you. They didn’t adequately explain why they could not let people request their scores. It would be helpful for people to understand what was lacking and how they could improve if they enter a contest again.

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Hi, thank you so much for commenting and I am really sorry for getting back to you so late!

To me the fact that the system is not transparent means only 1 thing — it’s flawed. Simple as that. So, honestly, I really doubt that we will ever get any answers from Episode… However, if we raise awareness and get many people on our side, including big authors, that might motivate Episode to change the current state of things. At least I hope so.

:blue_heart::blue_heart::blue_heart:

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Don’t worry about getting back late to me. (By the way, I didn’t know if you knew I’m also @mmayaepisode on IG). I feel any effort is better than no effort and sometimes if you bring enough attention for a long time on an issue, you can make change.

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Yes, I’ve connected that in my brain now, sorry for being so slow and clumsy :joy::joy::joy: And I remember the feedback I gave you, so if you have any questions — feel free to DM me.

:blue_heart::blue_heart::blue_heart:

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Thank YOU ! I will sometime. No problem. :joy::joy::joy:! Have a good night!

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Keeping the tread alive. Just in case.