16.1.1.2 PUBLISHING AND CRITIQUING
When a book is published by a Great Library, a copy is sent to every other
Great Library. For the next year (exactly 300 days), the book is open to
critiques. During this critique period, the book is locked and sealed so that
not even the author can edit the book. After the critique period and after
scholars have reviewed the critiques, the book may be unsealed and edited.
Authors should be aware, however, that once a published book is published and
if the author edits that book, then as soon as the author seals the book, it
will be considered a new edition and go through the critique phase again.
Thus, it should be clear that publishing a book is a very serious matter. As a
rule, published books are considered finalized works. Unsealing and editing
should only be done for major rewrites or to address negative critiques.
Librarians of Great Libraries are given the ability to criticise works that
have been placed in rivalling libraries, however, this is an ability that is
not to be used with impunity. When you decide to criticise a book scholars
will look at the work you decided to criticise and the reason you chose to do
so. If this reason is found to be justified, the credibility of the library in
which the book was placed shall decrease; however, if the reason is found to
be faulty, it is the credibility of your own library that shall decrease
instead.
Criticise is the only ability that influences credibility directly, so use it
with care. Now then, here are some examples of what criticise is to be used
for:
Bad Layout:
Various examples of bad layout include what some refer to as faulty
linebreaks, in which format this
part of the helpfile has been written. This mistake often occurs when
people copy-paste from the
Mud back into the editor, without removing any of the linebreaks. It is a
simple mistake that is easily
corrected by simply keeping in mind that linebreaks go at the end of a
paragraph and not at the
end of a line.
Another prime example of something one can always criticise for is making each
sentence into a separate paragraph.
This is not a mistake made in writing the file but rather a tendency to end
each line with an enter.
Once again we have written this part of the helpfile in the format we are
trying to indicate in order to transfer how this layout looks and make it
easier for librarians to recognise it and act appropriately.
This mistake is easily corrected simply by keeping on writing without any
linebreaks at all until one wishes to start a new paragraph.
Apart from these two very easy examples, one can criticise books for bad
layout in general, though we warn people that this is only to be used in the
most extreme of cases: do not criticise just because you feel this one
paragraph should be two instead, or that these two sentences should be a
comma. Criticise is only to be used in extreme cases where the book really is
a blemish on the name of the library, and all goes well, we will never see it
used at all. In general, criticise should be used for cases when you can take
a single glance at a page and immediately see it is complete rubbish. Further
examples of this include things such as a complete page full of words without
paragraphs or linebreaks at all or messy things such as overdramatic
uses............of full stops or exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!
Bad Spelling:
Again, this is only to be used in the most extreme of cases where you can see
in a single glance that the work is utter rubbish, not for the occasional
spelling mistake or two. In general, if you are not convinced that the book
would warrant a criticism for spelling mistakes it is probably best not to
take the risk. However, this does not mean that spelling mistakes in books are
widely accepted: Just make sure your books are written in correct Lusternian
and we won't have any of these problems at all.
OOC Information or layout:
This is the one category for which you may go out and dig through every last
line of the book, for having OOC information in a book is simply unacceptable.
However, we will only declare obvious uses of OOC information to be justified
criticism, not the cases in which if you look at it in a certain way it might
very well refer to something that is OOC.
Another thing that is not allowed at all is OOC layout, and with this we mean
using the layout of the Lusternia mud in a book, write a book as your
character would write it, not as your player sees it. For example, if you are
writing a log for a meeting your guild leaders had, the easiest way to write
it down would be:
Estarra, the Eternal says, "Bloody shite! Did a Seal just break?"
Estarra runs around madly, flapping her arms in a blind panic.
However, this is not the way in which it should be done as your character
would never have written it down in such a way. A more acceptable way would
be:
Estarra: Bloody shite! Did a seal just break?
At this point Estarra panicked.
However, transcribing it completely always has the preference:
After her arrival, Estarra was most disturbed to find that one of the seals on
Kethuru's prison had been broken and for a moment, She lost her composure in
an instant of panic.
NOTICE: Any big changes of this system will be posted on Announce, but small
ones will just be added without further notice.
