16.1.1.2 PUBLISHING AND CRITIQUING

PUBLISHING AND CRITIQUE:

When a book is published by a Great Library, a copy is immediately sent to every other Great Library. Furthermore, the publishing Great Library's organisation immediately receives organisational points for the book. The published status and the org points DO NOT change with subsequent critique results as noted below.

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 finalised 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, divine 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.

Books that are justifiably criticised (i.e. reviewed as failure) remain published. This means they will be able to be found and read in every Great Library in the Basin. However, they will be marked as a work of low quality. Further, such books will not be counted for any scores that will help the cultural standing of a library, and thus will not show up on LIBRARY AUDIT as performed by a Great Librarian.

Books that are reviewed successfully will help increase the culture of the city or commune.


REASONS FOR MORTAL LIBRARIAN CRITICISM:

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.

This applies to stage productions as well. Book copies of plays should be written in the format of a script, and not a copy and paste of what the player watching the play sees.


DIVINE SCHOLAR REVIEW:

As mentioned above, after a year of mortal librarian criticism, the published book is then reviewed by divine scholars. Divine scholars will look over mortal criticism and ascertain whether they are justified and finalise the book as being successfully published or reviewed a failure.

A book reviewed as a failure will negatively affect the credibility of the organization that published it.

A book reviewed as successful will negatively affect the credibility of the organization(s) that criticised the book.

An organisation's current credibility will recover at the beginning of the next Lusternian year, although the previously year's credibility will still affect culture scores.

Divine scholars will also themselves review books based on the mortal reviewer principles noted above, in addition to other reasons as listed below. These can also be valid reasons for mortal criticism, but are not required of mortal reviewers. Reasons may include but are not limited to:

o Plagiarism 

See PLAGIARISM.

Note plagiarism includes the use of text generated by artificial intelligence (AI) as part or all of your work.

o Wrong category 

If a clearly literary book is filed as scholarly, and vice versa. Note, there will always be books that straddle the categories, so this will usually be an egregious case: For example, if a book of entirely, clearly fictional short stories were published in the scholarly category.

o Lack of evidence for scholarly claims

If a scholarly book makes claims that are not borne out by citations, references, or notes to evidence in game, the book may be reviewed a failure due to its low credibility. Note that the book will essentially remain published, but it will be labeled a work of low quality.

The divine scholars recognise that the scholarly endeavour is by its nature potentially veiled in shades of grey, and do not expect absolute accuracy or adherence to lore. Likewise, varying, even contradictory, perspectives may be found scholarly books without problem. However, acknowledgement of such potential differences is important.

The most likely cause for review failure due to lack of evidence is if the scholarly work is written from the vantage of absolute truth, as if declaring canon, without the above noted evidence. The easiest way to prevent such a review failure is to include caveats or room for disagreement in book contents. For example, "It is rumoured that X caused Y. If we take the rumour to be truth, then it follows that..." or, "Though this books sets forth many principles relating to Z, it is by no means an exhaustive work..." or, "Some say that God A did B in the years prior to the Elder Wars..." Obviously, the above examples are also not exhaustive, but they set for an example of allowing room for growth and disagreement.


Recourse: Whenever divine scholars review the work as a failure, they will send a message to the author/editor of the book and the Great Librarian of their organisation to explain in detail the reasons for review failure and potential suggestions for success in the future.


NOTICE: Any big changes of this system will be posted on Announce, but small ones will just be added without further notice.