Board Thread:Writer's Showcase/@comment-10502460-20190416063545

Now that Writers' Showcase has seen a sharp increase in usage over the past few months thanks to us finally getting the front page template up and running, it's time to update the rules. Special thanks to  Underscorre for writing these up, which I am posting here with Cleric's permission:

The Writer's Showcase is a forum for authors to draw attention to their finished stories once they're posted on the wiki. Self-promotion can often be difficult to do tastefully, and the Showcase is intended as an easy way to bring more attention to your work. Anyone can post their stories to the showcase once they are on the main site.

The three most recent stories from the Showcase are automatically featured on the front page, and as such, it is a valuable avenue for increasing visibility. However, this also makes it a candidate for abuse, and as such, there are a number of rules dictating how you may promote your stories on the Showcase.

Rules for Authors

 * You can post any of your stories on the board, as long as they are on the main site. As such, your stories must abide by all of the Site Rules, including the Quality Standards and rules on Unfinished Pages.
 * We highly recommend that you run your story through our Writer's Workshop before adding it to the main site. Here, you can get feedback on your story to help improve it and ensure it meets the minimum quality standards.
 * This may seem obvious but since people have done this before it bears mentioning here: this board is not a place to post your whole story.
 * To reiterate, this board is only for finished stories that have been posted to the article namespace. If you have an offsite story you would like to promote, make a post about it on the Off-Topic board or create a Blog instead.
 * You must use the WS template when creating your post.
 * To use this template, you'll need to ensure you're in the source-mode editor. Then, follow the template documentation to add it to your post. You can add the name of your story, your username, and a short description. The template will automatically link to the pasta, and to your user page.
 * If you don't use this template, your post will show up with a placeholder description. Administrators or Showcase Moderators will be happy to help get this working if you're having trouble.
 * You may "bump" your story (i.e: add another post to the thread so it is moved to the top) once per month for three consecutive months. This will make your story appear on the front page again, until other threads are created/bumped. After this, you'll need to wait for at least three more months before you can bump again. Please be considerate when bumping; if your story is already receiving attention, the showcase has served its purpose, and it's not necessary to take the place of another story which may still have not gotten a look over.
 * Adding any reply to the thread will bump it, so please don't reply unless you really mean to bump the thread.
 * Only bump your own stories. It's up to individual authors how they choose to promote their work.
 * Please only post one story per thread. You can create separate threads for each story. If you have a series you wish to promote, you may do this by linking to the first story in the series in the WS template, and then providing links to any sequels in the story description.
 * Your story (not the Showcase thread) must include the By-user template in order to credit you. If you have a user category, your story should also include this.
 * If your story is deleted, your thread in the Showcase will be removed too.
 * In general, be considerate towards other users when posting your stories to the Showcase. It's impossible to list every possible way people could abuse this forum, so apply some common sense in your activity. If you've got a huge back-catalogue of stories, you should stagger posting them over the course of a couple of months, rather than posting them all at once, for example. We actively monitor the Showcase more than other boards, and issues such as this will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
 * We prefer that you do not solicit feedback for your story on the Showcase post. Showcasing your story on this board already implies that you desire for people to read and leave feedback, so including statements like "let me know what you guys think of it" is redundant. If you must ask for feedback in your post, you must make it clear that all feedback should be left on the story itself in the comments rather than as replies on your Showcase post.

Rules for Readers

 * Please do not respond to threads on the Writers' Showcase directly. Adding a response to the thread will bump the pasta unnecessarily. Instead, respond in the comments of the story in question. This also helps to centralize feedback for the author.
 * If you're an author, you can help us with this by closing (but not removing) your thread after creating it, in order to ensure people can't comment. It will still appear in the thread listing, and comments will still work on the pasta itself. Admins may temporarily close your thread if too many users are leaving feedback on it.
 * That said, you are welcome to give the OP "kudos" (using the 'thumbs-up' icon) if you really like the story.
 * Our normal rules for commenting apply. Try to offer helpful feedback and constructive criticism to authors, not just "+1" or "this sucks". 