Thread: URPG Stories Chat and Feedback

I has a question.. or a couple of 'em:

~ Can one become a grader even though they didn't take the test? How?
~ Suppose I'll take the grader test, can I just grade one story and proceed with the grammar section and the paragraph section? > <

The Grader Test is high-octane nightmare fuel. If it was shortened, there wouldn't be a problem with lack of grades and backlog because there wouldn't be a lack of graders, now would there? It's not like the three stpries are actually necessary either. Even doing one story or two would be a huge relief, and, if that was to ever be implemented it would become apparent really quickly to the Head Graders that that person was not exactly 'grader material' and they can be put on a temporary license or something. It's not like it would be any extra work either. The person doing wages has to read through the grades and stories anyway. Infact. There is already a system in place at the moment where if a grader continuosly spits out weak grades they can have their license removed.

You might be thinking, "well, if he has such a problem grading the fake stories then why would he wan to become a real grader? He'd still have to grade stories." the thing is, there is a HUGE difference between those godawful stories in the grader test and some proper stories. This becomes even more tedious when you read the same crappy story over and over again. The first story is so ridiculously bad that there are countless typos. Reading that story, then re-Reading it for the grammar section in order to find all those typos, is bad. But, it gets worse. By this stage very few people haven't rage quit and gone to do something that is actually productive. I have read the first story near enough to ten times from all the times I've tried the test, rage quit, retried and so on.

It might seem like I'm just letting out steam or whatever but I do honestly think that the test is ridiculously long and boring. If people who have power in the stories section actually take note of this, then try and do something about it please. Even if the stories are substituted for something even slightly more interesting I, and so many others, would be reasonably happy I'm sure. There is a reason there are so little graders, you know. The point of the urpg is to have fun and enjoy yourself with friends and something we all share in common, a love for Pokemon. It's a bit redundant if people end up just getting annoyed and, possibly even, losing an interest because of how ridiculous the expectations of the storyboard staff are. Also, the grammar section is beyond easy in comparison, nearly laughable. And, yeah, I get how the grader test is supposed to weed out those who would be better candidates than others, but enough is enough @-@

Also, anyone who has stuck with the test until the end, I commend you.

/Rant TL;DR

Wow, Syn. That was quite a rant. Been saving it up a while?

Originally Posted by ragnarok0422

I has a question.. or a couple of 'em:

~ Can one become a grader even though they didn't take the test? How?
~ Suppose I'll take the grader test, can I just grade one story and proceed with the grammar section and the paragraph section? > <

1) There's not currently a way to become a grader without taking a test.

2) I'm not sure what you're asking here, if you mean can you only do 1 of the 3 stories, no. You'd need to do all the stories. If you mean can you start with those sections, by all means; the formats we see are individual people's styles.

I'd just like to say, Synth, that I am the laziest person on earth. I once slid down my stairs in a vacuum cleaner box because i didn't want to walk down. I also passed the grader test. So y'know. Bahahaha.

Synthesis, your attitude is why we have the grader test. If you can't handle combing through a hard-to-read story and feel the need to write indignant rants about the workload and how awful the stories are, we don't want you anywhere near newbies' stories. If you said something like this to a new writer, I would probably revoke your grading license on the spot. Being lazy is one thing. If you're just lazy, you can work on it in half hour segments over a period of two years and still get it done. Sentiments like these will result in a very short grading career, because they usually result in nasty, nasty grades to newbie writers.

If you think that these stories are unusually awful, that's weird, because they were actually taken from real writers as representative examples of URPG writing--good, okay, bad. We need all three of them for three reasons: One, to ensure that you have a good handle on how the grading system works with passes/fails. We can't do that with one story, because we don't know whether you would fail a fail, pass a pass, and halve a borderline, if we only give you one of those three. Two, to ensure that you fail people for good reasons. Three, to ensure that your efforts are not half-hearted.

In my year and a half as a grader, I've stumbled across pages stories of equal and lesser quality, and graded quite a few myself. You're being awfully cruel to our fledgling writers, right now--because some of them do write like that, and it's your job as a potential grader to want to help them not write like that, not write things like this. (No insult to DG in particular. I luff him. He actually sends me grades he does like this and says, "Well, I was a meany-pants, but whatever. I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT." WE HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING. Point being, he writes mean grades sometimes because he gets irritated with story quality. He is aware of the fact that his grades are mean, and that they don't help newbie writers who don't write well. And this is why he no longer grades unless there's a huge backup and I beg him to.)

SO POINT BEING. When you're an all-powerful grader who can't even take the time to help someone out in the grader test, you're not going to be nice to newbies. And we want to coddle our newbies.

Reality is, unless you want to do it, grading is boring. The stories from the good writers get snapped up first, and all the other graders are left with 5k simple fics covered in grammatical errors that they're not inclined to read. Eventually, the kids who write 5k simple fics get up to 50k masterpieces, if they get enough good instructions from graders. Or, a grader with a bad attitude will have a bad day, not want to grade something but do it anyway, and scare the kid away from URPG.

Also. If you think you're supposed to point out every grammatical error in the story, that might be why it's so labor intensive. In the grammar section, you only point out trends. "You say your instead of you're." "You have comma splices." "You use semi-colons incorrectly." Then you find an example of the trend and tell them why it's wrong and how to fix it. If they have unrepeated typos, you say, "GO PROOFREAD, BEYATCH." 'n you shouldn't need to read 'em ten times. I'm not sure why you are. I only read through each story I grade once--that's all that's needed for all the sections accept grammar, which, like I said, you only need single examples of repetitive mistakes. You can note repetitive mistakes as you read, and still stay on one readthrough.

Originally Posted by ragnarok0422

I has a question.. or a couple of 'em:

~ Can one become a grader even though they didn't take the test? How?
~ Suppose I'll take the grader test, can I just grade one story and proceed with the grammar section and the paragraph section? > <

Basically what Evan said. You gotta take the test because we need to see your skillage. You have to grade all three stories, and do full grades for each. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. MAYBE.

EDIT:

And all that said, Kat and I might be open to altering the materials of the test. Not the layout, but a fresh set of stories could be interesting. So if anyone wants to discuss that...

I would like to see some new stories. Maybe they grade some of the winning stories from the contests?

Also, think about it: you are volunteering to critique fanfiction on the Internet.

Internet.
Fanfiction.

You pretty much need a cast-iron brain if you want to handle this job. The stuff here isn't usually that bad, but you have to be ready to stare a My Immortal-class badfic in the eye, wrestle it to the ground, and... politely and helpfully give some pointers to the unfortunate who spawned it.

Three measly stories is nothing. Or it should be.

Originally Posted by Taras Bulba

Also, think about it: you are volunteering to critique fanfiction on the Internet.

Internet.
Fanfiction.

You pretty much need a cast-iron brain if you want to handle this job. The stuff here isn't usually that bad, but you have to be ready to stare a My Immortal-class badfic in the eye, wrestle it to the ground, and... politely and helpfully give some pointers to the unfortunate who spawned it.

Three measly stories is nothing. Or it should be.

<3

Way to give a pep talk. If that doesn't scare them off, nothing will. :D

I would like to see the stories changed every so often, but I think an upside to having the same stories is that you can establish a baseline between the grades; it makes it quite easy to see if someone's up to snuff or not. I'd say get some other stories for the regrader-test, if someone gets the boot and needs to re-earn their letters.

Originally Posted by AceTrainer14

I would like to see some new stories. Maybe they grade some of the winning stories from the contests?

One of those, at most. We need a bad, better, best format.

Originally Posted by Scourge of Nemo

They'll have to be talented enough to troll me successfully for at least 40k characters. I am confident it will never happen. REALLY WANTS IT TO HAPPEN. WOW THIS IS A SUBTLE COLOR.

Mew three's Journey

pROlog

Once upon a tiem in a faraway country thats like jpan but nt really there was Mew Two a Pokèmon with amazeing psyhcic powers.

Mewtwo lived in teh wilderness because he didnt like people after team Rocket tried to use him to take over the world and he cloned things almost destroyed everyone except Ash Kechum batteld hinm and everybody cryed so he stopd

Mew2 was lonly all alone in the wildnress but he had a younger brother who came by sometiems to visti. His broather the first mew or mew One execpt nobody said the on e because whats the poin if youre the first one of somethingOne day Mew and Mewtwo decided to combine

"Lets combine," Mew Two said 'like in dragonball Z because i wacthed that cartoon and it si my favourite even though i am pokèmon.

Mew said mew because he couldnt talk normal since only special pokèmons like MewTWo and meouwth can spaek engligsh

)(jpaanese? maybe um so il jjust keep goign{

Lets do fusoin dance." MEwtwo said.

Mew mew meow mew! his brothhher said back

'hters no such thing as fusion dance? mewtwo was dissapointed

mew mew. mwe siad

'"good idea! mewtwo cheered. 'we can use spycic powrs instead. and he started to glwo purpel because psychc is purplle

"MEw'. an dmew one turned purple too.

The pruple got brighter and mor epurple untli it explded and ther was loud bnag

and then there was mewthjree

because one nad two make three so its liek mathemitcal evolutoin

mewthreee was like mewtwo but always purple all the time

'oh yeah this si bgreat,' mewthre said. '"now i ma twice as legendery and nobody can defaet me because of my superopwers and meawthree went to lavendr ctiy becaues psychi gym was there and he waned to do something but it was surpries

"hello; welcome to lavendre city pokèmon jim; erika the leader said and i am erica the leader of this gym; did you come to fight me; annd my psyssch type PokèMon?

she was wearign japanes-type dress becaues it maed her look hot but it was big long dresse, becase she dintd like pervrts. seh liekd to use colons thogh because she was fancy and got A+ in english or japnese

silly human" mewthree shouted and golwed more puprle I am pokèmn not a person so now i will beat you all up

And he baeat them all up with his pcychic poewrs because he wanted to see how strong he was now that he was threee.

And al the opkèmon in the gym fainted in three and a hlaf second and he smild

"Okya. i am strong." So he woke them beat them all up agin.

'what abotu me' erika aksed 'You didtn touch me ta all; i stil have 38 HP!

mewtwo laughed and lauhged.

'u are wearing a dress and i Don't hit girls." mewthree kept lauging.

Erikka got mad and atakced him with shotgun. "You r stupid and i am gym Leader! Dont undrestima undertism look down at a lady' bang clickick!

mewThree had superowers so he wasnt hurt by hre rifle but he was annoyedso he pynched her in the face and she ell down

she siad ow so he hit her agian then she fainted like the pokèmon

"I win? said mewfree but nobody gave him a badge

i am Pokèmon not humna so i dont nead any stinkig badges he said (note; my hsitory teacher says that stinking bages all teh time so i put hit here, Hi Mister Andersn!}

and then mewthere became leadre of vermillion city gym because of his glourious powers

next time on mew3's Journey: Chapter one!

I can continue in this vein. ...should I?

because one nad two make three so its liek mathemitcal evolutoin

I stopped.

I think I died from overexposure to laughter.
LOL

i am Pokèmon not humna so i dont nead any stinkig badges he said (note; my hsitory teacher says that stinking bages all teh time so i put hit here, Hi Mister Andersn!}

lol. Nice job.

Also, Vermillion Gym is now headed by Erika which is located at Lavender town.

Originally Posted by Morru Magnum

Also, Vermillion Gym is now headed by Erika which is located at Lavender town.

Bitch stole my Gym D: