The ROAR Team

Simply put, ROAR is a volunteer-driven system set up to make sure that every contestant and Just For Fun entrant gets some feedback on their piece.

What are the main goals of the ROAR team?

1. To encourage established members of the community to read and comment on entries written by new or "missed" members.
2. To validate the efforts of everyone who writes by letting them know that their work is being read, thought about, and responded to.
3. To help to make this community as much about the quality of the entries on a week by week basis as possible by providing a way to help people circulate their normal reading to new members.
4. To give new members a chance to get "fans." Everyone has a few members who seem to read their entries every week, right?

How do I know if someone is part of ROAR?

Some volunteers will tell you that they're here for ROAR. There are also some ROAR icons in the art section of the website that some volunteers will use as a way to let you know. Others may not tell you if they are or aren't ROAR volunteers.

If it is a serious concern for you, you may request to have no ROAR team members assigned to your entries. To do that, simply send a private message to one of the moderators and let them know.

How do I join the ROAR team?

Every month, a moderator will post sign-ups for ROAR. You fill out a simple poll saying how many entries you'll be able to read each week, which genres you would like to read, and the lengths you feel most comfortable reading. You can also specify in a comment if there are any specific things you do not feel comfortable reading - for example, adult content or language. After the poll is posted each week, the ROAR moderator will send each member of the team a private message with the entries they are to read and comment on.

Okay, I joined ROAR ... now how do I do this?

ROAR is not about arbitrarily leaving positive comments on everyone's entries. That isn't fair to ask of volunteers, and it doesn't help authors. It's about letting people know that they're welcome here and that their contribution is valued by the community. For authors, a comment with a mixture of good and (constructively) bad things is probably the most helpful to receive. If you just want to leave a comment saying that you've read their story, good luck in the polls, and other neutral things, that's just fine, too! That helps keep everyone encouraged to continue to write, improve, and do their best to earn the votes that will keep them in the contest.

Being assigned an entry for ROAR in no way means that you are expected to vote for the author in the polls. Your votes are yours to cast as you please; if you enjoy the story, feel free to vote for it, but if you don't, there is absolutely no pressure, and nobody will know unless you tell them.

Just one more question: What does ROAR stand for?

Good question! When the community originally voted for the name, the acronym was proposed first, and several members offered some ideas of what it could stand for. There is no official meaning to the name, but the two most popular ideas were: