‡ Gryffindor Tower ‡

• http://www.gryffindortower.net/
  
• Ratings: G – R.
• Terms of Service
• Submission Guidelines
• Authors' review by anonymous, and McGonagall, site owner.
• Reader review by anonymous, and McGonagall, site owner.

‡ Authors' Review ‡

• Are the rules and terms of submission easy to find?
  "There's a link to the Owlery on most pages in the nav bar. Submission guidelines are found on this page. There is also a terms of service linked in the nav bar. I would like to think that these pages are easy to find."
  -McGonagall
• Do they supply a beta reader for authors?
  "Yes, we supply all those who submit with a beta."
  -McGonagall
• Are they polite about rejecting fics?
  "Individual betas reject. They try to be as polite as possible."
  -McGonagall
• Do they remove author's notes or copyright notices without asking the author first?
  "We do remove author's disclaimers if they're only disclaiming HP-related things, as there is a standard disclaimer on every author's page. If the author is disclaiming other material (song lyrics or crossover material for example), those disclaimers are not removed. We do not remove author's notes."
  -McGonagall
• Do they ever archive fics without permission?
  "No, we only archive submitted fics and those we expressly ask for."
  -McGonagall
• Are they prompt about removing fics at an author's request?
  "Fics are removed as soon as a request is received by email."
  -McGonagall
• What is their plagiarism policy...do they investigate or do they take a complainant at their word?
  "We don't have an official policy yet, as the issue hasn't come up so far, but we are currently working on one and if we did have a complaint we would investigate it to the best of our ability before coming to a decision."
  -McGonagall
• Do they update at least once a month?
  "Fic updates are found almost any day."
  -anonymous
• Do they make it possible for readers to leave feedback?
  "Yes, there's a forum on our message board for reviews, and there are links to the proper review thread at the end of each chapter."
  -McGonagall
• Is their location stable, or do they move frequently?
  Stable.

:: Back to top ::
:: Back to the Archive Review ::

‡ Reader review ‡

• Is the site attractive?
  "Mmm. The colour scheme seems to jump around a lot on different sections of the site and some further effort into appearance would be nice, but it's easy enough on the eyes."
  -anonymous
  "We think so. The decor changes from time to time as themes are used on the message boards. The basic site colours are Gryffindor red and gold, of course."
  -McGonagall
• Is the site easy to navigate? (can you get to all the main sections from every page, or do they rely on the 'back' button an awful lot?)
  "Navigation is easy."
  -anonymous
• How selective is the archive? (Are you likely to find a good story?)
  "Fics submitted that meet the ship policy mentioned below go through a beta-reading process that fixes them up for the archive, so good quality fics are generally appreciated more, but fics of lesser quality are also accepted and beta-read."
  -anonymous
  "We are very selective, in that beta readers do reject submissions that are not of acceptable quality for the archive. We do work with non-native English speakers and anyone willing to improve."
  -McGonagall
• Are they a specialty (ship or genre centric) or general (only ratings restrictions) archive?
  "We allow only H/G fic for the most part. Many (but not all) stories have R/H on the side, as well as some Ginny-centric stories (for more details, see the Owlery page). Also a couple of stories are based on joke ships, such as Harry/Giant Squid (it's tongue-in-cheek, and one-sided on the squid's part) and Dead Draco/Moaning Myrtle."
  -McGonagall
  "...Other fics, though, would probably be better submitted elsewhere. They allow fics of all ratings, although fics rated R or NC-17 are placed in a password-protected section of the site."
  -anonymous
• Is it easy to navigate within multi-chaptered stories?
  "Yes, there's a link at the bottom of every chapter to the next chapter, as well as a table of contents page."
  -McGonagall
• Are there search engines? Are they easy to use?
  Yes, and yes.
• Are the indexes (author, title listings) clearly laid out?
  Yes, and we have several different index pages, depending on how the user likes to browse. For example, there are separate categories for short stories, works in progress, and completed, chaptered fics. There is also an alphabetical title index, or the user can browse by author's name"
  -McGonagall
• Are stories appropriately labelled if they require warnings?
  "All NC-17 and most R rated stories are in a separate section, which is passworded, and requires you to email for permission. Any milder R-rated fic in the main library has a warning on it."
  -McGonagall
• How many pages do you have to search through to get to the first story?
  "Splash page >> main page >> The Library (fanfiction section)"
  -anonymous
• Is it easy to leave feedback?
  "Reviews are left on our message board. Links to individual review threads are found at the bottom of each chapter of a fic."
  -McGonagall

:: Back to top ::
:: Back to the Archive Review ::