Leslie

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Jun 26, 2014
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Hi all
This morning you may have noticed that your CritMatch preferences panel looks different!
We have changed the match algorithm to support a first choice and a second choice match.
I am finishing up the last bit of testing, during which, I will disable your access to CritMatch (It may look a little weird so please bear with me) so I can test the emails.
I should have that finished up in a day or so and then we can run the match again next week!

We'll also update you when we get the new FAQ up so you can peruse your new choices.

Your homework:
Please review the list of genres and post here any you want added.
Thanks for being a beta test participant!
Leslie
 
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Thanks for continually working on this and being so open to suggestions. Can you list the genres you intend to use? I see that my access is disabled and the panel looks different, but the genres all seem the same, i.e. several flavors of Romance, and only one of everything else, and also no age groups.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions! I will add them all. We found a few pesky last minute bugs that are getting fixed this week. I also need to update the FAQ and will do that this week as well. We should be ready to go on Monday 8/1!

Keep the genre suggestions coming
:-D
 
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Thanks for the suggestions! I will add them all. We found a few pesky last minute bugs that are getting fixed this week. I also need to update the FAQ and will do that this week as well. We should be ready to go on Monday 8/1!

Keep the genre suggestions coming
:-D
Oh I am also going to restructure the list so it is more intuitive. So don't worry if you don't see your selections pop up until later in the week!
:)
 
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Just joined and would like to suggest that you add the following two genre tropes:

Science Fiction Time Travel
Romance Time Travel

Thanks for your consideration!
Happy to add those!
and Welcome!
 
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Happy to add those!
and Welcome!
And done, but you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the list.
I do have a feature request into the devs to allow reordering, but now it's pretty cumbersome to do that.
:)
 
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May I offer a suggestion to clean up and simplify the choices without eliminating any?
Since we can now select multiple genres for our profile, listings like Historical Mystery are redundant. You already have Historical and you already have Mystery. People can choose both of those and get a larger pool to match with. This is especially true with your Romance sections. Just list Romance - Sweet and Romance - Sexy, then list the sub-genres like LGBT and Paranormal separately, as most of them can really be mixed with any other genre, including Time Travel (Outlander is technically a Historic Time Travel Romance). Leave Regency, Billionaire, and Small Town, as those are specifically Romance sub-categories, like Steampunk is for Sci-Fi. This will make our options more versatile and keep your list shorter. Also, the more categories one chooses, the larger the pool of potential matches. "Historical" currently has 8 enrolled and "Mystery" currently has 11 enrolled, but "Historical Mystery" only has 2 enrolled.
 
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Re: my above comment. I don't know how the underlying coding of the matching system works, but it seems to me based on experience that matches are based on only one of your chosen genres. Not a weighted list of multiple genres. Because out of 6-8 matches, I have only gotten close once. Sometimes my match is from a group I never selected.
The problem is there are literally millions of combinations when you include age group and 2-3 genres (because nobody just writes vanilla "Romance" or "Fantasy"). So the best way to do it is like a dating service, where there are multiple criteria, and the service find the person who ticks the most of your boxes. With this group system, that has never happened. I have a Middle Grade Historic Fantasy. I have gotten matched with "Fantasy" -- and adult fantasy set in another world. I have gotten matched with "Childrens" -- a manuscript for a picture book about farm animals. I have gotten matched with "Historic" -- an adult historical romance. I have never once gotten matched with another "Middle Grade" author. You can see how none of these matches were even remotely compatible. So either the system is not working or the pool is way too small.

I applaud your efforts and dedication to creating a fantastic critique partner match system. I hope you work out the bugs. I'm opting out. It's been months and months of this and I need to move on to querying.
 
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