Critiquing Critique

When Vocal announced four new communities over the summer, Critique immediately caught my attention. The idea for this community made so much sense for a platform with such a vibrant, supportive collection of writers.

As the Vocal team shared in that announcement, "Critique is a community for writers seeking constructive criticism and guidance. Share your works-in-progress and let the collective intellect of our community guide your writing journey." The goal felt reminiscent of my creative writing workshop days in college, and I was happy to dig out a draft I had been stuck on to post in Critique for feedback.

In the months that followed Critique's initial announcement, I had less time to dedicate to writing, and I forgot about the Critique community until late last week. Browsing the stories posted there, it seems that Critique has become a catch-all for reviews and critiques on society more than "a community where you can share works in progress to get feedback and advice." Upon bringing this up within the Vocal+Assist community, it seems this trend made even some of Vocal's most active writers misinterpret the initial purpose of Critique.

As I said initially about Critique, part of what this community becomes is determined by what we choose to do with it. If the Vocal community as a whole has chosen to take over Critique for a different purpose, maybe it is time to rework the community officially.

With other communities dedicated, at least partially, to the types of reviews that seem to be popping up in Critique, the current system seems like it would be lowering writers' odds of being found by the right readers. We have 01 for tech reviews, Beat for music reviews, BookClub for book reviews, Gamers for game reviews, Geeks for TV, movies, and pop culture, and so on. If someone unfamiliar with Vocal is reading our work, they are not going to Critique for these reviews based on the community descriptions, and they will not see reviews posted on Critique as recommended stories for continued reading if they start their journey in the community dedicated to the topics they want to read.

On the other hand, I want the community Critique was supposed to be. I want a place to post drafts and chat in the comments with my fellow Vocal writers. I want to be able to link back to a first draft when I'm happy with my revision process and post my final piece. That was a thoughtful addition to the Vocal communities that we are not fully taking advantage of with the way Critique has shifted away from its initial (and still currently advertised) purpose.

While I love this platform and the ways the Vocal Team aims to create a platform where writers love to write, I also think Vocal is mostly to blame for the shift in content within the Critique community. I understand the logic behind the Critique Challenge. It could have been a great way to encourage the Vocal community to flex their critiquing muscles to prepare to provide constructive feedback to their peers in the Critique community, but that challenge seemed to be the start of Critique losing its purpose.

While I would love to see Vocal work to correct this with an updated challenge focused on sharing a draft to be critiqued instead, I would also like to offer that as an unofficial challenge myself.

If you would like to shift the Critique community with me, post a draft in Critique, subtitle your post "For Critique Unofficial Challenge," and comment on this post when you are done so I can read your works-in-progress before the end of the year.