[Bards] Standards...alternate idea

[T'Star]

That's kind of like the difference between "Great Literature" and the
stuff that people buy and read 80 million times.  I've tried
repeatedly to get through Moby Dick... but it bores me to tears.
There is a great deal of good information for someone doing research
on the time period.  It's definitely classic 'literature'.  But I'd
rather go back and read the Hobbit in either English or Russian or
muddle through my Ivan Eframov or David Weber's Mutineer's moon.  Of
those only the tolkein's likely to be classified as 'literature' at
least in this country.  Dostoyevski gives people fits, even in good
translation.  It's literature but most people won't enjoy reading what
he writes.  Very few people can blend a complicated message with an
enjoyable writing.  And when push comes to shove it doesn't matter
what OUR criteria are.  Our Audience determines what will live and
what will die an untimely death.  They'll ask for the ones they love,
and leave the ones they don't.  Audiences are a cruel and fickle
monster.  We can create whatever standard we think will improve the
community.  The audience WILL do quality control... whether we want
them to or not.

~Svetlana Andrejevna Volkova