User blog:Jkl9817/New frontpage, issue 1: Story sampler voting

I decided to use a more straight-to-the-point title to prevent this blog from becoming a fail like the last one. So yeah, since few people suggested stories for us to add to the frontpage when the new layout is adopted (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my previous posts), I will stick to the ones whose names were mentioned. Analyzing the whole picture as well as I could, I figured Total Drama Mania (hereinafter referred to as TDM to keep things short) should definitely be replaced, even if with another Nonny story, because everyone seems to think so, and I ultimately came down to five possibilities (PLEASE READ EVERYTHING BEFORE CASTING YOUR VOTE):

Possibility 1
In this possibility, Total Wikia Elementary is the new story. Of course, Nalyd wrote a lot of it, so his current sample, Total Drama Amazon, would have to go, being replaced perhaps by one of Brandon's stories (either Return to TDI or Return to TDA), if he's okay with it. TDM would be replaced by Total Drama: Los Angeles, leaving things like this: Why you should vote for it: It is the most "star-studded" possibility, features a lot of popular stories and doesn't change things that much, not to mention TWE would be good representation for the Comedy AND Collaboration categories. Why you shouldn't vote for it: Total Wikia Elementary is very meta, in that it and its characters are mostly understandable (and funny) if you're already a part of the community, not to mention it is neither a competition story nor a story featuring canon characters, so it could leave new users confused about what kind of story they are allowed to write.
 * Legacy
 * Life After Lies
 * Return to Total Drama Island or Return to Total Drama Action
 * Total Drama Island...?
 * Total Wikia Elementary
 * Total Drama: Los Angeles
 * Total Drama Reality
 * Violet Hill

Possibility 2
In this possibility, An atmosphere is the new story. (Don't worry, the final chapter will be posted in no time, so it's not like I'm not sure I'll finish it. LAL made the sampler before it was finished anyway...) Brandon's story replaces Nonny's and we keep Amazon. Why you should vote for it: It features a good set of samples; in other words, most of the stories featured in this possibility are good examples of genre stories and could be good things for new users to read. The overall list isn't that amended. An atmosphere would be a good counterweight for the three dramatic noncomps and would show that noncompetition stories don't necessarily have to be dramatic. Why you shouldn't vote for it: There's no real indication that An atmosphere is frontpage material other than my own opinion, which is obviously biased since I wrote it. It's not much popular either. (Of course, it's up to you to judge its quality. If it's good enough, the better.) Also, this possibility completely scratches Nonny off, and that might not be right.
 * Legacy
 * Life After Lies
 * Total Drama Amazon
 * Return to Total Drama Island or Return to Total Drama Action
 * Total Drama Island...?
 * An atmosphere
 * Total Drama Reality
 * Violet Hill

Possibility 3
Pretty much the same as 2 except Total Drama Revolution replaces An atmosphere as a comedy. (It wasn't mentioned by anyone, but it's popular and award-winning.) Why you should vote for it: For the same reasons you should vote for possibility 2, with the plus of this list featuring only popular stories that have already been finished. Why you shouldn't vote for it: As popular and funny as it is, TDRev would still not be as representative of the Comedy category as an actual Comedy noncomp, because it's a competition story before it's a comedy story. That would leave us with only dramatic noncomps, which could give newcomers the wrong impression (granted, nothing would change, but we would lose a good opportunity).
 * Legacy
 * Life After Lies
 * Total Drama Amazon
 * Return to Total Drama Island or Return to Total Drama Action
 * Total Drama Island...?
 * Total Drama Revolution
 * Total Drama Reality
 * Violet Hill

Possibility 4
This is the most radical possibility; it would aim to provide an example for each of the story categories. For that would be done, however, Total Drama Island, by Gilbert and Sullivan WOULD have to be the story to represent Crossover because it's the only well-known crossover here (although there are many, many more, including lots of uncategorized ones). And, of course, Legacy would have to be dropped, and the logical choice to replace it as an alternate reality story would be A Person. Adding The Beasts of Wawanakwa to fill in as a Noncompetition story (it's not that dramatic, so we could keep LAL as the Drama example), things would look like this: Why you should vote for it: All these stories are reasonably well-regarded and very representative. Sometimes, big change is good. Why you shouldn't vote for it: I don't think we can afford to drop Legacy. There are probably not enough competition stories in this list. It might be too early for both An atmosphere and The Beasts of Wawanakwa. Two one-shots. Too much change and overall too many stories dropped in favor of stories picked with little discretion. Nalyd is scratched off.
 * A Person (Alternate Reality)
 * Life After Lies (Drama)
 * Total Drama Reality (Competition)
 * Total Drama Island...? (Reimagining)
 * The Beasts of Wawanakwa (Noncompetition)
 * Total Drama Island, by Gilbert and Sullivan (Crossover)
 * An atmosphere (Comedy)
 * Violet Hill (One-Shot)

Possibility 5
The same principle as possibility 4 except the Crossover category is replaced by Collaboration category (something some people suggested). Legacy would therefore not have to be dropped. One of Toad's stories could be added as a Comedy example so An atmosphere fills in Noncompetition; the obvious choice would be Total Drama Revolution. The real problem here would be finding a good collaboration story; the two examples that come to mind are Total Fanfiction Crossover and Total Wikia Elementary, not to mention Total Drama Culture if we're talking unfinished stories. Respecting the "One story per author" rule, the list would be: Why you should vote for it: It nails all the categories without dropping the essentials. Why you shouldn't vote for it: A lot of stories are dropped nonetheless, which may not please some people. Many people (including myself, really) still advocate the removal of the Collaboration category. Plus, like I said before, TWE has some cons.
 * Legacy (Alternate Reality)
 * Life After Lies (Drama)
 * Total Drama Reality (Competition)
 * Total Drama Island...? (Reimagining)
 * An atmosphere (Noncompetition)
 * Violet Hill (One-Shot)
 * Total Drama Revolution (Comedy)
 * Total Wikia Elementary (Collaboration)

That's it. Vote for a single possibility in the comments; think carefully and try not to be biased. My own vote goes to Possibility 2, even though I'm not sure if my vote should count since one of my stories is being considered. More issues regarding the new frontpage will be addressed in future posts.