Request to Review New Favorites Hub & Feedback Hub Designs

[AwkwardlySet]

I agree more communication would be cool! I'm totally down with you expressing that you would like to have better communication. I think I was mainly just perplexed that you thought Simon was doing something wrong, I just thought he was accurately describing the situation. If your message was directed at the site owners instead of a powerless user I would likely agree with it.

Fair enough. I might disagree with Simon about who is the target group of most website improvements, but that is not why I criticized him. He goes to Lit's/Laurel's/Manu's defense quite often when some people express reasonable criticism towards the website. There is really no need for that, especially when he himself agrees about my point for better communication. That was also the ONLY point I was making in the post that triggered his 'defense'. I think it was a reasonable and justified point.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I am wondering, why ask us for the feedback? This is clearly something made for the readers to browse the stories more comfortably through stats. I expect you would probably want to hear what an average reader thinks of the improvements, and authors are hardly your average reader. Many don't even browse the stories in search of some reading material, but just write and hang out on the forum. Maybe General Forum is a better place?

Two thoughts.

The General Board would be the worst place to ask for feedback. As soon as someone on Team A makes a positive comment, Team B would pile in and tear it apart, and then the thread would go totwenty pages of rehashing previous fights and accusing everyone of being an alt.

I think soliciting the opinions of both authors and readers is valid. Our stories are the product being presented. Our opinions of how it could best be done are worth consideration.

 

[SimonDoom]

Fair enough. I might disagree with Simon about who is the target group of most website improvements, but that is not why I criticized him. He goes to Lit's/Laurel's/Manu's defense quite often when some people express reasonable criticism towards the website. There is really no need for that, especially when he himself agrees about my point for better communication. That was also the ONLY point I was making in the post that triggered his 'defense'. I think it was a reasonable and justified point.

I disagree with your characterization of me as going to Lit's/Laurel's/Manu's defense. I think that's inaccurate and unfair.

I think where I differ from some other people here is that I am generally less willing to accuse people of things and more willing to suspend judgment until all the evidence is in. That's a general principle I try to follow. For instance, during the whole kerfuffle about 8Letters and his plagiarism I was not willing to make any judgments until it became clear exactly what he did. And then I thought, well, he should fess up to it and remedy it and we should all move on. I never supported the idea of kicking him off the site. I think it's too bad he left.

Contrary to your previous statement, there IS good reason to believe this is basically a mom and pop operation. The only people we've ever dealt with are Laurel and Manu, as far as I know. Laurel has said she's the only person who vets the stories. We have no grounds to disbelieve her, or them. You have no basis whatsoever for concluding that they have the resources to do things completely differently. You don't know that at all. I don't know that they don't, but the difference is that in the absence of information I am going to suspend judgment. I'll continue to make my suggestions for change, but when changes don't happen I'll shrug my shoulders as opposed to getting outraged. That's not the same thing as defending someone. I lack the information to defend them. You lack the information to accuse them. The correct response in that situation is to suspend judgment.

But at the end of the day, I admit that even if for whatever reason they're being a little lazy or unresponsive, I just don't care very much. It's not the same thing as defending them. There are real things to be outraged about, and Literotica's apparent flaws aren't one of them.

 

[Seadog777]

I am wondering, why ask us for the feedback? This is clearly something made for the readers to browse the stories more comfortably through stats. I expect you would probably want to hear what an average reader thinks of the improvements, and authors are hardly your average reader. Many don't even browse the stories in search of some reading material, but just write and hang out on the forum. Maybe General Forum is a better place?

I read stories on here every day, so I'm an author and reader.

 

[HectorBidon]

One nice feature of the new Feedback Portal is that it is updated continuously as comments come in, the way it used to be before the spam filter was introduced. This makes it possible to obtain a nice sampling of comments across the different categories and should be very helpful for identifying stories that one might like to read.

Note however that even though comments show up immediately on the main comments hub, there can still be a delay of as much as several hours before they show up on the individual category hubs and on the stories themselves.

 

[jsmiam]

The comments portal could be a boon for authors, with people able to see more than the small handful of recent comments.

My feedback is this: considering I had scanned halfway down the first page before realizing my eyes thought the story name ABOVE the comment was the name of the story, I’d say the dialogue bubble approach and the amount of white space in the middle confuses the eye. Nuke the dialog bubble, keep the subtle indentation. perhaps just wrap the comments in double quotes.

PS. By random chance, one comment I came across was an author commenting on their own story saying “you can find the full version on Amazon.” Perhaps that should be in the spam filter.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The comments portal could be a boon for authors, with people able to see more than the small handful of recent comments.

My feedback is this: considering I had scanned halfway down the first page before realizing my eyes thought the story name ABOVE the comment was the name of the story, I’d say the dialogue bubble approach and the amount of white space in the middle confuses the eye. Nuke the dialog bubble, keep the subtle indentation. perhaps just wrap the comments in double quotes.

PS. By random chance, one comment I came across was an author commenting on their own story saying “you can find the full version on Amazon.” Perhaps that should be in the spam filter.

Doesn't it just highlight, though, the triteness of most comments? And having to wade through the bile. That's tedious.

A filter by category would make it more useful, and less tiresome.

 

[stickygirl]

The comments portal could be a boon for authors, with people able to see more than the small handful of recent comments.

My feedback is this: considering I had scanned halfway down the first page before realizing my eyes thought the story name ABOVE the comment was the name of the story, I’d say the dialogue bubble approach and the amount of white space in the middle confuses the eye. Nuke the dialog bubble, keep the subtle indentation. perhaps just wrap the comments in double quotes.

PS. By random chance, one comment I came across was an author commenting on their own story saying “you can find the full version on Amazon.” Perhaps that should be in the spam filter.

Agreed. The bubbles look like retro microsoft but more importantly, the distinction between the commenter vs author is not clear.

Quips aside, for a site where stories are rejected for typos, 'Favoritest' is not helpful.

 

[blackrandl1958]

I am extremely happy with the new comment hub. Well done, you. The fact that comments now regularly update is the single best improvement of the site since comment moderation began. I do hope it's not an aberration. I see nothing to improve with the favorites hub, either, except, as a previous poster suggested, I would like to see a ranking number. Good stuff. Thank you.

 

[djrip]

One nice feature of the new Feedback Portal is that it is updated continuously as comments come in, the way it used to be before the spam filter was introduced. This makes it possible to obtain a nice sampling of comments across the different categories and should be very helpful for identifying stories that one might like to read.

Note however that even though comments show up immediately on the main comments hub, there can still be a delay of as much as several hours before they show up on the individual category hubs and on the stories themselves.

Mine have been showing up on stories pretty much immediately since the change... Yay!

 

[MelissaBaby]

Agreed. The bubbles look like retro microsoft but more importantly, the distinction between the commenter vs author is not clear.

Quips aside, for a site where stories are rejected for typos, 'Favoritest' is not helpful.

Author's replies to comments should not be moderated.

 

[SimonDoom]

Manu, based on comments in this thread, I recommend that you go through the various "favorite" and "follower" site interaction points and be consistent in terminology. Eliminate "Add As Favorite" for authors and instead change it to "Follow This Author" or something like that, because some people obviously are confused about favorites and followers. Be consistent.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Author's replies to comments should not be moderated.

Authors are just as capable of putting scam or promotional off-site links in their comments as anybody else.

I've not seen anything, in the history of comment moderation that suggests the site looks at content in the moderation process - that's left up to authors, reports, and (from what I've gleaned over the years) a word-based trawl-through on occasion.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Authors are just as capable of putting scam or promotional off-site links in their comments as anybody else.

I've not seen anything, in the history of comment moderation that suggests the site looks at content in the moderation process - that's left up to authors, reports, and (from what I've gleaned over the years) a word-based trawl-through on occasion.

I'm skeptical that author's responding to reader's comments would create a spam problem. What it might do is increase engagement between author's and readers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm skeptical that author's responding to reader's comments would create a spam problem. What it might do is increase engagement between author's and readers.

Well mostly - but in Manu's "click here to check it out" link, a new writer had done exactly that.

In any event, "moderation" is a misnomer - the batching feature presumably makes it easier to catch and eliminate spam and clickable links, but there's never been a statement that it covers content.

The process was introduced four or five years ago, after the site ground to a halt with multiple spam attacks coming in through comments. Multiple posts, every account. It wasn't a trivial problem.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Well mostly - but in Manu's "click here to check it out" link, a new writer had done exactly that.

In any event, "moderation" is a misnomer - the batching feature presumably makes it easier to catch and eliminate spam and clickable links, but there's never been a statement that it covers content.

The process was introduced four or five years ago, after the site ground to a halt with multiple spam attacks coming in through comments. Multiple posts, every account. It wasn't a trivial problem.

Somebody did it. And here we are a day or two later talking about it.

I remember the spam attack. I also remember the time one guy tried, unsuccessfully, to blow up an airplane with a shoe bomb, and twenty years later, everybody still has to take their shoes off at the airport.

Both are overreactions.

I think that there ought to be certain thresholds for author's to gain privileges over their own work. If you've published a given number of stories over a chosen period of time, let's say you have ten works and have been a registered member for at least a year, your ability to reply to comments on your stories should be unrestricted.

I think the same thing about editing. It's absurd that authors who have contributed thousands of words of content over years can't fix a typo once their stories are online. A limited editing function would improve the Lit experience for both writers and readers.

I know someone is going to reply to tell me how hard any of that would be to do for some technical reason.

Meanwhile, a guy in Houston is sitting at a computer and steering a robot around on Mars.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Meanwhile, a guy in Houston is sitting at a computer and steering a robot around on Mars.

Well yes, but people sent money, and that's science, not porn.

That's why I don't complain. Sure, all the suggestions folk make are good ones, and yes, they would all be nice to have, but for a platform I pay nothing for, I can't demand something better. And yes, I know folk will say we're paying for it with our time and effort, blah blah blah, but that's our choice, nobody is making us write.

Seems to me there's a whole bunch of people wanting something for nothing, and bitching when they don't get it.

I've got over a million words hosted on this site, and can't imagine what it cost to get that lot hosted somewhere else. But hosting it here, zero dollar. That's not a bad deal now, is it?

 

[MelissaBaby]

Well yes, but people sent money, and that's science, not porn.

That's why I don't complain. Sure, all the suggestions folk make are good ones, and yes, they would all be nice to have, but for a platform I pay nothing for, I can't demand something better. And yes, I know folk will say we're paying for it with our time and effort, blah blah blah, but that's our choice, nobody is making us write.

Seems to me there's a whole bunch of people wanting something for nothing, and bitching when they don't get it.

I've got over a million words hosted on this site, and can't imagine what it cost to get that lot hosted somewhere else. But hosting it here, zero dollar. That's not a bad deal now, is it?

I don't complain about the site either, but we were asked.

 

[RejectReality]

Somebody did it. And here we are a day or two later talking about it.

I remember the spam attack. I also remember the time one guy tried, unsuccessfully, to blow up an airplane with a shoe bomb, and twenty years later, everybody still has to take their shoes off at the airport.

Both are overreactions.

I think that there ought to be certain thresholds for author's to gain privileges over their own work. If you've published a given number of stories over a chosen period of time, let's say you have ten works and have been a registered member for at least a year, your ability to reply to comments on your stories should be unrestricted.

I think the same thing about editing. It's absurd that authors who have contributed thousands of words of content over years can't fix a typo once their stories are online. A limited editing function would improve the Lit experience for both writers and readers.

I know someone is going to reply to tell me how hard any of that would be to do for some technical reason.

Meanwhile, a guy in Houston is sitting at a computer and steering a robot around on Mars.

Point-n-click editing is one of the things that's in the works. It should dramatically improve not only author experience, but Laurel's as well. I'm sure the editing process as it stands is just as much of a pain in the ass for her as it is for us. The way things are now, she can't take advantage of something like track changes coding that would dramatically improve the ease and speed of vetting edits — especially minor ones.

 

[jsmiam]

Are we sure comments are showing up elsewhere in real time?

Im asking because I clicked on a couple stories where almost real-time comments in the beta portal showed up, but those comments didn’t show when I went to the story itself.

How about authors here with their own control panel? Do comments show up real time in your portal? (None of my stories are new enough or commenty (since we’re making up words! enough for me to tell from my own stories.

 

[jsmiam]

Point-n-click editing is one of the things that's in the works. It should dramatically improve not only author experience, but Laurel's as well. I'm sure the editing process as it stands is just as much of a pain in the ass for her as it is for us. The way things are now, she can't take advantage of something like track changes coding that would dramatically improve the ease and speed of vetting edits — especially minor ones.

Did I miss a memo, or is this (again) communication being relayed by proxy through chosen-one members?

Definitely no offense to the chosen ones, but can Laurel and Manu relay news themselves once in a while instead of by proxy?

It’s stuff like this why feedback sessions end up turning into bitchfests. Sure, they’ll turn into bitchfests anyway, but Laurel and Manu could pretend to act like owners now and then.

And another thing. Is Lit for sale or something? The seeming uptake in delayed story approvals, some parts of Lit falling apart while others get tons of attention seems odd.

 

[RejectReality]

Did I miss a memo, or is this (again) communication being relayed by proxy through chosen-one members?

Definitely no offense to the chosen ones, but can Laurel and Manu relay news themselves once in a while instead of by proxy?

It’s stuff like this why feedback sessions end up turning into bitchfests. Sure, they’ll turn into bitchfests anyway, but Laurel and Manu could pretend to act like owners now and then.

And another thing. Is Lit for sale or something? The seeming uptake in delayed story approvals, some parts of Lit falling apart while others get tons of attention seems odd.

Pretty sure that was a post in the site feedback forum from Manu on an unrelated thread many moons ago. I could be remembering wrong, because it was a long time ago. More certain that it was a public post than the who or where.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Are we sure comments are showing up elsewhere in real time?

Im asking because I clicked on a couple stories where almost real-time comments in the beta portal showed up, but those comments didn’t show when I went to the story itself.

How about authors here with their own control panel? Do comments show up real time in your portal? (None of my stories are new enough or commenty (since we’re making up words! enough for me to tell from my own stories.

All authors have a Control Panel, so I don't understand that part of the question.

There is a lag, yes - Comments get notified first on the Control Panel - you can see them by going to Works - then some time later (maybe half a day, not sure), on the story itself. My guess is different server refresh cycles.

What it means, if you get the timing right, is that authors can vett comments (delete them, if they choose) before they go public - you'd have to figure out the lag period, though.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The seeming uptake in delayed story approvals, some parts of Lit falling apart while others get tons of attention seems odd.

Story approvals have always had fluctuating time-frames - April Fools contest will have taken recent priority, for example - and the scatter-gun approach to upgrades has been the same since I joined, back in 2014.

Changes have always been very slow, I don't see much difference there. The approach seems to be, do something fairly big, then take time to bed it down. Introducing the Series build feature was the last major change, but right now it's broken.

 

[jsmiam]

All authors have a Control Panel, so I don't understand that part of the question.

Clarifying what I was trying to ask: for someone here with a story actively getting comments, is your control panel still delayed, compared to the new dashboard?

Since my spot checking (n = 2) showed comments in the new dashboard aren’t showing on stories (clicking into random other people’s stories I mean, not mine), I was wondering if the delay also applies to authors own control panels. I’m wondering, is the delayed posting of comments really gone or not?