Things to make Lit a better site

[MelissaBaby]

I had forgotten one suggestion I had seen and just wanted -- the ability for an author to reply to comments. And this would make readers stickier, so is definitely good business practice. But still has an implementation cost, of course. Damned reality.

Why can’t you reply to comments?

 

[MelissaBaby]

And here is what Manu says is the intended end product (as of when he posted it last year, anyway):

PS: Gotta love those tags!

All that extra space and I’m still supposed to describe an eighty page novel in six or seven words.

 

[kellyt1994]

Let me check my calendar, and I'll have to find my knee pads...

EDIT: Just thought I should clarify. That was a joke. I don't really give free blow jobs.

EDIT 2: Oh, shit, that actually sounds worse, doesn't it?

Make those dollar bills, girl.





kidding

 

[WittyUserName]

Why can’t you reply to comments?

I'm guessing they mean reply in a way that will send the commentor a notification. Since many don't return to the story to see if the author responded. And I agree, it would be nice to be able to reply to a reader's comment and have them know I replied. A non-anonymous comment, of course.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Make those dollar bills, girl.





kidding

never knock someone else's side gig.

 

[RejectReality]

Threaded comments on stories is one of the things that's in the works according to Manu.

 

[Bamagan]

All that extra space and I’m still supposed to describe an eighty page novel in six or seven words.

Until they add the word count, I personally would find 'This is an eighty page novel' to be a very helpful blurb.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I would also love to be able to edit a mistake I see in the Preview mode, but that could be much more challenging, depending on what software they are using beneath this all.

You already can. Return to Edit mode, do your fix, Preview again, Submit.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Until they add the word count, I personally would find 'This is an eighty page novel' to be a very helpful blurb.

I think posting in Novels and Novellas covers that.

 

[iwatchus]

Why can’t you reply to comments?

The commenter does not see your reply unless they go back to look at the comments on your story again. Part of this -- the hard part really -- would be to give the commenter some form of notification that the author responded.

 

[iwatchus]

You already can. Return to Edit mode, do your fix, Preview again, Submit.

My spouse can tell you ho many times I curse as I have to go back and forth between the two. On a 20K submission, finding the right place on each side is a pain.

 

[AG31]

Wo!!! Three pages of responses in 7 hours. I've only read the OP, but I'm impressed!

 

[AG31]

* As a reader, I want an idea of how long a story is before I read it. Most readers think in pages, so listing it in Lit pages on the standard lists would be ideal.

Ditto

* As a writer, I want to understand m readers' interaction more deeply. For multiple page stories, I would love to see how many pages they actually saw. Do my readers make it to end? If not, when do I lose them. I suspect many bail almost immediately.

That would be interesting.

Supposedly this is in the works. Who knows when/if it actually ever happens.

There are new story 'cards' in beta, and they display story tags (if there are any).

How do you two know this stuff?

 

[Voboy]

I had forgotten one suggestion I had seen and just wanted -- the ability for an author to reply to comments. And this would make readers stickier, so is definitely good business practice. But still has an implementation cost, of course. Damned reality.

I'm guessing they mean reply in a way that will send the commentor a notification. Since many don't return to the story to see if the author responded. And I agree, it would be nice to be able to reply to a reader's comment and have them know I replied. A non-anonymous comment, of course.

Yep. I'd like this.

The rest of the OP's fixes, I could do without. I'd enjoy more transparency on my scores distribution, of course: who wouldn't? But the site will never do that, because that kind of data would lend insight into how sweeps work. The site is very careful to guard that sort of thing.

 

[iwatchus]

Yep. I'd like this.

The rest of the OP's fixes, I could do without. I'd enjoy more transparency on my scores distribution, of course: who wouldn't? But the site will never do that, because that kind of data would lend insight into how sweeps work. The site is very careful to guard that sort of thing.

Depending on how sweeps work, it might not. If I was designing such a system in would work off a system wide activity log which would not be visible at all with a simple histogram.

By the way, I have seen a lot of twos recently instead of ones. Are trolls trying to avoid the sweep or do I suddenly have bunch of people really dislike my writing?

 

[Voboy]

Depending on how sweeps work, it might not. If I was designing such a system in would work off a system wide activity log which would not be visible at all with a simple histogram.

If you were designing this system, then we wouldn't have this thread.

When suggesting potential "fixes" to the site, you need to look at Literotica the way Laurel and Manu look at it, not the way iwatchus looks at it. In all the many, many, many similar threads I've read here in this vein, it's the major mistake I think a lot of OPs make: your thinking is that you can somehow make the site owners implement "simple" fixes if they'd only learn to see things your way.

They won't. The site works for them. So you have a dual burden in threads like these: you need to show not only that your suggestion is better, but that their status quo is somehow bad (from the site owners' perspective). We have years worth of threads suggesting fixes to the sweeps, with zero result; the only reasonable conclusion to draw is that they like it like this. Which is their prerogative. All I'm doing is suggesting a possible reason why they'd refuse to provide more granular data about our incoming votes: because it would show how those votes were distributed, and because we could then see when the sweeps removed them.

Of course that would give us insight into their algorithm, an algorithm they've steadfastly refused to explain.

By the way, I have seen a lot of twos recently instead of ones. Are trolls trying to avoid the sweep or do I suddenly have bunch of people really dislike my writing?

Plenty of completely valid ones and twos happen. The idea that any one or two positively MUST!!!! be malicious is one of the cherished myths of this corner of the site. I don't buy it. I think there are plenty of readers who either have a vastly different rubric for what "deserves" a 4 or a 5 than we do, and I also think there are a number of readers who vote on orgasmic value rather than on writerly quality.

We don't get to say why these people vote as they do. Is there some bombing? Certainly. But by no means are ALL low votes "bombings."

 

[TiberiusPrime]

Free blowjobs.

We have a winner!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm guessing they mean reply in a way that will send the commentor a notification. Since many don't return to the story to see if the author responded. And I agree, it would be nice to be able to reply to a reader's comment and have them know I replied. A non-anonymous comment, of course.

That, I agree with, but I doubt that more than just the occasional commenter would care enough to read the author's reply. Most likely, the only ones who would take advantage of it would be the ones who are looking for an argument.

 

[WittyUserName]

That, I agree with, but I doubt that more than just the occasional commenter would care enough to read the author's reply. Most likely, the only ones who would take advantage of it would be the ones who are looking for an argument.

Sadly, you're probably right. I've noticed I get even fewer comments these days.

 

[Bamagan]

That, I agree with, but I doubt that more than just the occasional commenter would care enough to read the author's reply. Most likely, the only ones who would take advantage of it would be the ones who are looking for an argument.

In my experience on some other sites with threaded comments on stories, the ones looking for an argument were actually slightly outnumbered by the ones who were, shall we say, disturbingly appreciative... and often keen to convince the author to continue the story in a highly specific vein.

 

[alohadave]

Ditto

That would be interesting.



How do you two know this stuff?

Manu posted a while back about future functionality.

because we could then see when the sweeps removed them.

Of course that would give us insight into their algorithm, an algorithm they've steadfastly refused to explain.

You can see it now if you track your stats. I can always tell when my stories have been swept because the vote count goes down. Seeing when the votes change doesn't tell me how the system works, just that there is a change.

When suggesting potential "fixes" to the site, you need to look at Literotica the way Laurel and Manu look at it, not the way iwatchus looks at it. In all the many, many, many similar threads I've read here in this vein, it's the major mistake I think a lot of OPs make: your thinking is that you can somehow make the site owners implement "simple" fixes if they'd only learn to see things your way.

Sure, we are here because they run the site. However the site is here because we provide them with stories, for free.

It's really not asking for much to take suggestions into consideration. No one is demanding that they make these changes, they are things that we think would make things better.

I don't expect them to make any of the changes we suggest because they've shown zero interest in implementing or even responding to anything that is suggested. We can still discuss among ourselves how we'd like things to be.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Manu posted a while back about future functionality.




You can see it now if you track your stats. I can always tell when my stories have been swept because the vote count goes down. Seeing when the votes change doesn't tell me how the system works, just that there is a change.


Sure, we are here because they run the site. However the site is here because we provide them with stories, for free.

It's really not asking for much to take suggestions into consideration. No one is demanding that they make these changes, they are things that we think would make things better.

I don't expect them to make any of the changes we suggest because they've shown zero interest in implementing or even responding to anything that is suggested. We can still discuss among ourselves how we'd like things to be.

Over the past thirty years, in every software shop I've worked in, enhancements and bugs are ranked based on severity and criticality gauged against a cost to benefit ratio. I'm guessing everything we have mentioned is on that list. It's not prioritized where we would like it to be, and sadly for us, that is purely a business decision. This is our hobby. It's their business.

 

[StillStunned]

My spouse can tell you ho many times I curse as I have to go back and forth between the two. On a 20K submission, finding the right place on each side is a pain.

I make the edits in my Word file, then when I'm done I go back to the submission page, copy the text from Word and post it in the text box.

 

[ElectricBlue]

By the way, I have seen a lot of twos recently instead of ones. Are trolls trying to avoid the sweep or do I suddenly have bunch of people really dislike my writing?

There's no way of knowing whether trolls even know about the sweeps mechanism. Writers know about it, because they get hit by the one-bombs and see the effects of a sweep on their scores, but there's no reason why a troll would. I doubt many frequent this forum.

So very possibly yes, you're seeing scores where readers might be using the whole 1 2 3 4 5 rating mechanism. Not the answer you wanted...

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

My most wanted improvement as a reader/consumer of stories here:

I’ve previously suggested there be better separation of series and stand-alone stories.

• Give us an option to limit our search results to one type or the other.
• Separate each categories’ Top List into Series and Stand-Alone lists.

Do this for the same reason the Netflix catalog separates Movies from TV Series – because they are consumed differently.

(Stories here are also scored differently. Series entries score ~0.2 higher on average in Romance.)

As a bare-minimum change, only list a series story once per list. Either use the highest scoring chapter or the averaged score across all chapters.

Currently, in the Sci-Fi Top List, for example, eighteen of the Top 50 entries are the same story. “Three Square Meals” has chapters 100, 53, 60, 68, 59, 95, 112, 138, 33, 34, 43, 29, 55, 50, 57, 54, 58, and 61 listed on the first page, plus more on the next pages of the Top List. Note that chapter 29 is the first in that series to score highly enough to make it onto the Top List. (Chapter 01, with far more views than subsequent chapters, is rated 4.62.) I’m sure this series is a great read, but if I’ve only got two hours to do some reading then I don’t want to start binging on a 100-part series. So I'm already going to skip over series stories, don't make be have to skip over eighteen listings of the same story.

And, if I’ve only got one hour available to read, then I also want to know how many pages a story is before I click on it. (As suggested above.) This is for the same reason YouTube shows you how long each video is before you start it.