Things to make Lit a better site

[SimonDoom]

Taken together with your above comment about hoping that Laurel and Manu have a plan for continuing the site after they're either done or gone, this is somewhat ironic.

I'm comfortable with irony.

 

[SkyBubble]

Just as an FYI: each Lit page is approximately 3,800 words.

Useful to know. Thank you.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Some changes I would make to the site if I could:

1. Change the red H system so a red H is only awarded to the top 25% scoring stories within a particular category. As it stands now, it means nothing because a 3.5 in one category is around 90 percentile while in some categories it's around 50 percentile. That's rubbish, and it's unjustifiable. Changing this would vex a few authors, because they (including me) would lose some red Hs, but it would be fairer and far more informative to readers.

3. Doing whatever is needed to make sure stories are approved/disapproved within 48 hours and with very clear and useful explanations in the case of disapproval. Also replying within 48 hours to any questions posed to the Site. I realize this may require extra personnel and may not be workable with the current staffing situation.

4. Adding a Bisexual category.

5. For purposes of toplists, consolidating many-chaptered stories into one story, and using the mean score for all stories as the score that determines placement on the list. It's ridiculous that in the current system toplists are clogged with many chapters from one story. It disserves the needs of readers looking for stories.

1) What‽ I just started getting them again. Seize this heretic!

3) Honesty, joking aside, it's not gonna happen with just one person, and however she does it. That would require a team. Like LushStory where [unless you pay] it takes about the same amount of time, and sometimes longer. That would require probably a lot of work with a new system that's a bit more than whatever lets mods do what they do here. And a bit more thought and trust would need to be put in picking who is going to be a story mod.

4)Ehhh. It would give me an excuse to write bi/pan stories. I've never cared for this suggestion one way, or the other, but we got Gay, Trans, and Les. It's not gonna hurt nothing, but maybe Manu's fingers.

5) That would require the site to be permissable to multi chaptered submissions, like Wattpad, AO3, Inkitt, Quotev, FFN and it's sister site, StoriesOnline and it's sister site, Tapas, probably RoyalRoad, and probably AFF. But it simply can't be done, the sites pretty old, it's as old as FFN(1995 I believe), that never got a site update ever.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I cannot imagine enduring what they have to be going through for a quarter century. I was so crisped after the last company where I was CTO and spent the better part of a decade at 100+ hours a week.

I have a very scary thought. Do they have any form of a succession plan? Long term survivability is probably more important than any change we could suggest.

I've never given it a thought to what will happen. Most of us know nothing about them, and there's no telling when that would happen. We know how old the site is, not them. Maybe it's like this scifi plot I've seen, where the computer is doing the masters bidding, but the master had been dead for years.

 

[SkyBubble]

FYI...

View attachment 2541681

Where precisely does one find that?

 

[HordHolm]

I've never given it a thought to what will happen. Most of us know nothing about them, and there's no telling when that would happen. We know how old the site is, not them. Maybe it's like this scifi plot I've seen, where the computer is doing the masters bidding, but the master had been dead for years.

That reminds me of the old conspiracy theory from the early 80s that General Secretary of the Soviet Union was actually pushing up daisies, and what we were looking at overseeing the May Day parade was a looky-likey.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Where precisely does one find that?

First page of the story.

 

[SkyBubble]

I don't care too much about how long a story is. I care more about knowing whether it is completed before I invest any time into reading it.

A well written and compelling tale can be hundreds of pages long and I will keep reading it. If I can't determine if a story is completed, I won't even start on it.

Indicating that a story is complete is something that authors could do on their own without site involvement, but making it a consistent and obvious indication could be coded in.

Even in a series -- and I've done a few -- each story should stand on its own. It might refer to the prior story, but only in passing, and the reference is kind if in passing.

I ended one story with the sentence "The next thing I remember is the sun poking through the bedroom window." The follow-up (sequel) story begins "The Sun poked through Dorothy's bedroom window." That tells you it's the next morning, but the rest of the story stands on its own.

 

[SkyBubble]

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.

Authors can reply to comments. I have.

 

[SkyBubble]

That's actually a great idea lol~

I think I can figure how to do this on my side ~

I don't think it would be too costly to enable that to be listed right next to the word count. For example, "800 words (1 page)"

 

[MelissaBaby]

Even in a series -- and I've done a few -- ech story should stand on its own. It might refer to the prior story, but only in passing, and the reference is kind if in passing.

I ended one story with the sentence "The next thing I remember is the sun poking through the bedroom window." The follow-up (sequel) story begins "The Sun poked through Dorothy's bedroom window." Taht tells you it's the next morning, but the rest of the story stands on its own.

I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between a series and a chaptered story.

Not all series can be structured as multiple stand alones. One thing I have learned is that many readers will shy away from an 80k+ standalone, but happily read a series of four 20k chapters that comprise the same story.

 

[SkyBubble]

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

If they're going to do that, then give us more space for titles and descriptions.

 

[SkyBubble]

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.

I just posed a story on another site yesterday and this morning I got an email saying I got kudos. If someone comments, they email me. It doesn't seem that hard to do.

 

[SkyBubble]

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.

I've gotten a few of those.

 

[SkyBubble]

It's really not asking for much to take suggestions into consideration.

I agree with that, but there is a difference between considering them and implementing them. Still, it would be nice if we had some indication that they've at least looked at the idea. Maybe there are good reasons why it would be impractical to implement it, but it would b enice to look at it and determine that. Maybe some user has a good idea.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Where precisely does one find that?

It's in your story meta data when you open the story. You may need to go to Options in your profile and turn this option on:

 

[SkyBubble]

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...

Sweeps?

 

[SkyBubble]

Hall of Fame shenanigans

What was that?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sweeps?

The site regularly runs an algorithm through the Votes, removing those it thinks are spurious, especially towards the end of a Contest. Don't ask and don't speculate in public how it works, because that would defeat the purpose.

A sweep is the reason you might on occasion see the number of Votes drop and your score sudden jump upwards.

 

[ElectricBlue]

What was that?

People hitting the Hall of Fame stories with multiple up or down votes, to keep stories at a certain point. The reason why sweeps were introduced, pretty much - that and trying to load contests. It hit a crescendo ten or so years ago (around the time I joined Lit), and the sweeps were introduced in an attempt to stop it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I just posed a story on another site yesterday and this morning I got an email saying I got kudos. If someone comments, they email me. It doesn't seem that hard to do.

This site notifies you about every comment you receive, on your Control Panel. There's no need to add another layer of notification, it's already there.

 

[SkyBubble]

I cannot imagine enduring what they have to be going through for a quarter century. I was so crisped after the last company where I was CTO and spent the better part of a decade at 100+ hours a week.

I have a very scary thought. Do they have any form of a succession plan? Long term survivability is probably more important than any change we could suggest.

Yes, there have been a couple of erotica sites that shut down because the site owner either died or just got tired of it and no one was designated or empowered to take over when that happened. C-S-S-A is one example. If you want their stories, you're going to have to go to the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive.

 

[SkyBubble]

If they do, I don't believe they've shared the details publicly. Not sure why they would, really.

Agreed -- the most I would share in their position is "Yes, there is a plan." Period. No details.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between a series and a chaptered story.

Not all series can be structured as multiple stand alones. One thing I have learned is that many readers will shy away from an 80k+ standalone, but happily read a series of four 20k chapters that comprise the same story.

That's on authors though. I'm not sure the site can do more than it already has, with the Series function. It's up to us to label our stories better, keeping in mind that most authors probably don't know the difference between chapters and series.

 

[SkyBubble]

Willy Wonka and the Smut Factory!

Gives a whole new meaning to "Don't care how, I want it now."