A feature request

[Tw0Cr0ws]

Please add incomplete and inactive to the descriptions of story series that have been abandoned by the writer.

It is really annoying to get involved in a story only to find that there is no rest of it.

It is one of the things I do like over on Stories Online.

 

[sr71plt]

Please add incomplete and inactive to the descriptions of story series that have been abandoned by the writer.

It is really annoying to get involved in a story only to find that there is no rest of it.

It is one of the things I do like over on Stories Online.

How is the Web site to know a story series has been abandoned or, even more problematical, incomplete? And, if they tried, how many staff positions do you suppose would have to be added to try to figure these out?

 

[coochiebarber]

How is the Web site to know a story series has been abandoned or, even more problematical, incomplete? And, if they tried, how many staff positions do you suppose would have to be added to try to figure these out?

One solution could be, A volunteer team could list out the incomplete story series for administrator to send a mass mail to the authors. The non responding authors stories then could be put under the incomplete story series section.

 

[Tw0Cr0ws]

How is the Web site to know a story series has been abandoned or, even more problematical, incomplete? And, if they tried, how many staff positions do you suppose would have to be added to try to figure these out?

Include incomplete/abandoned in the reasons menu for reporting a story.

It might take one person.

 

[Manu]

Thanks for the suggestion.

In the new manual Series management interface, we have a check box for authors to declare a Series completed or ongoing.

I believe we also have a created date and last updated date.

Beyond that, I'm not sure we can determine what is abandoned. Some authors might take a week between chapters, some might take a year.

If anyone has more ideas, I'm happy to hear them.

 

[RejectReality]

The way SOL does it is that any story which is presented in chapters, not marked as complete by the author, and has not been updated in at least a year is flagged as incomplete and inactive.

Some ideas: ( Likely far too intensive for the initial roll-out. Future update fare. )

For stories going forward, any chaptered story started or added to would be subject to a task that checks for inactive and incomplete stories, and somehow flags them when they've reached the time threshold. Existing chaptered stories would be excluded unless added to by the author.

Perhaps a column in the database for readers to flag incomplete chapter stories, in order to deal with the many existing stories?

The flag checkbox ( or whatever ) should only appear on works that have a chapter designation such as ch, pt, etc., have not been marked by the author as complete, and have not been added to in some period of time between 6 months and a year.

The author should be able to override and remove such a reader flag via the control panel by marking the story as complete.

If readers believe an author's "complete" flag is misleading, it can be handled through the normal "report this" functions on the story.

There should be some way to tell an author-marked and reader-marked.

Perhaps the opposite as well — a way for readers to mark the many existing stories as complete.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't think this should be a feature at all. It would be a waste of the time and resources of the site.

This is a free site, the readers do not pay to read here, therefore although its crude, the expression you get what you pay for comes to mind. Someone did not finish a series? Oh, well, did you pay for it? No, you didn't. Want something guaranteed to be complete? By a finished novel or series.

Or....look before you leap. You find a writer and series that looks interesting look at their page. How many chapters are there? What's the time frame in between them? Read the tag lines does the last one you see say its finished? If it doesn't wait to start reading.

Was the last chapter written 3 years ago? Then don't start it, its obviously not going to be finished.

This is another example of a society that wants everything done for them. "I have no ability to use common sense and check into the series myself, I need Manu and Laurel to spend time doing it for me."

 

[Manu]

The way SOL does it is that any story which is presented in chapters, not marked as complete by the author, and has not been updated in at least a year is flagged as incomplete and inactive.

I think that some of your suggestions could definitely work, but I wonder if they might make things more complicated than they need to be.

The reason for showing a last updated date and status (completed or not) on the Series Listing matches with what you said first. It gives readers a way to see if a Series is completed, and if it isn't, it allows them to make their own judgement about whether it's abandoned based on the time since the last chapter was published.

I'm not sure that reader voting/reports would be accurate about whether an author had abandoned a Series or whether he/she was just taking a long time to finish the next chapter. The time between chapters varies greatly on Lit depending on the author.

Adding filtering on the Series listings page might solve the problem. For example:

Status: All / Completed / Ongoing
Last Updated: Any Time / 1 Week / 1 Month / 1 Year

Those two criteria would allow most readers to filter out Series that might be abandoned based on their own personal criteria.

Again, I'm very happy to hear more suggestions, ideas, criticisms, etc.

 

[RejectReality]

That's something that could be done in a reasonable amount of time and help serve the purpose. It would certainly work for any active author willing to go through and mark their existing stories.

I'm just trying to come up with ways of dealing with the many legacy stories where the authors are long inactive, but may very well have slates of complete chapter stories.

Maybe some sort of graphic with the results indicating that a story has not been marked by the author. Where the "Completed" or "In Progress" indicator is on author marked stories, have a "Check It" button that links to the bottom of the last page of the last existing chapter so people can quickly click and look for "The End" before starting the story?

While I'm thinking about it, and we're on the subject, there's something to be said for differentiating between a series and a serial.

I'd like to be able to group my "of the Wood" stories on my page, but it's a series of connected, standalone stories, rather than a chaptered serial. Nothing before or after any of the stories is required in order to know exactly what's going on in the one you open.

Being able to determine the order of appearance on your submission page would allow this without forcing connected stories to be treated in the same way as chapters of a serial.

The ability to add some custom headers would be nice too, but I would be happy enough with organizing my page as I see fit.

Treating them the same as chaptered serials also presents a problem when you add a new story to the series, with regards to marking it complete.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think that some of your suggestions could definitely work, but I wonder if they might make things more complicated than they need to be.

The reason for showing a last updated date and status (completed or not) on the Series Listing matches with what you said first. It gives readers a way to see if a Series is completed, and if it isn't, it allows them to make their own judgement about whether it's abandoned based on the time since the last chapter was published.

I'm not sure that reader voting/reports would be accurate about whether an author had abandoned a Series or whether he/she was just taking a long time to finish the next chapter. The time between chapters varies greatly on Lit depending on the author.

Adding filtering on the Series listings page might solve the problem. For example:

Status: All / Completed / Ongoing
Last Updated: Any Time / 1 Week / 1 Month / 1 Year

Those two criteria would allow most readers to filter out Series that might be abandoned based on their own personal criteria.

Again, I'm very happy to hear more suggestions, ideas, criticisms, etc.

I like the "last updated" idea. The reader can fdecide if they want to invest in it or not.

Allowing readers to report a series as abandoned would be a mistake. Impatient readers would be reporting stories within weeks of the last installment.

And "abandoned" would be unfairly blacklisting a series/author who may have stopped writing due to illness or serious real life issues.

 

[Hypoxia]

While I'm thinking about it, and we're on the subject, there's something to be said for differentiating between a series and a serial.

I'd like to be able to group my "of the Wood" stories on my page, but it's a series of connected, standalone stories, rather than a chaptered serial. Nothing before or after any of the stories is required in order to know exactly what's going on in the one you open.

Being able to determine the order of appearance on your submission page would allow this without forcing connected stories to be treated in the same way as chapters of a serial.

The ability to add some custom headers would be nice too, but I would be happy enough with organizing my page as I see fit.

Treating them the same as chaptered serials also presents a problem when you add a new story to the series, with regards to marking it complete.

I indicate standalone episodes within a story cycle by alphabetizing rather than numbering. It's as easy as IN THE NUDE: ANNA and IN THE NUDE: BILLI and IN THE NUDE: CHAZ et cetera. If one such tale requires multiple chapters they can be as IN THE NUDE: DANI 1/3 and IN THE NUDE: DANI 2/3 and IN THE NUDE: DANI 3/3 marking the end of that sequence.

I now add END to names in finite series like LEFT BEHIND 01 and LEFT BEHIND 02 and LEFT BEHIND 03 END. Yes, I have left some serials dangling; 3 chapters planned but I've only written one or two, not sure how to conclude them. That's maybe why I've obsessed on endings lately.

Sure, authors can be encouraged to indicate finished serials. Right.

 

[legerdemer]

I like the "last updated" idea. The reader can fdecide if they want to invest in it or not.

Allowing readers to report a series as abandoned would be a mistake. Impatient readers would be reporting stories within weeks of the last installment.

And "abandoned" would be unfairly blacklisting a series/author who may have stopped writing due to illness or serious real life issues.

I agree with LC.

I also like the option, either Hypoxia's solution or some setting an author can tick, to indicate that a chapter has ended a series.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Then there is the author who starts a series and

a) dies before completion

b) pulls all but one to put up for sale

c) moves on in his life and no longer cares about what he has left behind because what he's doing now is way more important, like raising children, loving a new wife, joined the military, became a terrorist.

Plus he wrote everything for himself and couldn't give a shit about some dependent yahoo five years down the road.

 

[Hypoxia]

Plus he wrote everything for himself and couldn't give a shit about some dependent yahoo five years down the road.

Yeah, its a LIT thang. Authors aren't paid to write or complete anything. We're motivated by whatever, and readers are nice but essentially irrelevant. Need we satisfy audiences? Only if we so desire. Otherwise, fuck'em, let'em read ASSTR or 50 SHADES or some such crap.

 

[j48cc]

Could we have some numbers?

How many stories are incomplete and have been inactive for more than a year? More than two years?

Personally, I think an "incomplete and inactive" feature would be a Good Thing (TM). Avoids frustration in readers; spurs writers in finishing stories.

A suggestion: in "Stories by category" and "Search stories" show completed or active stories in black; incomplete and inactive stories in gray. You're still showing all the story titles, but visually suggesting incomplete and inactive stories are less attractive.

 

[lovecraft68]

Could we have some numbers?

How many stories are incomplete and have been inactive for more than a year? More than two years?

Personally, I think an "incomplete and inactive" feature would be a Good Thing (TM). Avoids frustration in readers; spurs writers in finishing stories.

A suggestion: in "Stories by category" and "Search stories" show completed or active stories in black; incomplete and inactive stories in gray. You're still showing all the story titles, but visually suggesting incomplete and inactive stories are less attractive.

Why should the site try to work on a feature that a reader can figure out for themselves? You see a series, go to the last chapter on the authors page.

Look at their homepage, do they have notes about the series? "Its done" or "I'll finish I promise" or "Next chapter in..."

If no clues are found there then...

Does the tag line indicate something that this is the end? If you click it is there an author note saying it? Go to the comments, are they saying they liked/hated the ending or are they 'can't wait until the next chapter"

Also look at the date on the last chapter posted. Is it a couple months old? Six months? A year? If its a year and there is nothing indicating finality in the last posted chapter then you have your answer of whether or not its complete. Then you decide if you want to read and chance it will be finished or say screw it.

The site owes no responsibility to a reader in this way. In fact being this is all free content, the only thing that should be owed is appreciation by the readers to both lit itself and its owners and all the hard working authors here choosing to entertain you for the bubble.

Not trying to be offensive here, but when you see all that this site provides for free its nothing short of grabby to start asking them to police your reading habits for you.

Again spend a couple minutes researching a series. You can see for yourself.