Suggestion re story URLs

[EmilyMiller]

Hi,

At present, these get allocated on publishing. I guess that stops the site allocating URLs to stories that never get finished, or which are rejected.

But… anal retentives normal well-adjusted people like me like to link to the next chapter of a story within the text of the actual story. I know the series feature creates a next story in the series button, but I like to say “in chapter three, X will have Y happen to her and then Z gets involved.”

If we could have URLs allocated to unpublished stubs (e.g. chapter three when you are still writing chapter two), and if these were preserved on publishing, it would make it much easier to link together stories.

Just a suggestion.

Emily

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Yeah, I think the easiest way to achieve that would be by adding an author's name to the URL.

Right now, If I were to publish a story called "Slavegirl", the URL would be "/s/slavegirl-2" because there are already two other stories with that title. If, however, you simply added the author's name to the URL, like, "/s/slavegirl-by-OverconfidentSarcasm", that number's game would no longer be necessary unless an author reuses story titles, and we could easily anticipate URLs.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Yeah, I think the easiest way to achieve that would be by adding an author's name to the URL.

Right now, If I were to publish a story called "Slavegirl", the URL would be "/s/slavegirl-2" because there are already two other stories with that title. If, however, you simply added the author's name to the URL, like, "/s/slavegirl-by-OverconfidentSarcasm", that number's game would no longer be necessary unless an author reuses story titles, and we could easily anticipate URLs.

That’s a good idea.

Emily

 

[intim8]

Yeah, I think the easiest way to achieve that would be by adding an author's name to the URL.

That sounds like the definitive solution.

Though having the system just automatically put a link to the first and previous stories at the top of the story, and to the next at the end would make this a hell of a lot easier both on us and on the reader. I know there's a link to the series, and I think the next story buried in the right sidebar, but that isn't very prominent and doesn't make it easy for the reader to just keep going.

It is very common for me at least to see an interesting story in the new story lists that is "part 5" or something, and click it with the intention of navigating my way to the first story in the series instead of jumping in in the middle. But it's a pain, enough so that it probably puts a lot of readers off.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

That sounds like the definitive solution.

Though having the system just automatically put a link to the first and previous stories at the top of the story, and to the next at the end would make this a hell of a lot easier both on us and on the reader. I know there's a link to the series, and I think the next story buried in the right sidebar, but that isn't very prominent and doesn't make it easy for the reader to just keep going.

It is very common for me at least to see an interesting story in the new story lists that is "part 5" or something, and click it with the intention of navigating my way to the first story in the series instead of jumping in in the middle. But it's a pain, enough so that it probably puts a lot of readers off.

I don't see that happening until they come around and implement a proper chaptering system, so we no longer have to misappropriate the series feature to keep our chapters linked together.

 

[intim8]

I don't see that happening

We can all dream, can't we? After all, this is a fantasy site.

There's days I just want to rewrite this site from scratch and present the code to Lauren with a fair price attached.