Author:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
A huge part of marketing food is obtaining shelf space. Big corporations have been known to actually pay to have their products displayed by grocers at the right height and in a large enough amount to suggest huge consumer demand. Coke and Pepsi have gone to the mattresses several times over shelf space wars.
What I'm going to suggest is only logical since we are talking about a limited resource. (I have an economic degree and will use it to justify my premise if needed. You are warned.)
My last several stories have followed a disturning (to me) pattern. The first two days they were posted they were widely hit and garnered a significant (mind-numbing for the easily impressed. . .like me) number of comments. And then. . .they fell off the face of the Earth. Or they must have, because even though they were still on the front page they received only single digit hits each day until they left the front page and have gone into the doldrums.
This didn't happen last summer, and before, for as long as I can remember. . .er. . .what was I saying? Oh. . .ya. . .in the past a story would continue to receive hundreds of hits a day as long as it was on the front page, but that's no longer the case, in my experience. In the past, as long as a story was on the front page it would receive comments, but that doesn't happen anymore either. Two days and a cloud of dust -- as it is lost in the crowd. Hiyo Silver.
So. . .if a story is on the front page and it doesn't get hits and doesn't receive comments -- is it really on the "front page"? I say "Nope". You say "You're right."
NOPE!!! You're Right!!!!
NOPE!!! You're Right!!!!
NOPE!!! You're Right!!!!
NOPE!!! You're Right!!!!
See I told you we invented cheerleading in Minnesota.
Solution. Play nice. Don't hog the front page. Don't post two stories within a week. Don't run two serials at the same time. Don't post your stories in small packages so that you have a new post every day or every other day or every third day or even every fourth day. Don't post a blog to say you're going to post your story that afternoon. Respect the space around you and on the front page of BC. If we don't start respecting our environment it soon will be too late. 350.
SHARE. Or "Cher" for those who love the way she dresses.
Like I said -- I will argue economic theory if need be -- and nobody wants that. Think Al Gore on acid if you want to know what it'll be like.
And another thing -- don't you think "hit" is a horribly aggressive word for a site that tends toward pink its logo? How about "tap"?
Jill
Comments
Divvy it up if necessary maybe
... The front page could be a section for the blog entries and then have links to launch a window for:
a) all new serials, say for the last 3 days.
b) new non-serial stories.
c) all popular new content from the last 3 days or so ( based on number of votes and/or comments )\
d) new content from new authors
e) content from popular authors ( again number of votes and/or comments. )
f) as it stands now, with newest content first.
And oh yes, short cuts for each format if possible. I can see this will probably not fly since it sounds like it would be a huge load on the admin folks. Thank you so much Erin and Sephrena !
Constraining authors posting volume I think is a non-starter. When the creative flow gets going I suspect an author needs to post in a timely fashion to stoke his/her muse for the next story ( especially for serials. ) This may very well mean multiple posts in a week. To stymie this could very well stymie a great story in the making also.
Kim
Kimmie I Agree with You
I even agree with the part about possibly styfling authors, which no one wants to do. This is exactly the kind of dialogue I had hoped to provoke. Only Erin and her staff can know if any or all of your great ideas can work, but they sound positive.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Your list
Just a few notes:
a) could be done but you're the first to actually suggest a need for this :)
b) already exists, see |Solos| in the white top menu
c) not going to be done, this isn't about popularity
d) easy to do, click on |New Author| in the author list
e) again, not going to be done
f) of course, is the situation as it stands
I could do some alternate front pages, perhaps one that listed only crossdressing stories on the front page, or only magic, or only age regression. I could use collapsing menus so people with javascript would see a less confusing front page. People with js off would of course not benefit.
I could even add a facility for each user to design their preferred front page themselves. That's probably the way to go. :) Take a while though.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Erin, Not that I'm saying
Erin,
Not that I'm saying you should do it, but don't we already have c/e through the link "popular content" true it looks at hits not votes/comments, but its similar in nature.
You used to have the top vote getters in the margins, but that went away a number of revisions ago...
Hugs,
Kristy
Yes and no
Votes and comments are more important because it means the story was actually read and people found it of sufficient interest to invest a bit of themselves into it.
What this provides is not necessarily just about popularity, I suggest it also helps lure people to content they may not necessarily choose to read. As an example, there are people who are adamantly non-serial readers or will not read any crossdressing only stories but nevertheless there are extremely worthy examples of those genre.
So if we can get people curious then it can bring other view points into the reader base and potentially help the writer also.
Kim
My point was that we have
My point was that we have aleady got a popularity based option which somewhat counters Erin's reasons for saying no to your suggestion, not that the current method was superior to the ones you suggest.
Re your list
Nice idea Erin.
If there was a facility for people to have their own front page, that would be great. Probably hard work on your part though. If it's not much of a chore, could we have an add to favorites button similar to the votes button at the end of each story? I know you have links under the story, but making it more prominent might make it more used.
I know that I have forgotten some of the stories that I have been following because they disappear quite quickly and my dyslexia makes me forget what I have written let alone other writers!
Some people have said, that authors who write more than one story a week should reign back a bit.I have done that and am not producing so many stories per week. If you want me to limit it to one a week I will do so.
Once again Erin, thanks for all your efforts making this a lovely home for us.
Hugs
Sue
Ohh Noooooooo SueB
Sue --
As I was writing this provoking blog I was hoping you WOULDN'T read it. I scour the front page everyday for more Football. Please do not cut back. I am not Ferris -- I don't even know the guy.
While I find myself agreeing with Puddintane that this is the proper forum for learning how to write quickly and accurately I still think this is a subject that needed discussion. It already has produced a few good ideas that may or may not be implemented.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Growth and Competition
With the growth of this site's usage, I feel that the competition for reader eyeballs has increased significantly. Since the reward I desire, for the effort of writing a story, is eyeballs reading that story, then I realize that I have to become a better author. Either that or one who has a better understanding of my possible audience. My difficulty, one of a few in this year of losing ground in my ability to write, is that I am not sure I am capable of becoming better.
I am once more struggling with overcoming my view that this (and the other) sites are too daunting for me as a writer. But the beauty of the internet, is that there are always new voices wishing to be read.
Arcie Emm -- Shame on You
The growth and competition on this site has done wonders for all the writing. There was a time when we had some horrible writers aping other horrible writers. Now we have Randalynn, Kristine and Kristina, and Sue and dozens of others turning out stories that are like textbooks to follow.
It appears you've fallen prey to the "hits and comments" monster. Some of the most popular writers in RL are hacks. Dan Brown should wear a mask when he cashes his royalty checks. Like RL, there is little correlation between the number of hits and comments on BC and the quality of the writing. Some BC writers are good at self-promotion, social networking, and picking the right genre and elements.
Your writing is, at times, thoughful and extremely interesting. What more could you want?
Why would you ever feel you couldn't become better? What efforts are you making? Have you read and books on writing? Do you subscribe to any of the writing magazines? Do you go to online writing sites other than TG sites to see what they offer? Have you used a variety of editors?
Read The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. If you don't become a better writer instantaneously, THEN you should consider quiting.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
What More Could I Want
To enjoy this hobby (and for me it will never be anything more). For many reasons, this is just one, it has been an incredibly frustrating, sleep inhibiting, and non-enjoyable year of attempting to write. I don't know, hopefully next year will be better.
But this probably has no baring on this thread, so I will bow out.
smaller text
It is only my browser or on Quickcuts text is a bit smaller?
How would you feel if we said...
...It's just you, not the browser? :)
No, I've increased QuickCuts to 75 hours instead of 50 and to do that without taking up too much more room, I made the type smaller.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Thanks
Oh,thanks
Author's List
If it were possible, perhaps the list of authors over at the edge of the splash page could carry a small symbol to indicate whether an author has posted any new content within the last week, month, or year.
To carry forward the analogy of the supermarket, not everything can be piled on the end caps, but the store is organised so that it's easy to find most things, and will often have little flags sticking out into the aisle so one can see that a given section has a "special" item on offer.
I suspect that many readers follow particular authors with particular interest. Being able to glance down the list of authors and see that so and so has recently added a story, even if it's been out long enough to fall off the splash page, might be a nice compromise between rapid posting of stories, which is certainly nice, and assuring authors that they will have *some* indication visible on the front page, even if they only post once a month.
For example, you could use single digits for days since last post, then substitute a star for "posted within the month," and something else for "posted within the year."
Apple 5
Berry
Cucumber 2
Dill ☆
Egg
Fennel ☘
Cheers,
Liobhan
-
Cheers,
Liobhan
How it all works
BC runs on mostly off the shelf software, called Drupal, so I have to use the tools that are available. The only hacks I've done are simple things like how many stories appear on the front page and a hack of the theme to make the voting boxes work correctly.
While it would be nice to have things such as you suggest, it isn't going to happen unless someone writes off the shelf software that runs as part of Drupal to support it.
The advantage of this approach is that I do not have the problems other sites have had over the past year and a half or so. Drupal is solid, secure, very affordable (free), and quite flexible and gets better with every new version. Sometime this year I will be making the second major update of the site since I switched to Drupal. I expect only an ordinary set of problems, nothing to make me crazy.
Original BC ran on custom HTML and PHP I wrote myself. Classic ran on PostNuke. With TopShelf I switched to Drupal and 99Shoes was the upgrade from Drupal 4.x to 5.x. Just a little history. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Pages