Adding "1 of x" to the title is definitely one option. But only if the author has finished and partitioned the story before starting to post, so that they know before-hand exactly how many parts they will post. Authors who post as they write can not use this convention.

Adding "Conclusion" or "Final Chapter" to the title of the last chapter is an option that will work for both the "pre-finished poster" as well as the "post as you write" author.

At the bottom of the story page is a togle option "[Series]|[Stand-alone]" that allows the author to identify the story as either a chapter of a multipart story or a stand-alone story. Identifying a stand-alone story as such, has the advantage of getting the story included in the front-page standalone story list and in the random solos for added exposure.

At the bottom of the book/title page is a togle option "[Ongoing]|[Completed]" that allows the author to indicate that the story has indeed been finished. And that option can be used in the search function, where you can request to only show completed stories.

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On the other hand, regarding the numbering of the chapters/parts:

I would like to request that authors use only arabic numeral (a.k.a. the digits 0-9). Don't use roman numerals (e.g. MDXLVII), since that screws up the automatic sort-order of chapters. And please don't write the chapter/part numbers out in letters (e.g. two, three), for the same reason.

For the same reason of getting the sort-order right, I would like to suggest that the numbering include the leading "0" (zero) (e.g. 01, 02). This is especially important considering that title sorting is basically alpha-numeric (i.e. sorting is done on a letter by letter basis) so the sort-order without the leading 0 would be something like 1, 10, 11, ... 19, 2, 20, 21, ... 29, 3, 30, 31, etc.

Authors might also want to consider identifying a preface/introduction with the number "00".

Some prolific short-chapter-posters might even consider using 3 (three) digits in their chapter numbering, since some stories do go beyond 99 chapters or parts, with the notable exception of Bike that has gone to over 1500 parts allready.

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A propos prolific authors and the printer-friendly function: It would be really nice, if our prolific authors would divide stories with more than 50 parts/chapters onto second level title pages underneath the main title page. The "printer-friendly" function seems to have a limit between 50 and 60 parts, so it is imposible to load a story of more than that amount of chapters as a single page for saving to disk or printing to PDF/e-book format. As an example we would have:

* The long prolific story
-> link to: The long prolific story - 000 to 044
-> link to: The long prolific story - 045 to 092
-> link to: The long prolific story - 093 to 123

The alternative could be:

* The long prolific story
-> link to: The long prolific story - Vol. 1
-> link to: The long prolific story - Vol. 2
-> link to: The long prolific story - Vol. 3

I am suggesting a break in a logical place on the story arc, instead of a hard break after X chapters.

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In the case of substories with different titles, that should be read in a specific order: The easiest (and most straightforward) option would be to start the title with the volumne number (e.g. 01 - Title, 02 - Other title, etc.). Thogh as an alternative, Drupal seems to have a "weight" option for use on the title page to achive the same effect.

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I hope that these suggestions, based on my observations and readings of different postings here, might be helpfull to our authors and posters. And I would like to grant Erin et.al. permission to use my ramblings as a basis for a more formal posting guideline.

Many greetings and thanks and kudos to all the authors and posters here on BCTS.

Jessica