clicking complete story, dose that mean i finished reading it or dose some pore writer gets an message saying someone is clamming it is done? i seem to be able to click on any of those links to change it. kinda odd.
im going though a lot a 'world setting.' stories and i really think people should plan for people finding there work years down the line, and there needs to be 'between this chap and this chap this other story happened" links not just next chap. The DarkRealms Universe really had this problem, even going off the list of dates storys happen with, even just reading all the way though the 1st story in that lift at some point becasue of how long lived they are you get ref to other stories like Pandora
and also un-alphabetize may work better when it come to world settings, like im going though Enemyoffun stuff tonight and just clicking on the 1st story gives you a story in "The Center by Lilith Langtree" but not the 1st one and no clue what order they are in.
Comments
We adapt
We adapt. You will be assimulated.
Each story is created by each writer. If more than one writer contributes to the universe then it is up to both the creator and the writer to place it how they see fit in the universe. There is no one place for the stories to be collected into as I don't think Erin at the time had thought of that idea.
As for the timelines I go with what I said earlier. Each creator is held responsible and it may take some creative work to put them in some form of chronological order if they so desire.
Complete story flag and order of universes
The complete story tag is for a story to be marked as completed, that is, there are no more chapters to be written. A limitation of the system is that anyone who can see the flag can click on it and change it. Stupid but we have a rule here, don't write code if it can be avoided.
The organization of worlds (or universes) here is left up to authors. I would have to read every story in order to do that. On an ordinary day here, something near about 50,000 words get posted. Ain't gonna happen, me reading all of that. So the authors have to do it. In fact, the DarkRealms universe is one in which the author HAS done it.
Your complaint that stories are interconnected in more than one way, is just weird. Life is like that and so fiction can be too. You wanna chart of how all Spider-Man and Daredevil stories interconnect with the X-Men and Avengers? Ain't gonna happen, no one at Marvel even knows that. :)
I don't even understand what you are complaining about in the last paragraph. :)
As far as the site needing work, this site gets lots more work done on it than any other non-professionally maintained TG website in existence. Seriously, I put 20 to 60 hours per week into maintaining the site and have done so for about ten years. Piper puts about half that amount into BC and that much again into the other sites we maintain. Cat, Sephrena, Frank and several other volunteers also work on the site.
And a lot of information about how the site works can be found in the FAQ, linked in the upper right corner of every page. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Understatement.
Erin wrote: "this site gets lots more work done on it than any other non-professionally maintained TG website in existence."
That's probably in contention for; "The Understatement of the Year" award. If you read the blog entries by the BC Staff, you'll find that many hours are virtually donated to this site. Add to that that Erin often puts personal money, money that she should be using to pay her own bills, into the pot for physical improvements when the Hat Box falls short.
I see no reason to say "The site needs work."
Just so you know Erin, the vast majority of us really appreciate all the work you and your minions put in here. God bless you all.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Yes, the site does need work.
Just to chime in.... Yes, the site DOES need work, and we're doing it.
As has been stated here, we do a TON of work daily just for normal operations, add to that fact, that we are currently working on the next in-carnation/upgrade of that site in the background for the last 3 days, and doing hardware work. It's getting done, trust me.
As for CHANGES to how things happen... Well Most things won't change, but there are some things we would like to change, but like Erin says, if you can find it off the shelf and it fulfills 75% of your needs, that remaining 25% of need, would have to be pretty important for us to want to maintain our own programming code :) (We do do that a bit as needed).
-Piper
I once
I once caught a bumble bee. She let me know in her own way how much she liked it by giving my hand a kiss.
Oh dear
Whilst I accept that this site is not perfect, I would like to, politely, point out that hundreds of users manage to use it, manage to enjoy it and manage to navigate around it.
Someone less generous than myself might point out that if there is any work to be done, then, just maybe, the work should be done by those who are unfamiliar with the way things are handled here. That person might gently enquire how to do this or that rather than jump in and suggest that the site needs to do some work to tailor itself to one individual's point of view.
However, we welcome our newcomers and we offer assistance where we can. Maybe, you could first indicate your preferred language so that (maybe) someone with ability in that language could help you more personally.
I remain prepared to be of assistance
Di
the authors have ultimate control
The most wonderful thing about the tools that the authors have here is that they can control everything about how their work is presented. The tools are there for presenting things by what ever divisions that they desire. It does not halve to be alphabetical since there is an override system in place to use also for ordering.
However, we make changes by consensus here instead of reacting to complaints. And it has to be something that the author buys into since it has to be something they want to maintain and not be imposed.
For example is the way we present stories now in the serials list. In the beginning it was just that, a list of every serial by every author mixed together. When a serial began one of Erin's helpers would create a title page and link the parts to it using the title name convention so the alpha sort would present them in order.
Next someone, I think it may have been my friend, Sasha Nexus who created an Author page and put all of the title pages for her stories under the one page for her name. She made use of the document there and made a brief explanation of her stories. Erin made the author page in the organizational file. Authors who thought it was a nice thing to do made their own. Finally Erin's helpers began helping the new authors with crating an author page for them. Then came Universe pages and other ways of organizing things.
I copied what Sasha had done when I came along later and she helped me set things up nice like she had done for herself. Erin and her helpers give the tools but the rest is up to the writers. Its their work and Erin had given us the tools to do it up nice.
We are a lead by example consensus, bottom up style for getting things done here. If you want change then
1) Become an author and contribute stories to the archive here .
2) Organize your stories in a really spiffy new way with the tools that Erin has provided
3) Wait on the other authors to admire it so much they want to do it too
Its as easy as 123. That's how things get done here. Just ask my friend Sasha!
Exploring the impossibilities,
Jo Dora Webster on YouTube
Support message for BigCloset
This website is a huge undertaking and I would like to take this moment to thank those who clearly do a lot of great work in its creation, evolution and maintenance
Rhona McCloud
Universes
I do agree that universes need to be better organized, actually. I mean, you can click on one story in the universe and you won't be able to tell exactly which is first and which is last, apart from looking at the date of publication. That however, does not always mean that it is the correct order of the story. A story can be written and completed a month after the first story, but it's actually a prequel, and you won't know it until you read the second chapter, and that puts a damper on the readers. Similarly, universes are most often written by many individual writers, so one story does not always correspond with the story before or after it. Stories in the universes should be organized by the order of the date of the story (not date of publication)and each story should be clearly marked as prequel to what and sequel to what as sometimes these stories jump each other. But I don't think it's the site moderators' job. It's the job of the owner of the universe, or anyone delegated to that task to organize the stories in that universe. From what I can see, writers can already do the organization themselves. Let's just take one example, Lilith Langtree's Comics Retcon universe. I love Lilith Langtree's stories, but I gave up after reading one of the stories in the universe. Being an obsessive compulsive person, I need to read from the start, but I ended up reading the second and was pretty much confused about the rules of the universe, so I stopped reading. My memories of that story may have been bent, because the last time I read the stories in Comics Retcon was probably two years ago, so forgive me if I got the facts wrong.
Anyhow, I don't believe it's the problem with the site, although an improvement can be made, but what do I know? I have never seen the codes for the site and I trust Erin and the others completely if they say that it can't be done at the moment.
I do have a question though, why is it that recently, all new comments go to the top? I prefer the old system, where new comments go to the bottom, as I can just press page down when I've done reading the older comments. Right now, it's like 4,4a,4b,4c,3,3a,3b,2,2a,2b,2c,2d,1,1a,1b (the numbers being the primary comments and the number with alphabets being the replies to the primary comments) instead of the old system of 1,1a,1b,2,2a,2b,2c,2d,3,3a,3b,4,4a,4b,4c. As the way it is now, when I read a blog/fiction's comments from the start, I press 'End' on the keyboard, to go to the bottom, then I slowly scroll up to read the first main comment, then scroll down to read the replies, then carefully scroll up again to read the second main comment, then scroll down again to the read replies, rinse and repeat. Why did we change from the more convenient old system though? Or is this something that I'm supposed to change myself through some kind of settings options and that the recent downtimes kind of screwed that up?
Anyway, I still wish to thank Erin and the rest of the Bigcloset staff. Without this site, I probably will never write properly.
Comment order
"I do have a question though, why is it that recently, all new comments go to the top? I prefer the old system, where new comments go to the bottom, as I can just press page down when I've done reading the older comments."
That's configurable on your end but it's difficult to tell you how. Give me a day or so and send me a PM, I'm as busy as a catherder in a typhoon right now.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Comment order
No problem. It's just a curiosity. Go do what's more important first. I don't get the catheter in a typhoon reference though -_-
Cat-herder
Cat-herder LOL.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.