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New Feature! Now logged-in users can mark stories as being either Series - part of a series/serial or Solo - complete in one post.
These marks are global, so every logged-in user can see them and everyone can change them. Don't change them just to be annoying PLEASE.
As you read, look at the flag below the post and decide if it is correct, if it isn't then click on the flag to change it. Eventually all the stories on BC will be correctly marked without me having to do hours and hours of work by myself! Yay, me!
Later, I'll have a block or area or link on the front page listing the newest of each type.
Hugs,
Erin
very nice
a very nice idea erin here is hoping it works out just as well well thanks for all your hard work erin and hope you dont burn yourself out at all
with hugs from sarav
Thank you so very much...
for continuing to provide all these useful additions to the site. We all are blessed by your willingness to maintain the site. Thank you VERY much.
Annette
Solos
There are now pages of stand-alone stories: Solos. First page is most recent.
It's also in the white letter menu at the top of each page.
You can improve the accuracy by marking older solo stories.
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.
Reversed layout
Is this visable in the reversed layout? Because I'm not seeing it.
m
They know they can survive
Yes on Reversi
It's there. On the line that begins Home | Stories | Solo.
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.
I'm confused
What's the difference between this and the current categories under publication type?
This works
The other really didn't. There was no way to sort out which stories were or were not serials because no one used the categories correctly. With this system, every logged-in user can help keep the sorting accurate.
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.
Brilliant!
I have to admit, given the vocal level of the community here, this was an absolutely brilliant move! I hope it works out well!
-HuGgLeS-
-P/KAF/PT
I've wondered about this
...when I've uploaded stories.
Now, this is probably going to get all philosophical, or something, but given the recent discussion about what's on the home page, I ask myself: what is it that determines whether an upload is a chapter of a self-contained story, or an episode of a serial?
I've used the entries on the upload page to categorise my uploads appropriately, or so I've thought. But when I look on the front page it's clear that other people don't follow the guidelines the same way I do.
For example, "Why High School English Sucks" is clearly either a novel broken into chapters, or a serial, but the author has uploaded each chapter as a short story. I've noticed one or two other discrepancies like this as well.
But my big question is, at what point does a novel, uploaded in chapters, become a serial? "A Winter's Tale" was four chapters of 15,000-16,000 words each. It's occurred to me that while that was appropriate for the way that story developed, my next tale would probably be better if I made the instalments smaller, say, 6,000-7,000 words. Problem is, I've already got 10 of these waiting and there's probably another six or so to go. So, is it a long novel or a short series? Does one categorise a novel as having a definite beginning, middle and end? What defines a serial? That every episode is self contained? Or not? I don't want a situation where I upload a novel in 4-8 parts and people think it's a serial. More uploads means more pressure on the front page, as well.
Actually that also raises a point that does irritate me sometimes. I upload short stories and they are categorised properly as "Short story" or Novelette" but I still get people wanting to know what happens next when it's fairly clear there is no more (not that there couldn't be, but still...).
One possible answer might be to allow authors to create a title page, and to upload chapters under it, but for the whole thing to remain unpublished until the last chapter is added. That way, it's only one entry on the front page, the whole story is there to read (ie you haven't forgotten about it by the time the next part is uploaded), and the content is broken into easily assimilated chunks for the reader.
Thoughts, Erin?
Hugs,
Penny
This is exactly what ...
... I had thought of when I read Erin's original posting. How does one delimit, say, a four-part story from a serial with daily or weekly, or - whatever - periodical episodes? Even if posted over four days, it still isn't "self-contained" in a single file. Maybe if the whole story is uploaded at once, with release dates for the separate parts?
Description vs Proscription
My job is to give authors the tools and medium to reach their audience. So I provide categories for them to describe their work. I try to teach people what is meant by the categories but there's a lot of confusion. But I'm not going to tackle the job of sorting out the categories and making sure they are applied as I would or by some plan. That won't work, I would burn out and there would be arguments.
To me, a thing is a serial if it is posted in more than one part. It's a series if it is posted in parts and the parts are mostly independent. Those overlap. It's a novel if the total length is novel-size. But other people define these things differently.
Not posting a multi-part story until all of it is written is an idea that keeps coming up. It won't work because it restricts the authors who don't work that way. My own "Urban Renewal" would not exist if I had not posted it as I wrote it and the same is true of many others.
I have enough trouble re-editing titles so they work in alphabetizing serials and keeping bad HTML in the body of stories from messing up the whole site. I really can't police the categories.
This method with the flags lets readers do it. It's a simple two state problem, Solo or Series. Ambiguous cases are likely to drift from one state to the other until consensus is achieved by inertia. That works as long as someone does not maliciously try to mess with the system.
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.
Multi-part stories
"Not posting a multi-part story until all of it is written is an idea that keeps coming up. It won't work because it restricts the authors who don't work that way."
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that my suggestion was the only way things had to work, only that it might make things cleaner for those who wanted to work that way. I would not want authors who already have an established routine for publishing things to be forced to change.
I was also not suggesting that you would need to do the publishing/unpublishing if that's what was needed to make my idea work. The author would do that when the last part had been successfully uploaded.
Penny
Scheduler
The scheduler module that would help your revised (or better understood) plan work is broken. It got broke in a recent update and I don't know when it may get fixed. There's a major update coming and after that, the new version of scheduler may work properly. It it does, there's nothing to keep anyone from working according to your plan.
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.
Another thought
For the purpose of organization on BC, a serialized novel, a series of connected stories and a genuine continuing open-ended serial are really not enough different from one another to be distinguishable in the first pass. The first distinction is stand-alone story or not. That's the most distinct case.
The others all blend into each other at the edges. They also blend a bit with the stand-alone (Solo) story but not as much.
The second most distinct thing is the open-ended serial. We only have one that is definitely in that category with three or five or more candidates.
Then we have things that can be described as possibly open-ended serials made of series of connected and serialized novels. :) It gets messy.
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.
Is there a confirm step?
The reason I ask is the touch pad on my laptop can move the mouse pointer and simulate a mouse click, but it's rather sensitive. Occasionally when moving the pointer I accidentally get a 'click' on a link the pointer is passing over.
Hope I don't go setting series/solo by mistake!
Pleione
I can add a confirm
but things like that make me nuts and the last time I burned down a department store they made me pay for it.
I have the problem of unintentional clicking, too. If you see you did it, just fix it yourself. If you don't see it, trust that someone else will come along and fix it. It's not really a problem.
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, Erin
The ones that drive me crazy are those that say "Are you REALLY sure?" (e.g. Sony's Sonic Stage).
Okay I will try to be careful.
Pleione
Thank you BCTS team
Erin, You and the team never cease to amaze me. You maintain and support one of the best literary sites on the net. How you all find the time for this is beyond me. Thank you all so much.
Susie
Doubly brilliant!
I think this feature is really superb. Having the Solo category at the top of the home page is just what I've been looking for. Well done Erin! Thank you for the time and effort you put into making this site state of the art.
A couple of questions:
When you set the facility up, did you make all existing stories Solo or simply give a random setting. The reason I ask is that although I only write Solo stories, when I went to check mine, some were marked Solo and some Series. I hope it doesn't mean that readers think there's more coming to a few of my completed stories. Or perhaps it's that touchy mousepad (I hate mousepads for that very reason).
Secondly, I've looked through the category browser and can't see a place to search on Solo stories. Have I missed it or is it on the way? Or perhaps it's not coming? Oh no!
Series default
I made series the default because story chapters outnumber stand-alone stories here by about 3 to 1. I and others have been going through some old stories and marking them Solo when we can. The more people who do this, the faster it will be done.
Solo isn't a category, it's a flag, so it can't be searched with by the category browser yet. Maybe using flags to search with will be added some day. It's certainly possible, it just hasn't happened yet. I don't write that code in order to avoid the sort of problems that FM, SS and SP have had this last year.
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.
Archived Series
Can I make a suggsetion??
How about a Archived Series category, for ended series, series that no longer have new chapters.
And maybe having a page that list those series, something like a story volt.
---
Winter
Not a bad idea
But someone would have to make it work by marking the right categories. The info could be there if people used the markings. But they don't. :)
Solo/Series isn't a category, it's a flag and it has only two values. If someone could combine the series flag with the complete category, it would work. But you can't make people use the right categories. They've been there for four years and hardly anybody uses them in a consistent matter.
I don't do police work, so that's the way it sits.
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.
series vs solo
If a story starts out as a solo, and then later a sequel is written, I can see how the sequel would get tagged "series." But should the original get changed, or should it stay "solo"?
Yes, one of those
The great thing about this system is I don't have to make that decision. :)
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.
Question on the Complete Flag
Should the Complete flag refer to a specific story in a series? Or should it be for the series as a whole?
Yes
Both, I think, why not?
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.