As talked about a few times before, I think there needs to be some sort of way to disable automerge. Like, if I have multiple chapters of a story I want to put up at once but want them to be able to threadmark them separately, the solution currently is to ask someone in IRC to do a filler post. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it's kind of a minor annoyance that has been around for awhile. I think there's two solutions. One is a simple button you can check on/off when making a post. The other is to have a forumbot similar to a reddit bot that you can call with a command that will make the filler post for you.

 

Maybe someway Hedwig tracks the IRC messages and keeps a post or something for it. Ala who has the most posts on site?

So like

"Lion has sent 30908 messages this week
Zombie has sent 308940978 messages this week"

Doing this like once a week or something.

 

Like Hedwig keeps a tally of who sends messages and then updates a thread about it once a week like

"Zombie: 5458 messages this week
Lion: 25049 messages this week"

etc etc.

 

It's a minor thing, but today I had a couple of "Perspicacity, so-and-so quoted you at DLP" email notices, yet "View content that mentioned you" sends me to a "DLP - Error, You do not have permission to view this page or perform this action." It might be nice to have the option to turn off email notifications for threads I can't view.

 

Is there any way to make the rating of a thread visible on the mobile version of the site?

 

Yeah it's all fine on desktop mode, just more of a quality of life thing for the mobile version.

 

Few thoughts on the Library.

But first:

The thread is closed, so no submission can't enter there.

First, a description of what the purpose of the library beside the obvious of an archive, might be welcome.
====================

From past experience in posting stories for reviews, and getting burned when learning my taste not necessarily shared by many.
I took a step back, and through what was my purpose in offering a story for review, and what I wanted to achieve.

The purpose was clear.
1) Share a story I enjoyed with others,
2) Be contributing members of the community.

The two tests I took, granted me some insight and maybe the beginning of an idea to improve (?) library and review process.

Most of the obvious issues the review process has, is the unclear guide on how to rank stories and how limited it is to 5 options only.
Which is made more problematic (not the right word) with DLPers reviewers divided to two groups
1) Those who demand high standards
2) Those with less demanding standards

Which also compounded by the desire to preserve the Library purity as the source of the best.
Best of what?

A story can be great fun to read, yet lacking in many professional literature elements.
Further the wide range of what people consider the best or enjoy from.

Part of the answer to the above was the almost recommend section.
Yet since it is tied to the Library voting, it sometime make the situation even worst.

Back to my goal, how do I share a story, which is fun in my opinion however might be welcome only by those who like genre X.

Example : Muggle-Raised Champion: Stargon1
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/muggle-raised-champion-by-stargon1-t.32505/

You can see it is in the trash bin.
If you read the reviews, you can see it got decked down, because people it isn't aimed for, are displeased by it.
They didn't like the theme and their votes reflected it.

The metric they judge by it, is Library, and what is their personal standards for Library entrance.

However the point that is missed mostly is:
Is the story fun and people will enjoy reading it, (before you debate literature qualities ?)
Was the story of a specific genre? how you treat stories which have high selective audience ?


My suggestion:
Add: a poll to the thread and use the thread stars for different purpose.
Giving the reviewers to system to judge story by:

1) Does the story fun/good enough you will recommend to others to read, without judging if it is library worthy or not.
Just if it is fun.
It also answers the genre question, if enough people enjoy it, than the specific genre has audience among DLP.


2) If the above is positive, than rank (or not) if the Story should have his own unique place in the halls of the Library.
Instead of being regulated to another place.

Here the genre question will repeat it self, is the genre popular among the user base as well?
A story can't be 5/5 on the literature quality, however if the genre is aimed at has only 3 people, should it be in the library still ?

Regarding the poll it self:
Not sure what is better: simple Yes/No Library worthy.
Or divide it to multi poll base on the qualities Library worthy should posses.

This is the first draft of my idea, not sure if it was touched before and rejected.
However I thought sharing it, maybe others will be interested and something better or quite different can rise from it.

 

The Library reflects some distilled generalization of DLP's preferences. Nowadays we're more gracious with guilty pleasure reads, also because, I imagine, truly outstanding stuff has been lacking in recent years.

 

Almost Recommended was turned into a forum itself where you post threads @Methos

I'm pretty sure being subjective is allowed when rating, but low-effort posts where someone says, "1/5 this has a non-harry potter character" are discouraged and not frequent anymore. If you really want to reopen trash-binned library threads I'm sure that could be made an option by mods. I know there are some old fics from way back that I can still enjoy.

The trouble with that though is the clutter, do we really want to reopen reviews for any story from back in the beginning of DLP? Absolutely not. There may be some genuinely good fics that were great and deserve to have another look but if we went through the library like half from before 2010 would be thrown out into the trash.

1) This is where Almost Recommended stories would go, where they might be 4/5 in humor but 2/5 in grammar and spelling.

2) I think on genre you could honestly just start a post on these (ex. What fic of ___ would you say is a 5/5 of it's type even if it's not library worthy?)

3) Sure, go for it. Polls are always welcome on DLP

 

@ScottPress
My aim is to separate between the Library, (high tier quality) between a repository of stories which aren't library, but are still fun to read.
The method I suggested is through two votes system in one go, and will help with finding place for the guilty pleasure as well.

 

I try to figure where I failed to express my point.
At which juncture the 5 options system limits the option to express accuracy in my opinion.
First I didn't claim fun but trash exists.
secondly, you focus too much on the example ,while it clears 2 out of 3 that reviewed there went against the reviewing board guidelines/rules on how to review.
If you don't like the theme don't vote, yet two did is clearly.

The only review there that actually follows the board guidelines/rules is Cheddar.

People feel the need to protect the purity of the library, if anything remotely smell wrong they will hammer down the 1 star.
Which is why I suggest two polls, to help define clearly where the story stand.

Is it fun to read, and you will recommend to others. (one poll)
That is one level

Is it a work of art ? (second poll)
That is the second level.

At the same time protect the purity of the library, and at the same time, help to gather stories which are fun to read.

I don't think I can make my proposition more clear, and give up.

 

Like no artistic merit but stupidly fun?

This does sound interesting. Most fanfics are already the literary equivalent of Junkfood. The thread would have fics which are the literary equivalents of Kfc's Double Down. Just nothing but trash that may or may not be enjoyable.