I agree with Bio/DiB: Actually thinking about it, the library categories seem really arbitrary. The proposed alterations make sense, especially given I found a few time-travel stories in the "Independent" section the other day.

Edit: Also, I'm also fine with going back and re-reviewing fics on a case-by-case basis. It's not as if 50% of the library shouldn't be there - I've only found a few fics that stand out as particularly dated/terrible/boring, and not really because of cliches either..

 

Assuming it's feasible, one way of going about what I'm thinking about is coding that forum to behave differently.

Rough sketch of what I'd like to see:


Mature
Work in Progress
Alternate Universe

Either make the initial poster capable of picking two or three tags, in addition to the story's rating, or perhaps experiment with allowing the DLP membership as a whole being able to adjust the story. Each poster (who actually reviews) is able to select one or two tags that have a very easily understood symbol associated with it. After 5 or so reviews, the forum automatically adds the symbol next to the story in thread-view (as pictured above). The above is an example of perhaps an alternate universe symbol. You could do the whole "user deciding thing"s with the rating of the story as well; each reviewer could select what he feels the story's rating is.

My main thrust is streamlining and unifying the process by which stories are reviewed, tagged and added to the library. Basically Apple-fying the library and making it more accessible. That way the new user and the casual user can easily understand it. Hovering over any symbol should give you the meaning in that bubble script thingy (have no idea what it is, but it is yellow).

A story shouldn't be clogged with symbols so only the top 2 or 3 tags would result in a symbol being generated near the title of the story.

In addition to that, and borrowing this idea from Ashaya, although she was really only speaking of the contest entries, there needs to be an ability for the user to see the summary without ever having to click on the thread. Perhaps a little [+] symbol next to the title that would expand that box in thread-view and give you a 250 character summary (or whatever amount).

Just some ideas I'll kick into the thread.

 

How exactly does it do this? I mean, it seems mostly to be a new pretty set of graphics to go with the already-existing tag system and a voting system to go with that. It doesn't seem to actually change any base functionality.

 

The tagging system is presently almost irrelevant and doesn't stand out. The subject lines should be used for only certain information, with the rest of it being relegated to a revamped tagging system that is, yes, graphically improved and more distinct.

By the "subject line", I mean the text that appears in thread-view, which can randomly include pairings and numerous ratings. I think a system of how that is constructed is essential in a library; graphics really have nothing to do with that. Title plus the author's name should be it, nothing else. Everything else can be viewed to the side of it: the rating, whether it's complete or abandoned and two or three tag-symbols that give an individual the gist of the story.

As for functionality--the how we get to that nice screen of unifiedyness--I suggest a straightforward, modified posting system in the review forum. When an individual clicks 'New Post', they're brought to a screen that has a line for the story title, a line for the author and several lines for URLs. In addition to that, a summary box (that would be viewable while in thread-view and expandable via the [+] box I mentioned above). Bubbles or boxes to select symbols/tags (to get the ball rolling) and of course a place to select the story's rating. New replies to the thread obviously don't have access to the summary, title or author, but to the tags/symbols and the story's rating.

If the closed-system of tags (meaning no randomly adding ones) is made in such a way as that you can easily click on the symbol perhaps and sort by that, then there is additional functionality. Ease of use is half the battle.

I don't think the library is horrible; I do think it can be improved.

Edit: would definitely be H/Hr

 

Regarding the WBA and sub threads, could the author post each chapter in a different sub thread, that way each chapter is kept separate, will be easy to find as the first post of a sub thread, and all reviews and comments are kept with it?

 

How about a posting format for threads in WBA? Similar to the one used for fics going up in For Review.

 

Perhaps automate the submission system a bit for the monthly contests? Those who submit could receive a PM notifying them that their story was submitted, then another when their story has been accepted/rejected for judging. This would take some of the workload off the admins and keep them from being hectored by authors wondering whether their submissions actually made it in.

 

I really like the modified idea of her color scheme. I'd love to have this, too! And other people on the forum (or who even don't use it), could donate created color schemes, instead of relying totally on 'Claw. Basically split up the work so he has less stress of editing the whole site, which I'm pretty sure he'd do anyway.

 

Nor was I disqualifying them as such. I was merely restating my opinion without writing a new essay. I had thought it was assumed the entire thread was taking a debate the pros/cons nature. Forgive my foolishness for that misunderstanding. :|

Do you know what I find most disgusting about many recent policies some schools have allowed to be enacted? Its midnight and I cant be fucked to find a link so here is a related link. School board attacked for allowing txt language.

LOL. 2b. ur. These are not words. These are laziness.

Thus, my reason for rejecting new links. I know you can be lazy and not give a fuck. I am the king of not giving a fuck. I have a Life Time Achievement Award for most lazy SOB ever.

I don't think laziness should be encouraged on DLP when the entire purpose of our founding was entirely the opposite.

Its three. Fucking. Clicks. Deal with it, or don't use it.

 

The purpose of WbA is for feedback; if you want to read a 'clean' version, wait with the rest of the population for the author to post it on PC, ff.net, or elsewhere.

As far as the older stories, some of the crap that was original and innovative at the time is now to the point where I honestly can't bring myself to reread the stories in the library. Putting a handful of these stories up for re-review every week, and either sending them to a category like 'Retired Stories Home' or something to get them out of the current library where they are rotting on page four or five of the archive anyway would probably be a better idea. On that note, perhaps every 18 months or 2 years after initially rec'd a story in the library would have to reapply to keep the library status, and have it's rating wiped and revoted. If it makes the cut again, it stays for another 18mo/2y, else it moves to the retired thread

Thumbs down make trolling too easy. When you have to type out how someone made a retarded post, it's much more humorous for the rest of us, and prevents drive by trolling by people who are on the bandwagon.

It's been suggested several times by people previous to me: make a post count minimum or something so the newbies have at least some idea of what this forum is before they post the piece of shit story or rec.

Can't remember off the top of my head who said it, but do something for those of us with high resolution widescreen monitors to increase the width - unless I'm being an idiot and you can do that already (in which case, someone PM me how).

 

Horrible idea.

 

It'd be great if DLP would automatically check ff.net and patronus-charm for fic updates and display the date in the library.

Apparently the moment a story is submitted for review, you are extracting its ff.net or patronuscharm link. At that moment you could check both for its last update. Then keep track of further updates by following ff.net's newsfeeds.

While checking the updates you could also harvest further details which ff.net usually lists in their newsfeed:

Code:

<entry>
  <author>
   <name>Loving Your Smile</name>
   <uri>http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2392610/</uri>
  </author>
  <published>2011-06-25T12:33:50-08:00</published>

  <updated>2011-06-25T12:33:50-08:00</updated>
  <title>Going After Scorpius Malfoy</title>
  <link rel="alternate" href="http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6816971/1/Going_After_Scorpius_Malfoy"/>
  <id>tag:fanfiction.net,2011-03-12:story.6816971</id>
  <category term="Harry Potter"/>
  <category term="English"/>
  <category term="Rated: T"/>

  <category term="Adventure"/>
  <category term="Romance"/>
  <category term="Rose W."/>
  <category term="Scorpius M."/>
  <summary type="html">Author: &lt;a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2392610/Loving_Your_Smile'&gt;Loving Your Smile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;Category: &lt;a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry_Potter/'&gt;Harry Potter&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;Language: English, Rated: T&lt;br&gt;Genres: Adventure/Romance&lt;br&gt;Pairing: Rose W. &amp; Scorpius M.&lt;br&gt;Chapters: 9, Words: 20,772, Reviews: 72 
Updated: 6-25-11 Published: 3-12-11&lt;br&gt;Status: In-Progress&lt;hr size=1&gt;Rose hates Scorpius. Scorpius hates Rose. Then, out of the blue, Scorpius disappears, and Rose doesn't know what to do. So she does the first thing she can think of- she goes after him.</summary>

 </entry>

And within the summary tag:

• Adding dates of updates would allow features like "New Posts" or "New Subscribed Threads" in the user controlpanel: "New Fanfiction Updates" could order stories by "last update", either all fics or - within the usercp - just fics of the threads I subscribed.
• In the library list / category subforums additional information might be displayed under the thread title, like last update, wordcount and characters
• The threads within the library might also be ordered by fic-update or wordcount, in addition to the current options.

While it might violate ff.net's tos to harvest too many details and reuse them on another site, they are providing the newsfeed for automatically following updates.

 

A minor thing I've been desiring for a while: the ability to sort fics in the library by something other than title. Specifically by Author, Rating, and Date Added.

 

You can already sort by rating with one click. Go to the top of the Library subcategory and look for the bar below the stickies: "Thread/Thread Starter, Rating, Last Post, Replies, Views " Click on "Rating" and you'll sort the stories in that category by rating. Similarly for replies, views, etc.

 

Been a bit busy, so I missed this.

One: One-Time-Dump vs Thread for suggested revotes: Both are utterly unnecessary.

The Library is completely free of the necro posting rules with reasonable restrictions. If you come in and only post something like "holy fuck why did this get in?!" and leave, expect rape.

Now, on the other had if you do something like my post above (The one telling you this is a terrible idea.), and give a thought out, proper review and why you think it should be binned, that's another matter all together.

Yes, there will be idiots who complain anyway, but if you genuinely believe your idea is somehow going to circumvent that by taking out the factor of necroposting, then I have a spare Bugatti Veyron in my garage and I'll sell it to you for five dollars. I've another point here, but it ties into something else, so lets hold it for now.

Two: Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Library Posting: Does tenure really matter at this point? Veri has been a member of DLP since 2007 and has 349 posts. IP82 was a member from 2005 to about the end-ish of 2008. He has nearly 3K posts.

I'm far more inclined to listen to Veri, who has just barely a tenth of IP's posts. Ditto for Ghiradelli. 30 posts, member since 2005.

Three: For a dollar a day, you can make sure this little story has enough votes to eat:

Many of the stories have less than ten votes. Possible. I haven't looked, lately. However, I do know we've already addressed this issue. If you go to any area in the library and look between the header and the donation/PatCharm banners, you will find this terribly useful link. It lists for you all of the stories below a certain point.

There is also a "Library List" link above that. This displays all stories in the library, with the option of turn on/off displaying Binned stories. So no need to take up more room with silly links or threads. (This is the above point we came back to.)

Now a suggestion of my own.



The library and posting formats. Perhaps we can get one of those "This thread is more than 30 days old..." style warning boxes for it. Specifically, I mean for the library format.

Something like:

 

I've skimmed this thread somewhat thoroughly, so I don't know for sure if this has been said yet. If it has, I second it and offer hopefully some more detail. If not, well here's my idea.

Perhaps a normalization technique could be used in the rating of stories/threads that would bring a more indicative/detailed scoring system.

From what I have seen, there are a host of stories that have the same score, but are really quite different in literary skill level. I think there's a sort of buffer zone where a very large amount of fics are put into, say, the "4" range simply because they aren't quite good enough to be a "5" or aren't that bad to be a "3." I myself can attest to this as I have two fics here - one imo drastically better than the other and yet they're the same score. I mean... we all know there's a big difference between an A+ and an A-, or a B+ and a B-, and so on and that analogy I think holds true here. Also implementing some sort of normalization of data would tend to lessen the effects of someone rating the thread who has some sort of ulterior motive then giving an accurate score.

I'm not sure how plausible this is here but perhaps the addition of some normalization techniques could be implemented to probabilistically remove such false numerical equivalencies? I feel as though most stories get enough votes to try. Increasing the rating system to 1 - 10 would allow a wide variety of techniques to be used such as, for example:

In the Harry Potter Work by Author:
1. Increase the rating system to 1-10
2. Find the overall mean (M) of the stories in this section.
3. Find the individual means (M_i) of the stories scores (so what's being scored now)
4. Compute a factor (M_i/M). So if the factor is a '1' then the individual story is strictly average. The higher the correction factor, the higher the story is above your 'mean' story.
5. Scale the factor to values more tangible.

Something like that. This is just a very very standard approach to normalizing and there could be many variations on it. I am not overly attached to this idea as I don't really put too much weight on the rating system anyhow. But I figured I'd bring it up at least to be considered as I think some people do. I realize there are issues with not all stories, particularly the older ones, not being rated - but perhaps there are ways around that, I don't know.

Just a suggestion, really, that could alleviate biased votes and provide a broader and more accurate means to view our rating system.

 

Ecthelion I'm not sure if you meant this but if you put your mouse above the stars next to the story you get a small box that says something like 44 votes 3.76 average.

 

I really don't see how that alleviates biased votes. All you're doing is dividing by the mean rating in a section; what that does is give a rating relative to other stories. I personally don't have any use for that, because I want stories rated on their individual merits, irrespective the other stories in the 'section' are good.

I also don't see a problem with rating a story 4/5 because it's between 3 and 5. 3 is Recycle Bin, 4 is library worthy, and 5 is for exceptionally good stories. Everyone knows that, doesn't seem to be a problem. By the way, this is why it makes perfect sense that a lot of stories get 4/5 ratings - we put stories up for review if we think they're library worthy, and the ones that are far from are hastily trashed.

There are quite a few people who prefer to give half ratings (ie, effectively rate stories out of 10), but I don't have a problem with making them chose.

tl;dr: I don't have a problem with improving the rating system, but it works fine for me, and I really don't know what you're going on about.

 

Well, yah.. I mean that was the point of the example suggestion. All I was doing was illustrating a means of normalizing.. in this case relative to - as you said - the mean of the section. There's a ton of ways to do it, I was just pointing out one.

The idea was to just put out an idea to alleviate I guess "rogue" voting or add another element to it (such as a mean of the section) to put a different angle to the voting. Like I said, I am fine with the rating system now. This was just a thought and I figured I'd see what everyone thought of it.