How long is “too long” before the next chapter of a story?

[alohadave]

You can request to "resubmit" a story under a more appropriate category?

Yes. I resubmitted one from Erotic Couplings to Lesbian when I wrote a second chapter.

 

[Bramblethorn]

But if the project is that ambitious, such as series tend to be, there are beta readers for that kind of feedback.

As a new author here, I was lucky enough to have a partner who would beta a novel-length story for me. But she wasn't a Lit regular and wouldn't have been able to gauge how it'd be received here. Many new authors don't even have that, and the VE portal is hit-and-miss at best.

Even in professional publishing, it's common for writers to publish instalments as they go. The Green Mile, Abarat, Edwin Drood, Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Locked Tomb, ASOIAF, and countless more series, all published in instalments.

Yes, many of them do suffer from exactly the kinds of problems you've mentioned with this mode of writing. Yes, many of them have experienced long delays and some will never be completed. But in most cases the alternative isn't complete, perfected stories, it's never getting those stories at all.

Readers who hope for a higher standard of organisation on an amateur site probably need to recalibrate their expectations.