New Author Profiles BETA Feedback Request

[Bamagan]

Except for one series, it matches the combined comment count for me.

Mine too, and it far exceeds the page count.

Then it's a mystery. Maybe it's counting something else, or perhaps the numbers aren't up to date. At the very least, in my case, there's a large discrepancy between comments (130ish) and parts (160ish) on my largest series.

 

[STrent]

It looks really good, but it’s currently showing my sole series as having 29 parts, when I have only published 17 stories total (all within that series).

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Could the collapsed view of a series give some indication of the ratings within the series? E.g., number of red-H stories within, or average rating?

 

[Manu]

Thank you for the feedback so far.

We're aware of the Comments showing up as Parts issue. We're also working on the Series Parts that are duplicated (as standalone Stories outside of Series).

Some of the feedback is about the Story Card design - which is useful, but not specific to the new Author Profiles. The modern touch/mobile friendly design (Tags Portal, etc.), features uniform Story Cards for most of the site. The modern Story Cards are bigger than the listings on the Classic Lit design by necessity, since touch design standards require space around clickable elements for obvious reasons.

We have prototypes for an expanded and a compact Story Card, but those are separate design elements from the Author Profile. If/when they are rolled out, they would be rolled out site wide wherever Story Cards are used.

Thanks again for the feedback, and looking forward to more.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Initial feedback:

Card does not stretch across screen:



Numbers do not match on stories in Newest and Alphabetical tabs; Newest looks like yesterday morning's numbers on Well-Intentioned, while Alphabetical is more current.

Story Length and tags (possibly with a mouseover or expandable for readers that don't want to be spoiled) would be good additions.

Mouseover on the rating giving the detailed stats that it does on the new screen (number of people that rated the story as well as the rating) would be nice, but not necessary; more of a uniformity issue.


Question: does this mean we might see a blog section sometime soon?

 

[Manu]

Could the collapsed view of a series give some indication of the ratings within the series? E.g., number of red-H stories within, or average rating?

The average rating for the Series is supposed to be on the Series Card. I'll check and see why it's not appearing.

Thank you.

 

[EmilyMiller]

New Author Profiles BETA Feedback Request​

Looking good, thank you.

Emily

 

[NightPorter]

Being able to expand and collapse series individually, as opposed to all or nothing from the drop down would be nice. With the default page loading with all the series collapsed. Quicker to find a specific series when an author has a LOT of stories to scan through.

Other than that looks great. Thanks for all your hard work.

 

[Manu]

A cover photo at the top might be nice eventually to allow authors to personalize the page more.

Authors will be able to update their Author Profile header image.

 

[Bamagan]

Perhaps it would be a big addition, but what about a tag cloud tab/search results for the author? If someone discovered an author because of a spanking story (for example), they could quickly check to see if the author has written more on that topic (or at least, if they tagged it as such).
As a corollary to that, perhaps adding a category sorting button at the top would be nice (in addition to the aforementioned reverse alpha and reverse date).

 

[NightPorter]

You also might consider implementing an overall "Hot" tag and/or rating for a series as a whole. When collapsed no such information is visible for a series, since this information is contained only within individual chapters.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I like it. If you could address some of the other author's concerns that would be great but I'll take what I see so far. Thanks!

 

[Writer61]

Me too, although some of my stories that are part of a series are also listed individually.

I have the same, but in my case at least I suspect this is because the main Submissions page is confused.

 

[Writer61]

The parts count is wonky.

One of my series (Adam in Asia) shows as 11 parts, although only 8 have been published and there are no drafts or pending.

Another series (Adam in Public, created manually) shows as 3 parts although only 2 have been published + no drafts/pending. Weirdly the system auto-created a series with both of the stories but I have since deleted that.

My third series (The Fall of Laura) shows as 3 parts although only 2 are published but 1 is pending. This is also a bug in the current Submissions list.

 

[EmilyMiller]

@Manu I have my series A Good Girl Gone Bad appearing both collapsed and uncollaspsed?

https://imgur.com/a/tsificj

 

[Writer61]

You also might consider implementing an overall "Hot" tag and/or rating for a series as a whole. When collapsed no such information is visible for a series, since this information is contained only within individual chapters.

An average for each series would be interesting, could also calculate one for all author's output.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

+1 for showing tags on each story, and combined tags on collapsed view of series. Tags are one of the main ways I decide whether or not to read a story. They often provide more information about the contents than the title or description.

 

[Bamagan]

Another idea that just occurred to me... The profile section includes the 'fetishes' we entered, if any. It might be interesting if it were possible to create a cross-reference with the tags of stories we've published by clicking on our listed fetishes. That would reduce the incentive for a dedicated tag cloud somewhat perhaps, although it would probably still be useful to have both, even if their purposes overlap a little. If the fetishes were linkable, I suppose the 'hobbies' section could be as well, especially for people who don't view certain sex-related activities (such as BDSM, perhaps) as a fetish so much as a lifestyle. Orientation and dating status might also make a certain amount of sense as clickables... but probably not pets...

 

[AchtungNight]

My Passion series is listed twice for some reason. Other than that everything looks good.

 

[RejectReality]

One thing I think we really need is the ability to distinguish between a series and a serial. While that's technically author control panel feedback, it's something that would display here as well.

The completed/in-progress doesn't really apply to a true series, where it's connected stories. It creates a situation where you either have to mark a series "complete" after each new entry or leave it listed as in-progress, which may cause some readers to skip over it, thinking it's an incomplete serial. Mark them with a green block that says "Series" similar to the "Completed" marker.

If things ever reach a point where it's possible to exclude incomplete stories from monthly/annual contests, it's also a very important consideration. The series function is wonderful for being able to link together connected stories, but the way things are creates potential downsides once toplists/contests start taking series into account. A series/serial designation solves that problem, allowing stories in a true series to be treated as individual stories, while still allowing us to group them on our works page.

Again, control panel, but something that would display here. The ability to have an author-sorted order for our works page would also be quite helpful. My stories as Dark are almost all connected, and have a timeline. The ability to put them in timeline order on my page would save me and readers who want to know what order the stories belong in a whole lot of trouble. If it's made the default display, it would also allow authors to highlight stories they think best represent them at the top of the list. Readers could then switch to alphabetical or recent as they choose. The basic code to sort works is there within the series code, so at least you wouldn't need to reinvent the wheel.

As to direct feedback for this page, I think the ability to sort or search by category that's also been mentioned would be quite helpful for readers. As long as we're going to maintain that angst-inducing H, it should be displayed on the collapsed series as well. So long as the H is still in use, readers' eyes are going to gravitate to it and ignore any block without it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Traffic is all over the place (below) and Teaching Eden doesn’t seem to have a parent series…

https://imgur.com/a/npVtpy0

—

https://imgur.com/a/QsxaCO6

Emily

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Traffic is all over the place (below) and Teaching Eden doesn’t seem to have a parent series…

Just saying: Your Traffic Series IS all over the place. It has nothing to do with the new profile design.
"Traffic 1.5" doesn't seem to be part of the series at all. And they already acknowledged the problem with the multiple displays of stories.

I think it's caused by the series feature. I saw the exact same picture as on the new profile design when trying to add my third story to a series, with some stories being listed two or three times.

 

[Britva415]

There already is, if people would just put it in their sigs. It takes 2 minutes, people...

Imagine ever seeing a signature

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just saying: Your Traffic Series IS all over the place. It has nothing to do with the new profile design.
"Traffic 1.5" doesn't seem to be part of the series at all. And they already acknowledged the problem with the multiple displays of stories.

I think it's caused by the series feature. I saw the exact same picture as on the new profile design when trying to add my third story to a series, with some stories being listed two or three times.

It works fine with the current design. Traffic 1.5 is part of my 750 word story series.

https://imgur.com/a/ZBJH0Wd

Traffic and Traffic 2 are two stand-alone stories under the Natalie & Jim series.

https://imgur.com/a/ogoSY5Y

It works fine under the current profile.

There used to be a bug where adding a new entry to a manual series also created a rogue auto series, which the guidance from @Manu was to delete.

Emily

 

[jomar]

Thanks for upgrading. My series The Bet and The Bet Reloaded are not separated as two different series so don’t know how it makes decisions. Only reason to mention that is I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Also for the suggestion box. Is there a way to have a collapse feature that mimics the current author page? Reason being some authors have hundreds of stories and the expanded info would be a scroll challenge. Also, readers scan series descriptions and choose chapters that appeal to their mood, they don’t always read things from the beginning.

Now that I think about it, if the description can be on the same line as the title and the By x removed, as has been mentioned, that will narrow things by two lines. So two lines instead of just one may be less daunting enough for prolific authors. Smaller title font might help along those lines as well.

ETA: The newest by date sort isn’t capturing correctly, at least on mine.