New Story Category

[Devinter]

I'd be interested in talking to Devinter and tenyari specifically

You summoned me. I came.

Alas, as others have mentioned already, we can only dream of features and updates - and discuss what we would like and dislike - but have no real power to implement any of them. I do think that a streamlined list of the most common yet near-identical tags, like in my earlier example above, would be a decent place to start. We don't need both "18 year old" and "18-year-old" as they mean exactly the same thing. However, I would estimate that less than 10% of the total author's on this website even checks the forums at all, so even if we were to create such a list, only a small percentage of total writers would ever even see it. Therefore, I think the solution has to come from the site admins themselves, implementing a more modern feature.

I quite like the idea of users being allowed to add a tag that the author could choose to approve or reject, however - and perhaps the tags could be clickable, as a sort of vote from the reader, to highlight which themes are the most common or noteworthy in a story. For example: "Mind control" got 300 clicks and "Public" only 20? Then a reader would realize that perhaps only one scene would be in public whilst the over-arching idea of the story would about the mind control.

But that train of thought brings to mind something very important; Whilst such a system would be great for the average reader looking to find a new story, does the author really want to reveal all of that information before their reader gives their story a chance? I've heard some authors rarely add many tags because they sort of like it all to be a "mystery", and that tags in a sense are spoilers for what the story will contain. Whilst I personally do not mind that sort of thing, I know that many would.

 

[TheLobster]

If writers don't use the tools that the site does provide, what else can you do?

The site could’ve been doing a much better job, though.

For one, the field to add tags is just a simple textbox.
Why doesn’t it autocomplete when you start typing, prioritizing more popular and frequently used tags?
Why don’t you get a list of tag suggestions based on category, title, description, tags you’ve already picked, etc.?

Also, why are tags hidden on the story page, behind an icon that doesn’t even look interactive?
And the tag cloud has like three different font sizes, with little to no hint about the relative popularity of the smallest ones. Why doesn’t it show story count on the tag there?

There are many more things like that. If you want to see how a good content management based on tags looks like, check Stack Overflow or other Q&A sites using the same engine.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The site could’ve been doing a much better job, though.

Sure, but if authors don't use the tools that ARE available, who's to blame?

Seems to me some people want spoon feeding, rather than doing basic homework for themselves. If I could figure out tags in the first month, so can they. It's not that hard. Sympathy/empathy care value is low to zero on this one, I gotta say!

 

[NuminousMessage]

That's like saying you can easily make changes to your story. Technically it's correct, with the nuance that you have to resubmit the story and have it approved again.

All I did was submit the tags.

 

[lovecraft68]

All I did was submit the tags.

Without submitting it as an edit? They just appeared at some point?

 

[NuminousMessage]

Without submitting it as an edit? They just appeared at some point?

It was submitted as an edit and I followed the directions regarding how to specify that was the only thing I was changing. I didn't put in the story text again.