Singularity
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2002
- Posts
- 284
I've collected some observations and wish-list items over time about things that would make Lit a better home for we (us?) authors and the readers.
This is what I've accumulated so far. Other suggestions or commentary is welcome - as long as we all stay away from the electrified third rail of "voting".
What are the simple little things that aggravate you, or that would make your life better (or at least save you a few clicks of your over-worked mouse)? Here's my initial list. Feel free to contribute.
Sin.
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Member Home Page Stuff
1. On your main Author page, the menu structure has Submissions, and then underneath it View Submissions and Submit a Story. Now I like to go check on how my stories are doing vote and view-wise (don’t we all?) and it takes an extra click to get to View Submisisons. Why not make each of the subordinate pages clickable from the main page, saving us impatient souls an extra mouse click?
2. On the View Submissions page itself, I would love to see the date of the most recent Feedback Comment for each story. When you only have the count of the comments, you often find yourself clicking on Moderate Feedback to see whether there is a new bit of feedback or not, because you can’t remember whether you had 14 or 15 the last time you looked.
3. I won’t get into the “boil the ocean” or “solve world hunger” aspects of whether the Literotica voting system is good, bad, or some other adjective. But it would be nice to see the distribution of the number of individual score values you received (e.g. fifteen 1s, a trice of 2s, a triplet of 3s, etc). This can give you an idea of whether the readership truly thinks you stink (e.g. mostly 2s, 3s, and a few 4s) or whether most people think your literary efforts are pretty good (4s and 5s) but you’ve attracted a few of the dung beetles who disgorge 1s for sport at your expense. It might make you feel better, or worse, I guess; depending on the distribution.
4. How about configuring an option so the author can get an email like you do for private Reader Feedback when someone posts a public feedback comment on one of your stories? This might cut down on the unnecessary traffic to the View Submissions page (see number 2, above).
General Site Navigation Stuff
5. Why is it on the Top Lists pages, when you want to go to Page 2 or 3, you have to click on the tiny little page numbers in the bottom right corner of the page? How about some easier-to-hit “Next” and “Previous” buttons? We’ve got Next and Previous on the New Stories pages, so why not on Top Lists?
6. I don’t know how hard this would be with the HTML formatting of the site, but for illustrated stories, why not make use of the logo’d space to the right of the story for the pictures? It seems like such a waste of space. I understand why stories are formatted the way they are – the human eye is not well trained to read lines that are that long, from side to side. But for some pages, the blue real estate is uncultivated territory that could be used productively.
7. Another idea for the blue-space on the right side of the page when reading a story – why not display the Author’s page information there? A little extra work for the server, but perhaps useful. Or would that be too distracting?
8. And yet another blue-space usage idea. On the Member search page, the list of selection boxes and options requires you to scroll down the page to see them all (at most screen resolutions) and to click on the Search button. Why not make some use of the full width of the screen?
Finding Stories You Want To Read
9. Like some other authors, I have a list of faithful readers who have expressed an interest in receiving an email note when Yours Truly has posted his latest bit of turgid magnificence. This is probably a lot more site engineering work, but how about letting readers “subscribe” to their favorite authors so that the site emails them (or PMs them) when Yours Truly has something new go up?
This could be tied into the “Favorites” option that Lit members have. Specify that Yours Truly is one of your selected Princes of Porn and automatically receive a nice little automatic note from the Lit server trolls that His Magnificence has posted his next masterpiece?
10. Why not let authors classify stories as being in the standard Categories of A is for Anal, B is for BDSM, etc, and also be put into Stories With Audio or Illustrated Stories? I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a BDSM story that includes photos and an audio component, but I think most of the BDSM readers would never find it in the Audio/Visual departments (other than those readers I have already enslaved with my brilliance – see #9). To me, Audio and Illustrated are extra features, not Categories in and of themselves.
11. How about finding stories that other particular people wrote Public Comments on? Each of us has their personal list of authors and Forum contributors who we really respect and trust, judgment-wise. The Feedback Portal is too transient to be useful for this. Being able to find stories that were commented on by So-and-So could open up some avenues to pursue to find new things we might not otherwise have found. And it even might encourage some more Public Commenting from the readership.
This is what I've accumulated so far. Other suggestions or commentary is welcome - as long as we all stay away from the electrified third rail of "voting".
What are the simple little things that aggravate you, or that would make your life better (or at least save you a few clicks of your over-worked mouse)? Here's my initial list. Feel free to contribute.
Sin.
-----
Member Home Page Stuff
1. On your main Author page, the menu structure has Submissions, and then underneath it View Submissions and Submit a Story. Now I like to go check on how my stories are doing vote and view-wise (don’t we all?) and it takes an extra click to get to View Submisisons. Why not make each of the subordinate pages clickable from the main page, saving us impatient souls an extra mouse click?
2. On the View Submissions page itself, I would love to see the date of the most recent Feedback Comment for each story. When you only have the count of the comments, you often find yourself clicking on Moderate Feedback to see whether there is a new bit of feedback or not, because you can’t remember whether you had 14 or 15 the last time you looked.
3. I won’t get into the “boil the ocean” or “solve world hunger” aspects of whether the Literotica voting system is good, bad, or some other adjective. But it would be nice to see the distribution of the number of individual score values you received (e.g. fifteen 1s, a trice of 2s, a triplet of 3s, etc). This can give you an idea of whether the readership truly thinks you stink (e.g. mostly 2s, 3s, and a few 4s) or whether most people think your literary efforts are pretty good (4s and 5s) but you’ve attracted a few of the dung beetles who disgorge 1s for sport at your expense. It might make you feel better, or worse, I guess; depending on the distribution.
4. How about configuring an option so the author can get an email like you do for private Reader Feedback when someone posts a public feedback comment on one of your stories? This might cut down on the unnecessary traffic to the View Submissions page (see number 2, above).
General Site Navigation Stuff
5. Why is it on the Top Lists pages, when you want to go to Page 2 or 3, you have to click on the tiny little page numbers in the bottom right corner of the page? How about some easier-to-hit “Next” and “Previous” buttons? We’ve got Next and Previous on the New Stories pages, so why not on Top Lists?
6. I don’t know how hard this would be with the HTML formatting of the site, but for illustrated stories, why not make use of the logo’d space to the right of the story for the pictures? It seems like such a waste of space. I understand why stories are formatted the way they are – the human eye is not well trained to read lines that are that long, from side to side. But for some pages, the blue real estate is uncultivated territory that could be used productively.
7. Another idea for the blue-space on the right side of the page when reading a story – why not display the Author’s page information there? A little extra work for the server, but perhaps useful. Or would that be too distracting?
8. And yet another blue-space usage idea. On the Member search page, the list of selection boxes and options requires you to scroll down the page to see them all (at most screen resolutions) and to click on the Search button. Why not make some use of the full width of the screen?
Finding Stories You Want To Read
9. Like some other authors, I have a list of faithful readers who have expressed an interest in receiving an email note when Yours Truly has posted his latest bit of turgid magnificence. This is probably a lot more site engineering work, but how about letting readers “subscribe” to their favorite authors so that the site emails them (or PMs them) when Yours Truly has something new go up?
This could be tied into the “Favorites” option that Lit members have. Specify that Yours Truly is one of your selected Princes of Porn and automatically receive a nice little automatic note from the Lit server trolls that His Magnificence has posted his next masterpiece?
10. Why not let authors classify stories as being in the standard Categories of A is for Anal, B is for BDSM, etc, and also be put into Stories With Audio or Illustrated Stories? I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a BDSM story that includes photos and an audio component, but I think most of the BDSM readers would never find it in the Audio/Visual departments (other than those readers I have already enslaved with my brilliance – see #9). To me, Audio and Illustrated are extra features, not Categories in and of themselves.
11. How about finding stories that other particular people wrote Public Comments on? Each of us has their personal list of authors and Forum contributors who we really respect and trust, judgment-wise. The Feedback Portal is too transient to be useful for this. Being able to find stories that were commented on by So-and-So could open up some avenues to pursue to find new things we might not otherwise have found. And it even might encourage some more Public Commenting from the readership.
