eFiction, as some may or may not know, is an open source software product that we make use of here at Gay Authors.

We are in the process of reviewing all parts of Gay Authors looking for ways to improve the site.
What can we do to improve the eFictions system here?
It can be simple things like adding categories, ratings levels, warnings, characters, etc or something else.

Help us make Gay Authors better for all.
All comments welcome!

Myr

If you could do anything to eFiction, I'd do something with the rating system. Why do I have to give a story a 9 or 10 to give it 5 stars? Why can't 5=5? I suppose it has something to do with getting those 4.75 ratings, but is that necessary. 5 stars should be enough to say this is a good story.

So, I would say simplify the rating system.

Next, I'd do something with the warnings. My stories tend to be what I believe to be mature audience stories, but not necessarily not for mature teens. If I knew an MA rating was exluding a certain chronological age group, I'd probably lower my rating. On the other hand, if the warning carried sub-categories to indicate whether the story was violent, had explicit sex, or dealt with adult issues, might help determine a better warning.

Provide a single index with every author and story for everything on GA: Hosted, Shared, Anthology, eFiction, and Archive. This should be separate from the existing eFiction and Archive indexes.

Colin

what happened to my post?

REPOST:

1) Lengthening the "View Recent Stories" list (Or making it possible to list ALL stories by date submitted/edited). The current list leaves a lot of earlier stories missed and unread. Since authors are constantly adding to it.

2) Honestly, posting in the Archives gives your story much better chances at being read than posting it in EFiction. A fact I've noted since my story 'Happiness' was first posted in the Archives and then in EFiction. The browsing in the Archives is just much easier.

3) Fixing the view by rating/view by characters/view by genres etc. dropdown boxes. They don't do anything at all. :S

4) Making the layout reader-friendly. The current layout is not conducive to reading onscreen. The body of the story is squeezed between two panels, and as such, you have to constantly scroll down. Personally, I've always used the printer-friendly version instead of the normal layout, since it's easier to read.

5) The top tens don't give top tens at all. :S Might be because several stories are tied?

6) Hmmm... I dunno. Making the browse by category the default welcome page? So the user will select which browsing style he likes the most early on? I'm not too sure about this.

7) Last of all... fixing the login so you don't have to check the remember me option. LOL



That's all I could think of for now.

I have already made a few changes to eFiction.
1) I added a link in the menu to this forum.
2) I added a link in the menu to the eFiction Announcement forum.
3) I changed the way "MA" rating is handled. It will now pop-up a warning box, but allow everyone to read.
4) I changed the rating "XXX" to "XXX- Porn only" to clarify. That one still requires you to be logged in and "of age"

I am responding to you Hylas, since pretty much everything you asked for is already in there.


You can already sort by most recent:
http://www.gayauthors.org/efiction/browse....ype=titles&
Imediately below are a number of optional sort drop boxes. Go to the one marked "Alphabetical" and change it to "Most Recent" then press the "Go" button.


Yes, the Story Archive provides better exposure. It is designed as a quick link to stories hosted someplace stable like Nifty or here. We do not link to eFiction or other user controlled areas because users are always moving things. At some point, we may have a system designed that handles the functions of eFiction with the Story Archive functions. The estimates I've had so far indicate that it will cost around $1000. Not exactly chump change.


Those drop downs change dynamically. The only category that has characters set right now is Fanfictions-> Harry Potter. If you select the category Fanfiction. Then go back and select Harry Potter, the character boxes become active.


I will look into this.


They work for me. do you have a link of something that is not specifically working?


No, sorry.


If you follow the instructions that Joe posted, make sure you don't clear cookies, you won't have a problem.

I've noticed that once my story drops below the three most recently posted, it tends not to get much attention in the way of readers... and if several people happen to post stories/chapters on the same day, authors may find their stories getting little attention at all. I liked the addition of a "most recent' link to show all stories posted in the past week and I do like that addition, but... would it be too... er... unaesthetic to have that as the default?

Also, the inclusion of e-fiction announcements on the homepage was a great touch. Thanks Myr

I think it would be nice if we could post stories in any font we want. I usually upload html files. I have a certain font I like to use for my writing. That is my two cents.

Hm... I know this is software dependent. Can we get rid of the Chapter title requirement? For when stories are only one chapter, it's kinda misleading to see "Chapter One" on top, as if there are more.

I write the name of the story to overcome that...

I get more complaints/comments from authors about this than anything else. I review every story I read. I'm also conservative in how many stars I award. On a scale of 1-10 a six should be an above average rating. And yet by looking at the stars it often seems like a glowing review is inconsistent with just three stars. I like the idea of a 1-10 scale. It leaves a lot of wiggle room when rating an author.

One other biggie. I'd like to see eFiction done away with completely, or integrate it better with the Story Archive. These two parts of GA seem redundant to me. Unless you're a Hosted Author or Promising Author (do away with Shared Hosted Authors) it should be easier to find all the stories on GA in one place. This would eliminate the need for a separate login or separate section for preferences. Myr, my offer still stands with regard to making this possible if the members like the basic idea.

If I might explain why you get such comments....

In most people's minds, a 5 is not average and a six is not high praise. We're literally raised to think of those as being decidedly bad. 50% is a failing grade in any state. 60% is just barely above failing in most states, and in some (such as the school system I grew up in) anything below 70% is failing. In most systems grades in the 70s would be considered average, which is still just barely tolerable because who in the hell wants to be average? 80s is considered good, and 90s excellence. Grades in the 70s are seen as needing a great deal of work... grades in the 80s as being good but still with room for significant improvement, and 90s as being excellent, with only a few minor and mostly insignificant things to be worked on. Anything below those levels is seen as being borderline bad to just plain terrible. This is the kind of scale that most people are raised with... so when you rate something a 6, the reason why you get comments or complaints is because to most people, you're not only sending a negative message to the author, you're also inadvertently warning off potential readers. Whether the scale is represented as a 6/10 or as three out of five stars... that still does not send the message that you liked the story. Rather, it conveys you found the story just a smidgeon above tolerable, at best. Now you may be thinking that the written portion of the review would clear that up in a heartbeat... but not for the would be reader who sees a story with the low rating and skips over it.

I liked your stories and poems so much that I added a link to them in my signature. To date only one other author has gotten that kind of respect from me. Considering I'm usually one of the top five posters each day that alone will give you a lot of much needed publicity. But I can see your point that even if someone follows my link, or finds your stories via other methods, a lower than expected number of stars by GA standards could cause someone to take a pass on reading what you've written despite a glowing review.

I don't want to continue to disappoint authors and yet I'm not sure how to resolve the inherent conflict between how most people perceive a rating and how I view the same thing. Let's discuss this via PM or by starting a new topic instead of continuing to hijack this thread. I'll let you decide how you'd like to handle it.

Give me some time to figure out how to deal with this problem because I certainly don't want to continue disappointing authors.

I would make the formatting more user-friendly. It's a pain to type all of those HTML stuffs when in a forum, you could get them done at a click of the mouse (like clicking on the B will give you bold in an instant).

Sometimes the layout will go crazy when you put in an HTML tag and I'm not good with HTML tags (I doubt I'm alone in this).

I would like to see set guidelines as to what constitutes a series and what does not. Especially in regards to poetry.

Also, not to be rude or priggish, but I think that once an author is bumped up to "hosted" or whatever.. with their own webpages... then they should no longer post on e-fiction. I would think that takes up some resources.

I'm sure I will think of other things... so reserving the right to post more later.

Lugh, the issue of series or not was something I struggled with when I first started posting poetry. Ultimately I decided to keep all my poems in one story with different chapters for the various subject matters I post poems about. I've seen that Tim has done the same thing. He has one story for his poems and each poem is a new chapter in the story. That seems to work best for poems. I personally don't like it when each poem is its own story.

and this is where I agree... but there are other authors out there who have posted the poems as individuals... which is where the guidelines need to come into play.

Would it be accurate to state you feel that by posting poems as individual stories it inflates your story count and makes you appear to be a more prolific author than you really are? Or is there more to it than that?

that has a lot to do with it... sorta like the over inflation of post counts on the forums right now... some people just have always got to be bigger or better than everyone else....

bah...

ignore me... I'm grumpy.

Thanks. That's kind of what I thought. So in that sense I think there probably should be a rule about poetry being a single story with a chapter for each new poem.

I only have one complaint about the efiction site and that is the template that adds "The End...Maybe" to the most recently posted chapter. Half of the emails I receive are from people panicked that I'm actually ending the story half completed. Having "The End" show up when an author marks the story as completed makes sense, but the template as it stands is just confusing to new readers.

-D

I know I’m new and maybe it’s not yet my place to be suggesting any possible improvements, but I’ve noticed there are a lot of stories with one or even no reviews. To me, it seems only fair that if an author wishes to gain feedback then they should make the effort to review others as well. How about authors having to review so many stories before they earn the right to post one of their own? I just think it might boost reviews, as it seems to work pretty well on some of the other sites I’ve used over the years.

In theory that's not a bad idea, however, a lot of readers and authors are hardcore into the forums and prefer providing feedback in a forum thread. I know that I sometimes leave a few reviews, but after awhile, I start writing long paragraphs in a forum thread and conversing with other readers about said story.

In that sense, I don't think we should prohibit any author from posting a story when they do in fact comment and review stories, just not in the review section. Because in the end, they are reviewing no matter what.

You make some good points, Tiff. I guess I need to ask one question. To what extent do good reviews aid in an author being promoted to a Promising Author? If good reviews are weighted heavily then they should be very much more important than forum participation.

Yes I see what you mean, there does seem to be many more detailed reviews on the forum rather than the efiction site itself. I only made the suggestion because of those authors whose reviews were a little on the non existent side, but maybe they've already got reviews in the forum. I guess that's the place to advertise.

Personally, I never read the reviews. I prefer to read the story cold, and not have any preconceived idea of the story based on someone else's opinion. I will make a point to go find a story if someone has recommended it in the eFiction forum.

If you look through the 'writer's corner' forum, you'll see that the subject of eFiction's peculiar dearth of reviews has been covered quite thoroughly in at least one thread. I've come to regard it as a Fact of Life. On the other hand, it is true that reader response is much more vibrant in other venues, including discussion forums and PM's. So I'm sure you'll get feedback one way or another.

I'm not really sure how author status promotion really works. Perhaps some attention is given if an author/story has more reviews, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is an amazing story. Like Corvus mentioned, an equally good writer could get a huge discussion in the efiction forum as well as PM and personal emails because we're encouraged to take private conversations out of the forums. It's like quantity vs. quality.

Personally, I've seen some authors from eFiction go directly to hosted status or promising with little to no reviews. I haven't checked their forums, but in general, if the WST team reads a suggested piece, likes it, and finds it up to GA standards, then they get promoted. Reviews do play a part, but not entirely.

As for reviews, I'm getting into the habit of leaving them (thanks Corvus!), but I really like going into the forums and discussing a really good piece with others. Also, I don't go by reviews. I click on the first chapter and if it grabs me and engages me, then I read. I won't rely on others opinions, because everyone has different ideas and perception of a good story.

How's my favorite corvus co-stalker this morning?

An improvement might be to provide a form field where the author can enter the URL to the forum thread for that story and have it show up at the end of the story automatically as a hyperlink with some text to effect that the reader can "click here to join in the forum discussion".


I've seen several authors (*cough*corvus*cough*) I thought would make good PAs. If a member is not part of WST are their recommendations given any consideration?

I think the WST team is open to all recommendations. I mean they're here to bring quality fiction to GA and since there are so many writers and stories out there, I think they need to be pointed in a certain direction because they don't have the time to filter through on their own.

While I don't know of any preset rules for promotion, it seems promising author status is attained once an author has posted a substantial number of chapters to one story and it has been read by a substantial number of people. Promotion beyond that seems to require the completion of a novel-length story.

Maybe I'm just technologically deficient, but is it possible to put a link in an eFiction story? It would be great to stick a link in the endnotes that would redirect the reader to the eFiction forum. I tried it in html mode (i.e. <a href="">blabla</a>), but it got wiped off when I uploaded it.

I think this would be very helpful for those people who don't want to post a review but want to give feedback. Small conveniences can do wonders.

There is actually a list of what HTML code will be accepted. Bear that in mind. I think that should be expanded though.

Sorry for my late response!

As far as I know, there is no way to add an HTML link to an efic story, and it's a limitation of the software.

I'd like to see a change in the story font, because when a story gets uploaded in HTML format it looks as though all the words are in bold making the whole thing difficult to read.

Anyways, it's not a big deal, just thought it'd be easier reading with normal text.

Frankly, I'd like to be able to upload in .doc format. Not everyone is all that tech savvy and while sometimes i can save it as a web page and it will be accepted other times it spits it back out at me. Going through and manually adding in all the different html tags for italics and indents is a serious pain in the ass...

It's even worse for poetry, because I have to add paragraph tags. However, do keep in mind that you are allowed to use filtered html from Word in E-fiction.