Category: Uncategorized

  • Email Feedback System: A minor, but important change

    I’ve made a small change to the email feedback system that all authors should be aware of.

    From now on, all non-anonymous email messages coming from the site’s feedback system will be coming from ‘feedback’at’storiesonline.net’ with their ‘Reply to:’ field set to the real email address submitted by the feedback sender.

    The net result of this change is that less feedback messages will have the chance of being blocked by spam filtering software/services. And that’s because the site’s mail server won’t be pretending to be the sender’s mail server in order to deliver the messages.

    What will this change mean for authors? should be nothing.

    All email services and email clients, whether desktop based or web based respect the ‘Reply to:’ header and when you click the ‘Reply’ button in your email client, the ‘To’ field should be filled with whatever email address is set in the message’s ‘Reply to’ field/header.

    If you filter messages based on the ‘From’ field, then you may have to change that to the ‘Reply To:’ field.

    Anonymous messages will still come from ‘anonymous.at.storiesonline.net

    With this change, all email being sent from storiesonline’s servers will be from the storiesonline.net domain. Also, the new mail server installed on the site, which is responsible for receiving mail sent to the storiesonline.net domain, is configured to scrutinise incoming messages as much as possible to cut down as much as possible the amount of spam being received by the mail server.

    All in all, this change will make the site a better net citizen.

  • Library Usage Examples and Tips

    Lately, I’ve been getting many requests for certain features for the library system, even though those features already exist in the Library, like update dates and a way to track serial stories.

    So in order to address those requests, I’ve created a page that shows a sample uses of the Library system on the site.

    I linked the new page from the various help pages on the site.

    The page can be found here.

    The new page shows how to use the library for tracking active serials, to remember stories for reading later and for managing bookmarks on the site, on other sites and on your own computer.

    Of course, other creative uses suggestions for the library are most welcome.

    A small request

    The last section of the new page details how to use the library to bookmark stories on other web sites and on your own computer. In that section I give a JavaScript snippet to use as a bookmarklet for adding stories from other sites and from your computer to the library easily.

    I created the code, but I must admit, I’m not an expert in coding JavaScript. I was able to make it work on the Mac with Safari (my browser of choice), Camino and Firefox. I couldn’t figure out how to make it work with Opera (it does not send the cookie in with the request) and couldn’t make it work with iCab either (it wouldn’t even initiate the connection despite allowing popup windows). Currently, I don’t have access to a Windows computer, so I cannot test the code snippet on IE (theoretically, it should work). So if you have the expertise to change the code to work with the browsers above or other browsers like IE or any of the linux browsers, send me your changes and I’ll add them to the list.

  • Story Classification

    I have a problem. Or should I say, I’m dissatisfied with something. Story classification.

    Currently, the site uses codes to classify stories, but this method has significant shortcomings in my view. It does not distinguish between main themes or story types from minor activities.

    I want to create an additional classification system that focuses only on main story types or genres, for example: Science Fiction, Western, Horror etc… and of course each genres could have some sub-genres.

    So far, I have no details about the supported genres, but I definitely want to make it in a way that stories can’t have more than one genre. Main genres will replace some story codes like Scifi, horror.

    So, this is a call for suggestions of what genres to include in the new system, and if a genre definitely needs sub-genres, what they are. Try to keep in mind that a story can only have exactly ONE genre and ONE sub-genre.

    What’s puzzling me the most is what genre can plain sex stories have? They’re about human relationships, so what genre would that be?

    Also, I intend to create a flag for sex and non-sex stories. The ‘no-sex’ category is not adequate.

    So with this new classification a story can be, for example, Science Fiction: Time Travel: sex story, or Science Fiction: End of Civilization: non-sex story.

    With the sex/nosex flag, all stories currently on the site would be classified as sex stories and it’s up to each author to flip the flag if it is needed for their stories.

    Currently posted stories would have no genre classification unless it’s something already expressed currently in the categories.

    So, what do you think, should I or shouldn’t I?

  • New story reviewing system

    Well, the new reviewing system is mostly finished.

    I revamped the review display page completely and made it accessible to everybody. The old reviewing system has been integrated with the site. No more need for a separate log in page and different ID. Reviewing is easier than ever for those with reviewer accounts.

    A new reviewers section has been added to the site and it’s only
    accessible for those with reviewer accounts.

    The funny part about this change is that it came with no real planning. I know I had discussed a new reviewing system on this blog a long time ago, but it seemed that I could never really plan it and implement it properly within a reasonable amount of time. So I kept putting it off for later.

    The way this started was with me thinking that the old reviews listing page is not particularly useful to either authors or reviewers if only premier members could access it. So I decided to give access to everybody and started by revamping the interface. Before this change, the reviews page was just a list by reviewer. It was static and listed all the reviews without any particular sorting, so new reviews could not be easily found by interested readers.

    Bit by bit, the changes came and before I knew it, I had finished
    reintegrating the old reviewing system, which had separate login and separate everything, into the site’s current structure.

    The old plans for a review system accessible automatically by everybody have been changed into a review system with set number of slots for reviewers.

    I’ll start with 10 new reviewers. If you’re interested in becoming one of the reviewers contact me and let me know.

    All reviews for now will be moderated by me. There are few rules to stick to. Basically, reviews have to be positive. Not necessarily glowing with praise. They have to be at least positive in that they aim to either guide the other members of the site to good stories, or at least help the author with constructive criticism. So it must help. If it doesn’t help anybody, and is aimed to put down the author or drive them away from writing, then the review will be rejected. If it warns the reader to avoid the story without giving a valid reason why, then it will be rejected.

    If I reject more than half of your reviews, your reviewer privileges will be revoked and the opening will be available for another that wants it and want to do good with it.

    The system supports more than one review per story, so even if a story has already been reviewed and you have a differing opinion or more things that needs to be said about the story, you can still review it.

    Be aware that a reviewer account needs a valid email address. And that email address will be visible to readers and authors. It could be different from your main email address for the site. Editors and authors will have the priority in becoming reviewers. And there is a limit to the time allowed without submitting a review. If you go 90 days without a single review, then your slot will be given to somebody else.

    If the new system proves to be useful and helpful, I may expand it later and implement the missing part, which is review moderation by other users.

    So if you’re interested in becoming a reviewer, use the site’s webmaster contact form to let me know.

  • The site’s new layout

    I’ve been receiving quite a bit of comments and reports about the site’s new layout currently available in the beta area of the site. Some favourable, some not.

    The most common negative common so far is that there is nothing wrong with the current layout, so no need to change, and don’t fix what isn’t broken.

    Maybe from a reader’s point of view, who’s been using the site for a while and used to the current layout, nothing is broken. However, from my side, it is broken, and broken badly enough for me to put a big effort into fixing it.

    Each day, at least once, somebody contacts me and ask how they go about posting their stories on the site. And as often, somebody requests a feature that is already available on the site.

    The first issue is the most frustrating. The links to post stories are on the front page of the site, however, currently, they are low enough to require people to scroll down and look to the left of the site’s home page.

    It seems that no one scrolls down to see what’s there. Most simply come to the site, look at the links on top (in the navigation bar) and use those; as though scrolling takes such an effort.

    What makes this worse, is that I would like to add new stuff to the site and if I do like I’ve done before, and add new links below the other links, then nobody would see them.

    So, the site’s new design makes maximum use of the prime real estate on the home page (the top 400 pixels). It makes it look a bit busy, but at least most people won’t have to scroll down anymore.

    Another change is the existence of two distinct areas on the site. One for the readers and one for the authors/editors. The reason for this is that many authors don’t read much on the site; they spend their time in pages dedicated to them. So, to minimize the effort for them to reach those places, I moved them to their own area and brought them forward to minimize the clicks that the authors need to reach them.

    Having two distinct areas requires two main pages. So the new home pages (I hate that term), make that ‘Main Pages’ are titled ‘Read’ for readers and ‘Write/Contribute’ for authors and editors. Both pages are bookmarkable (as are all the pages on the site by the way), so authors can bookmark the ‘Write/Contribute’ page and readers can bookmark the other.

    The other issue that needs fixing is the fact that a large number of features on the site seem to go unnoticed/unused and I get requests for them. It seems that most people don’t go exploring on the site, they don’t try various links to see what they do and what the pages offer. Many people don’t even know that they can change their own passwords, or update their email address, or change the font size in the listings or stories.

    The way that I can try to fix this is by posting using tips on the front page. Those tips will go in the ‘News’ section on the main page. And since people don’t like to scroll down, the news section needed to be brought up closer to the navigation bar. For the free area users, that has been the case all along, but for premier members who actually need most of those tips, the news section was always hidden below, pushed down by the random story suggestion mechanism. The new three-column design brings the news section up right below the navigation bar.
     
    PS: for those asking that I post more often on this blog: I’m a man of few words, so if I don’t have anything significant to say, I don’t say anything, so there would be nothing for me to post.

  • Biting more than you can chew, without realizing it!

    As many of you who’ve read the previous entries in this blog know, I’m working on a new reviewing system for the site. I have the feature set ready and have already started with the implementation. However, I’ve hit few snags.

    Let me tell you a bit about my way of developing features. I don’t work in a conventional manner. I learned programing on my own, as in no formal training, and over time have developed my own way of working. One of the most important issues for me is the user interface.

    When designing something, I start with a feature set, then with the interface, then the actual implementation. The reviewing system has a feature set, but no user interface. While it was easy to decide on how to make the review submission system work and where to place the link to it (the end of the story of course), I still can’t figure out how to give the users access to already submitted reviews for editing (where do you put something like that?). How to display the reviews and where? How to manage the moderating system? where to access it from?

    Another stumbling block is the fact that I’ve always wanted to implement multi-language support into the site. So I thought that I should start that by implementing the reviewing system in a way to allow support for multiple languages, and that lead to the start of the redesign of the site’s infrastructure. So this is taking way too much time; definitely more than I first anticipated.

    One thing led to another and now I’m contemplating the redesign of the whole site, layout-wise.

    While doing these separate things, there is always the day-to-day things involved, from helping readers to helping authors. It seems that no one can actually find the help page that cover everything most people would need help with. I typically answer about 25 – 50 help emails per day that contain nothing more than a link to the appropriate help page. Does anybody check the help link at the top of all pages before they email me?

    I realized that the homepage, while it’s been working for the longest time, isn’t the best way that it can be. Most people with smaller screens don’t seem to bother scrolling down and it seems that author services extend way too low on the screen for most authors to find the services relating to them.

    So what started as a project for a review system has suddenly turned into an extensive redesign of the site, from the basic layout to the main infrastructure of the site.

    At this time, I have no time frame for anything. One thing for sure, the site’s interface will be changing and the thing that I’m dreading the most is the angry emails that I will receive for daring to change what people are already used to.

    So the first thing you’ll see will be the interface changes, I’ve decided that there should be two distinct areas of the site, one for reading stories and one for writers. They’ll both be easily accessible by everybody, and two distinct areas will allow me to reorganize features and pages in a more streamlined and logical manner.

  • New Spot Online

    As you can see, I have a new blog online.

    I know it sounds and looks a little strange for somebody with a site like storiesonline to have a blog on another service. I have good reasons to have this little blog here.

    1. I don’t want to add more load onto the site’s line, it’s already loaded enough.
    2. What I will be posting here may or may not have anything to do with going ons on the site.
    3. I don’t feel like creating a full blogging system with comments and everything that goes with it, the services that I want to use are all ready available here, and I do want a comments section for you to post replies and discuss things.

    So, hopefully, this blog becomes more useful with time and a spot for interaction with me, something that is not really possible on storiesonline the way it is now (and which I don’t really want to put in the effort to change).