Forum / Front Page Postings

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 20, 08:28pm

  Isn't there some sort of standard in place regarding posting stories and poems and not articles on the writing process on the front page? Couldn't these be in the topics of group posts and not on the creative work page?

  And again, since some folks don't appear to realize that every time they post, it pushes somebody else off the front page, can we get back to a limit or restriction on a couple a week or whatever? I've seen posts from the same people on the front page while somebody else gets knocked off after barely a day's display.

• 
  David Ackley

  Mar 20, 09:28pm

  Back when the subject of getting crowded off the front page first came up, a few of us agreed to limit our activity to one posting a week or so: me, Sam, Bill Yarrow. Others I think are tacitly observing that limit. Right now though there are couple of writers who are posting things on close to a daily basis. I'd like to think they don't realize how this crowds out other people's work and that it is kind of an abuse of the common space that we'd all like to have reasonable access to.

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 20, 11:09pm

  Ah yes, if they'd only bother reading some of the informative posts here on the forum! It's sort of like hogging the mic on an improv stage. We may need a hook of some sort like they used in vaudeville days!

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Mar 21, 02:39am

  I agree Susan. A simple limit of X number of postings per week (4?) would go a long way towards helping. And would make us all more inclined to put our best work out there, or at least the work we most want to be commented on.

• 
  Shelagh Power-Chopra

  Mar 21, 01:20pm

  Yes, I agree and believe as David said, someone addressed that at one point. Also someone else mentioned about being alerted via email when someone you followed has posted a new story? I guess that might get overwhelming in the your inbox but it would be pretty cool.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Mar 21, 04:19pm

  Some people manage to place two postings in the first page stream simultaneously. I thought that was supposed to be a no-no, something you couldn't do because of software protocols?

  I'm up for limits. And yes, hopefully, it will encourage people to put up their best work. I've noticed that a lot of the people I've enjoyed reading in the past are posting less or not at all. Maybe it's because the sun is shining, spring is here, and people are getting out again. I hope we're not losing momentum.

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 21, 05:38pm

  Frankly James, I'm not bothering to post because it's only up there for an hour sometimes. Right now, there are two people who are within the only 17 spots that are taking up 4 spots on the front page, and this is happening consistently. There are hundreds of members here--it's a community, not a personal website and shouldn't be treated as such.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Mar 21, 06:45pm

  Susan, I totally agree. Maybe someone will listen.

• 
  Christopher Allen

  Mar 21, 07:49pm

  Hear hear! :)

• 
  Jürgen Fauth

  Mar 28, 04:50pm

  This is a tricky issue. The philosophy of Fictionaut, at least the way we imagined it, is to be as open as possible, which means that we'd rather not build in too many restrictions and rules -- the hope is always that the community can figure out flexible guidelines and self-police.

  That's why originally, there were no posting limits at all. This led a few new members taking over the front page completely (remember those days?), and we decided to hard-code a rule that you had to wait for your last story to move off the front page before you could post the next one.

  Somehow, that limit doesn't seem to be working properly at the moment -- I've seen a few people post two stories to the front at one time. We're working on fixing this.

  In general, though, I believe the solution is a front page redesign rather than more limits. We've been working on a new layout that we're hoping is going to allow more people to post more stories and still give them enough exposure. It will also make it easier to find stories from your contacts, which are easy to miss now.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Mar 28, 04:59pm

  A sensible response and a fair solution, as always. Thanks Jurgen.

• 
  W.F. Lantry

  Mar 28, 07:02pm

  Well, that's a bit of unpleasantness! Take me: I never put up something that's been published somewhere else. It strikes me as odd that others do this.

  What I do is to try to write a story every day. One of my driving factors is that it can go up here when I'm done, and I can get some feedback on it, in just a general sense. This is extremely useful to me.

  I never look at the front page, my bookmark is set to the stories link. It seems that things scroll off the front page so fast it wouldn't be practical to bookmark that. For one brief shining moment, one of my stories, one time, actually made the recommended list. It was gone after a couple hours... ;)

  Anyway, that's how I use the site. I like using it that way. I hope it doesn't infringe on the way other people use it. Some of my favorite writers on here are also some of the most prolific.

  I'd hate it if we made rules based on how I use the site. And it would be just as bad if others made rules based on how *they* use the site. If there were a button I could click so that my stories never appeared on the front page, that would be fine with me! ;)

  I just want to write new stuff, and post it, and get a little feedback. It's very helpful to me!

  Thanks,

  Bill

• 
  Sam Rasnake

  Mar 28, 07:39pm

  Everyone's different with their posts, Bill. I place unpublished works in private writing groups in Fictionaut, but only post published works for public reading on the main wall. Actually, anyone with Internet access can read works posted to the public wall - but only FN members can comment.

  Looking forward to the revamped front page, Jurgen. Sounds good.

• 
  Robert Vaughan

  Mar 28, 07:47pm

  I happen to have two stories on the Recommended Story page today and this is a surprise to me. One is there for its last day today; and the other, "Bed," shot up faster than most other stories I've posted. I will take all of these suggestions seriously, of course. I never meant to HOG UP space, and I do read other stories voraciously, and comment almost daily on the fantastic work here. I will scale back to one story every week or two and I am very grateful for all of the support I get here.

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Mar 28, 08:00pm

  Robert, I don't think it's the Recommended Story list or page that is the issue. It's the posted stories on the left.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Mar 28, 08:01pm

  If your story makes the first page, and then 4 or 5 days later you post another, and it shoots onto the first page, it isn't that "writers fault" so to speak. How can the writer tell if people will like it and fav it? I posted a poem a few weeks ago that died... quickly...

  Currently I have 2 stories posted 5 days apart, but both made the first page. I can't help the success or failure rate of a piece, nor can anyone else. If the community likes it, it will shoot up quickly. If not, it won't. It's all kind of arbitrary.

  I do remember the days when you had to wait to publish a new story if you already had one on the first page. It wasn't a bad system. The computer told you to wait. And so you did.

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Mar 28, 08:09pm

  To be more clear, I think this discussion is only about Newest Stories. Isn't it?

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 28, 08:19pm

  Yes! It's only about the "Most Recent" stories--nothing to do with any other page, which of course, is not under anyone's individual control.

  Please, I didn't mean to offend anyone and there are just a couple folk who take advantage of the system--or at least I guess I think they do--since I tend to try to keep up with ALL the stories posted on a daily basis (or at least I used to, and gave up because of this problem).

  To grab two spots out of seventeen was to me, a bit hoggish when you know you're shoving someone else off the page (on Most Recent). But thankfully Jurgen's got what sounds like a great solution to the situation that should work out well.

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Mar 28, 08:58pm

  Oh! Most Recent page! I was confused, thought it was the Recommended page as topic here. whoops!

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 28, 09:14pm

  And of course, I can adapt to the system. I simply don't read the posts by those folk, and go back a few pages to make sure I've seen all that's been posted.

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Mar 28, 10:31pm

  Bill Lantry, I admire your use of the site, your daily writing practice, your willingness to put up fresh (unseen) work, your gameness, your spirit, your track record -- you do seem to be placing your writing later -- keep it coming!

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Mar 29, 01:29am

  My own average is (still) (over the course of 20 months) one story every ten days, but for me a story is often, as today, as brief as 55 words long. The story I posted two days ago is 125 words long, and the story I posted a week ago is about 400 words. That's it for March. They came together after a pause in my process.

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