Workshop Improvements

In the same area, though a different issue, 'twould be great to have a checkbox on all workshop submissions like the one the Scribophile site uses to flag adult/mature content and allow only of-age readers to view the thread.

As things are, the readerships of General Fiction and Erotica appear to be almost entirely distinct. So when a general/literary chapter ends up under Erotica because of as little as a single sentence (>>case in point), followers of General will never notice it, while it will bore the pants back onto followers of Erotica.

 

If it's isolated snippets, what about posting a bowdlerized version in General and the uncut version in Erotica?
Since I've been on the site it's been a quiet forum (with much to be quiet about), and I wondered if it's more focused on the erotic bits of erotica, while the General thread's advice takes on some of the generalness of its entries.

 

I actually considered that possibility, yes, and the more appealing and less interventive one of making a referral post with a link from General. But being new, I wouldn't want to do that without higher blessing — plus at the time I originally posted, I only had credits enough for a single thread. And I didn't then realize how negligible is the overlap in readership between Erotica and other workshops.

Both approaches do still junk up Erotica, though, with distinctly un-erotic threads.

In the case in point IIRC it just comes down to the words "shared orgasm," "spunkier," and the oblique reference to the fact of having sex and lying in the sheets afterward, which apparently merits a rating of "1" on a scale of 1-4.

 

I dunno moose - I wrote a piece that involved necrophilia, and let's put it this way, had I submitted that in my GCSE English class, I'd have been up in front of the headmaster pretty damn sharpish. That was in the Horror subforum, not Erotica because the sex wasn't the point of the story.

I feel this site should allow content like that - as writers, we deal with some difficult themes that are not always suitable for younger readers.

 

Maybe Erotica could be changed to Adult?

 

Well, there are no subforums anymore where content could be restricted. I guess you'd have to do it by genre.

Also, no one has answered me yet about assigning a genre to a story, I didn't see anything to do that when I posted my last one.

 

I just checked, by opening Novels and Short Stories in the Workshop and clicking to create a thread. In the place where you write your title it looks like this: (No Category) Title. I hovered over (No Category) (it might be (No Tags)) and a drop-down menu appeared with all the categories (tags?) listed. Are you trying to do it from your phone? Or maybe using an unsupported browser? I'm on a Mac using Safari and it works for me.

 

Brain freeze.

 

Sorry, that was kinda complicated. I take it when you try to start a thread in the Workshop you're not seeing the list of tags you can select from? It's right there in the Title bar. By the way, that was supposed to say No Category, not Co Category. I fixed it.

 

Here, it looks like this (and it's No Prefix):



When you hover over the little arrow or where it says (No prefix) the list shows up.

 

Yeah, I saw it, it just didn't register at the time.

 

Apply wooden palm to wooden face

 

True, though it might still suffer from the same ghettoization phenomenon.

Sure -- completely understand. And having myself PHP-coded functional customizations to a PHPBB-based forum probably less complex than Xenforo, I realize how much work can be required even for features with minimal on-screen footprint.

Having a separate forum for underage writers (all genres/formats) would make sense, and then restricting the rest of the Workshop to 16+ or whatever is the operative age. There don't appear to be throngs of underage submitters, after all -- though those who do participate learn by reading submissions and critiques they would in that case lose access to.

Such a solution would only require an advisory line or lines at the start of a submission.

But if age-restriction after all ran off of a checkbox or a specific tag, "all" that would be required is to redirect display of threads bearing that tag to an "age-restricted, not available" page. Such threads could still appear in a forum index, since the titles must (as currently) remain free of explicit content.

 

But at least it's a bigger category, that could include gore and extreme violence etc.

And maybe rather than age-restrict the whole forum, just age-restrict the Adult subform. I don't know if that's possible or what it would entail.

 

Problems with credit counts have been identified and I’m working on best method for transferring historical credits. If possible, adjustments will be rolled out this weekend.

Current credit counts may change, but I will make sure both new and past critiques are registered in the new system.

 

The workshop credit system should be functioning correctly and should account for all critiques (both from before and since the update).

I've manually confirmed all critiques should be accounted for since Wednesday, and updated the database to reflect balances from the old software. If you notice a discrepancy or have an issue please report it in the support forum or this thread.

 

Thanks! I just checked mine and I show a +154. Had no idea what it was but that number shows me I've been generally doing the right thing.

 

I've posted 8 critiques in:

o The Dressing Room
o California heartland
o The cat lovers
o Whiskey Always Makes Them Talk
o If I were a woman, I would touch myself
o What Do You Hate
o Equilibrium
o The Second Chapter To My Novel

and posted one excerpt (updated twice)

Hunter's Moon 1983

Currently I show one credit. Is that how they're counted? I don't recall reading anywhere that updates containing edits to an excerpt count the same as a new excerpt.

 

And are there conventions we should follow to assist the automated tracking?

 

@Also did you post any work for critique in the workshop that would subtract any credits?

That shouldn't be the case unless you create a new workshop thread. (then it would count for -2 credits).

Not presently.

 

Damn, I thought I had a lot with 41.

 

@Also since these appear to be recent critiques, it's possible I overlooked them in the manual adjustments. I've updated the count. If anyone else experiences the same please let me know.

Edit: There is a small issue with manually adding credits on my end causing my update not to save (only needed for those since Wednesday). I found a solution, and I believe they should now be updated.

Since I'm manually adding up recent reviews, it's possible I could have missed some. If you suspect this is the case, please me know and I'll take care of it right away. I did additional testing and new credits are being earned/deducted.

 

I've got two years and 14,000 posts on you though.

In terms of crits/overall post count you're actually ahead of me with a ~.011 ratio. I've only got a .009. Not convinced it works perfectly as our late God-Admin of Dune Wreybies is listed as +132 and only has one more Workshop entry than I do, but the number that I got seems plausible. But this ain't my circus anymore, I'm just another one of the monkeys

 

To address the comments on content restriction/Erotica

I'm open to this if there is consensus. I'm not sure it's needed, but it could be a good thing. I do like the idea mentioned by Also of a content warning checkbox. It's not possible now, but with software upgrades I think it could be. If that's the case, content could be flagged my Language/Adult/Violence and potentially age-restricted, plus sortable as a category.

I will leave this up to members who frequent the Erotica forum. The Erotica discussion forum and workshop were both added due to demand by erotica-writers. If they want to rename it Adult, that's fine.

If the new workshop categorization doesn't work out, sub-forums can be re-added. As of now I think we should wait and see what future software upgrades might bring.

I like this. The age redirect is a little more technically complicated. It's not possible by now, but I will keep it in mind for future workshop improvements.

It's not perfect. The older software used to track it was written 6+ years ago. It had several bugs for a while and logged workshop posts in a unconventional manner. The new count is a close approximation to historical credits - as close as technically possible given the tools at hand.