The Pub Discussion Board

Eric Storm · 2016-07-25 19:00:04

Hey, everyone.

I'm working on the design for Pub 2.0, and I have a question.

On the page where you are looking at a particular author's stories, how would you prefer for those to be arranged? Options:

1. Alphabetically only
2. Alphabetically, but separating out short stories from novels
3. Alphabetically, but arranging stories according to the universe in which they exist

To explain this last option: Some authors write multiple stories that exist within the same story universe, even if those stories are unrelated to each other. As an example, though it is obvious that both Justice Seven and Paladin exist in my "Project GUARDIAN" universe, it may not be obvious that several other stories do, as well, such as Illicit Reunions, The New Partner, and The Big O2. The new site will, within the story description, tell you if a story belongs to a particular universe, and I'm wondering if, while looking at an author's works, you'd want the stories grouped by these universes. Using this format only, the stories may not be ordered alphabetically. I may, instead, have them ordered by "suggested reading order", as determined by the author.

(You will also be able to "browse by universe" in the new site, because a universe may optionally be available to more than one author, at the discretion of the person who created the universe.)

Please note that, no matter how they are ordered in the list, you'll always have the option of seeing all of the information about a story by clicking on an icon.

So... which way would you prefer to see these stories? As a note: On the search results page, they will always be listed by relevance first, then alphabetically (for equal relevance values), with the possible option of lowering the relevance value of stories you've already read.

Let's hear it, folks...
Eric Storm

Lacy69 · 2016-07-25 20:16:52

Option 3 has a good sound to it for viewing the different stories by authors that have created them in a single universe as the ones you mentioned in your "Project GUARDIAN".

Barbarian3165 · 2016-07-26 00:03:06

If you used Option 3, would it be possible to give the user the option to choose separating short stories from seriels/novels inside the authors overarching universe?

For author approved reading order, maybe let them assign a number in a reading order column? That way the reader can decide if they want to follow the suggested reading order over reading a particular series first.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-26 01:55:02

For separating short stories vs. novels in a universe list: Would an icon indicating which ones were which be sufficient, or would you actually want them fully separated out? My concern is that, if the author has suggested you read short story X in between novel Y and novel Z, I can sort by one or the other, but not both. However, indicating which are short stories visually is fairly simple...

And I'm not sure I understand your second comment. If the items are sorted in "author recommended reading order"... you don't have to read them in that order, you can feel free to read whichever one you want... It's only a visual list, after all. Could you make your point more clearly, so I can understand what you're asking about?

Eric Storm

Barbarian3165 · 2016-07-26 03:24:40

Personally, I'd like the end user to have more choices. So the reader would have some check boxes or radio buttons in their profile for how they want it sorted.

So the profile would have an on off checkbox (or radio button) for:
Sort by Universe
Sort Alphabetically
Sort by Suggested Reading Order
Separate Short Stories vs Novels/Series
If there are other options then they'd be listed also.

I don't know if you'd want to prioritize the search for the end user or not. I'd probably set the priority for any sort as follows:
universe - primary sort option
short story vs novel/series - secondary sort option
reading order - tertiary sort option
alphabetical - last sort option

Of course if any option was turned off then those below would be bumped up in the sort priority.

For my second suggestion, I'm assuming the author provides the information for 'universe' (probably a unique name) and 'reading order' (a numbered list 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) If the end user wanted their displayed lists sorted say alphabetically, there could still be an informational column with universe information and another column for reading order information. On the other hand if the end user wanted the information sorted by 'universe' first and then 'alphabetically' second then you could omit the 'universe' column and just add in the 'reading order' column. Anyway I was visualizing a column that could be added with reading order information... So even if the list was alphabetical you could look over at the column and see that say "Alpha Strike on Omicron" was actually story 4 inside the universe.

Fenixreign · 2016-07-26 03:34:06

Hoonestly Eric, I am a simple guy. If you went with option 3 where it was automatically ordered by authors suggested reading order and just an icon indicating Short story or Novel that would be more than enough. Options are great but when I consider the fact that you are doing this not someone that is getting paid 50k+ per annum, I don't think it's fair to ask for every possible bell and/or whistle possible within whatever programming language you are using.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-26 06:10:08

Barbarian:

The only problem with your suggestion is that the visual presentation of the search results that I had intended does not HAVE columns. The search results I am planning will resemble the following:

It won't look exactly like that, as that version did not employ some new technologies I've started working with, but it will look quite similar.

Eric Storm

Eric Storm · 2016-07-26 06:13:24

PS: Yes, you'll note the lack of ANY "universe" information in that image. I came up with the idea for the universes after that image was created. But it would be listed most likely either just above or just below the description section.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-26 07:16:31

I'd also like to point out that "short story vs. novel" order, and "suggested reading order" are mutually exclusive. They cannot exist in the same scheme, for the simple reason that a suggested reading order could contain both novels and short stories. (My Project GUARDIAN universe does, for instance) While, theoretically, you could list them "in order" within their separate sections, it would be (I believe) highly confusing to have your novels numbered "1...2...4...6...7..." because stories #3 and #5 are short stories.

One other thing to mention: With "universe sort", I had intended to use an accordion-style display. That is, you would have a list of the universes. Click on a universe, and it opens to reveal the stories in that universe. Click on another universe, and it closes the previous one, and displays its own list of stories, etc. This would reduce visual clutter without requiring numerous page loads for large numbers of stories (I have a few dozen).

This same accordion style could be applied to a "short story vs. novel" list, though not as usefully... and it would be completely useless to an alphabetical listing, unless you went with each letter of the alphabet, which would be, in my opinion, rather awkward for such small numbers of stories.

Eric Storm

PS: Just to prevent someone from asking: Using a universe-sort, those stories which do not have a universe of their own would be categorized together in a "universe" called "Standalone Stories". My story Where the Maiasaurs Roam would fall into this category, for instance.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-26 17:19:28

Okay, a new piece of info does change the landscape slightly.

I checked, and of the 43 authors currently listed on this site, only 10 of them have 10 or more "items", and only 3 have more than 25. Of those three, one posts images much more often than stories, and so actually has less than 25 stories. Images will be handled separately in the new site, so they can't figure into a discussion of how to present story listings.

Basically, this means that an accordion-style listing would be overkill, so that idea won't be used for story listings anywhere except in the author management section, which is (obviously) organized differently.

This does not change the original question, though, of which sort order is preferred. Just the manner in which I might display it.

Eric Storm

Lacy69 · 2016-07-26 18:39:22

Option 2 would be nice since the new information you got.

fathertyme · 2016-07-27 23:57:38

I still like option 3. I like reading everything in a series, long or short. But I prefer chronologically to alphabetically when author suggested order is not available. I tend to make the assumption that an author writes stories in order unless otherwise noted.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-28 00:26:48

Okay, and that's an option I'd not even considered: Chronological by post date. Trying to craft a utility that could sort by all of these various things... and then, worse, trying to mix them... could be a nightmare.

Eric Storm

PS: Does it change anyone's opinion if the information in the story list says something like, 'Story #3 of the "Project GUARDIAN" universe' ? (The universe name would be a link to that universe's information.)

Additional information that will be available in the "detailed story info" window will be which story is a prequel, and which story is a sequel, to the story being looked at. (So CAMP: Ron's Journey would have in its information: "Prequel to CAMP: Sibling Rivalry", and likewise, CSR would have, "Sequel to CAMP: Ron's Journey" ) This has no bearing on how things are sorted: the information will always be there.

Barbarian3165 · 2016-07-28 06:08:59

Maybe the universe information page is where the author's suggested reading order should be listed.

Eric Storm · 2016-07-28 07:06:45

Obviously it would be. But I have found over the years that certain information should not require an extra click for the users to see it. This seems like a rather critical piece of information. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, for instance, to have read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, now would it? Or to read CSR before CRJ...

(Sorry, in the midst of re-reading Harry Potter books, and just finished watching the movies, so it's fresh in my mind.)

Eric Storm

fathertyme · 2016-08-01 04:10:06

actually, having the series order information listed would work fine for me, as long as I can easily tell which story I should read first, or which order I should read things in.

For that fact, you could just have a word count, or a code "ss == short story (under x number of pages)" or some such to indicate if something is a full book or not.

When I visualize things in my mind, I like to see it as easy to determine a series order if it exists (wouldn't want to read year 5 then 3 then 4 then 2.... before finding year 1)

Last edited by fathertyme (2016-08-01 04:10:51)

Eric Storm · 2016-08-01 05:22:27

To me and this site, "Short Story" translates to "a complete story encompassed in one file", no matter how long it is. Though a word count will be included in the new version of the site.

Eric Storm

fathertyme · 2016-08-01 05:55:45

sorry, wasn't trying to define short story so much as indicate a "coding" of some sort that notified the reader at a glance that a selected story was indeed short since you had indicated that you were thinking of separating regular and short stories.

Eric Storm · 2016-08-01 06:04:22

As to that, I will most likely continue the current method of indicating such things, which is wording such as:
"Novel - In Progress"
"Novel - Completed"
"Novel - Inactive"
"Novel - Abandoned"
"Short Story"

And similar phrases for images.

Eric Storm

The Pub Discussion Board

#1 2016-07-25 19:00:04

Site design question for the readers

#2 2016-07-25 20:16:52

Re: Site design question for the readers

#3 2016-07-26 00:03:06

Re: Site design question for the readers

#4 2016-07-26 01:55:02

Re: Site design question for the readers

#5 2016-07-26 03:24:40

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#6 2016-07-26 03:34:06

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#7 2016-07-26 06:10:08

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#8 2016-07-26 06:13:24

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#9 2016-07-26 07:16:31

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#12 2016-07-27 23:57:38

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#14 2016-07-28 06:08:59

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