# Suggstions for Changes To FA for Stories



## kitreshawn (Aug 20, 2011)

Since we have some new FA staffers who are apparently focused on the whole writing aspect of the site I figured we might as well take this time to compile a list of wants/suggestions for them to look over.

I suppose I'll start:

*Find a better way to display longer stories.  Currently the unending wall of text is quite intimidating.  Perhaps some way to break it up into pages?

*Support the display of other file types and additional characters.  There is really no reason for me to ever see those stupid question marks for characters that cannot be displayed.  Likewise there is no reason that FA should be unable to display .rtf, .doc, .docx.  Bonus points for figuring out a way to get PDF's in as well.  Seriously, these are probably THE most single common type of documents, why are they not supported?

*Improved linking and navigation of submissions.  Yes, there is a way to fairly easily link previous, next, and first items in a series together, but we can do better.  Allow us to create 'collections' of related works and allow us to assign an order to anything put in said collections.  Then allow us to not only view previous/next/first/last but also to jump to a specific work within the collection.  Really, this would be useful for artists as well doing picture series (and comics!).

*A way for people to more visibly suggest people go look at something to their watchers.  Currently the only real way to do so is to write a journal entry.  Unfortunately the whole 'writing a journal entry' is kind of a barrier to the sharing.  Being able to just hit a 'Share this Work' would be much easier.  Again, useful for more than just authors and really obvious.  Why isn't this incorporated already?
              ->Side note, be able to MUTE suggestions from people you watch.  Both as a blanket MUTE ALL and as muting individuals.  I can see how the above feature could get VERY annoying without this ability.

*Rating System?  I cringe to suggest it because it seems like everyone only gets 10/10, 9/10, 2/10, or 1/10 effectively rendering the whole system moot, but it also seems like an obvious thing to be included as well.  Personally I think we don't need something like this, but I thought it should be brought up just the same.

*A critique system.  When you add a submission you can chose to 'allow critiques' which would place a new button that reads "Critique This."  People who look at the work can hit the button and may be presented with some questions to think about to help guide their critique.  Perhaps an ability to make the critique anonymous to those who are not admins (admins could track to police trolling of individuals).  Exact questions could depend on the type of work and be selected by the community.  Again, I am not sure how useful this here would be, but it would allow people to critique a piece without peer pressure and having questions to guide a person may result in more than just 'I liked it' type critiques.


Any other suggestions?  Thoughts on the ones I started here?


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## Antonin Scalia (Aug 20, 2011)

Force summaries/add previews.


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## LizardKing (Aug 20, 2011)

kitreshawn said:


> *Support the display of other file types and additional characters.  There is really no reason for me to ever see those stupid question marks for characters that cannot be displayed.  Likewise there is no reason that FA should be unable to display .rtf, .doc, .docx.  Bonus points for figuring out a way to get PDF's in as well.  Seriously, these are probably THE most single common type of documents, why are they not supported?



RTF should be fairly easy, given it's fairly limited set of markup, but I think trying to support .doc or .docx would be a major headache, given how much garbage would be present in each file. PDF would probably be a complete waste of time to even consider. 

Personally I think FA has far more pressing code issues than giving people the ability to put italic text in their stories. A simpler way might be to simply parse .txt files in the same way as comments and such, then people can use FA's normal markup.


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## kitreshawn (Aug 20, 2011)

LizardKing said:


> Personally I think FA has far more pressing code issues than giving people the ability to put italic text in their stories. A simpler way might be to simply parse .txt files in the same way as comments and such, then people can use FA's normal markup.



I'm not looking for it to display italic text (or bold, or underlined even really).  I never use that type of formatting anyway because it is usually a crutch.  And getting .doc or .docx to work would probably be easier than you might think.  Mostly it would just require stripping out all the 'garbage.'  IE you just need the proper parser.

However you are correct that FA does have larger code issues it needs to address.  Unfortunately by the same token, what does your sig say?


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## Tyvara_Panther (Aug 20, 2011)

This was addressed last year, and pretty much everything on this list is stuff that would be nice to have.

Link to the suggestion thread in the Site Discussions forum. Really I'd rather it be here, since this is where all the writers pay the most attention. I know I'm necro-ing an old thread, but there's some great ideas in there, that shouldn't go overlooked.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 21, 2011)

I'd say... go ahead and post more suggestions here if you'd like, but read through the thread Tyvara linked to first.  Our new writing admins, as well as the new site-owned (whose name I haven't yet learned how to spell), have made it known to me that they've been looking at that thread and taking the suggestions into consideration for the next incarnation of FA.  But if you have anything else to add to that list, go ahead and let it be known here so you don't resurrect an old thread, I guess.


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## Antonin Scalia (Aug 21, 2011)

When can we expect changes?  I know the people who run the site are horribly slow with that sort of thing.


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## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Aug 21, 2011)

kitreshawn said:


> *Find a better way to display longer stories.  Currently the unending wall of text is quite intimidating.  Perhaps some way to break it up into pages?



Writer FWBROWN has found a way to do this

He breaks up his story into bits, posts the first one as a submission and the rest in scraps (cleaning up his gallery and keeping from swamping the mainpage) and then links them together the way you'd link a comic

scroll down to the bottom of that story to see an example


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## Captain Howdy (Aug 21, 2011)

I'd rather there be no pages at all, as it currently is - So many websites do the 'page' thing, and it's just annoying >.> Especially when it comes to looking at galleries or something, and the max per-page is like 9-12.


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 21, 2011)

So far as readability is concerned, there's actually a pretty simple solution.  Study after study--not to mention experience from writers and readers alike--has shown that one feels like a story moves a lot faster and is an easier read when there aren't huge blocks of tiny text filling up a giant space.  Some of this, of course, falls on the writers, but I think format could help improve the look of it in general for people who know what they're doing.  So if the default formatting for the .txt files could be somehow converted into an open format, with larger type, more space between paragraphs, and a smaller text window so that the paragraphs appear squatter, people would be more inclined to read, I think.  Not to mention, it helps to have text that's got serifs.


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## â™¥Mirandaâ™¥ (Aug 21, 2011)

moving the other pages to scraps fixes the gallery issues

nine to twelve what


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