Young Writers Society

Snoink wrote:A quick comment... for me, the PM page takes three times to load compared to the other YWS pages. Just something I noticed.

Delete some private messages.

Would it be possible to install a gizmo in the private messaging area to allow adding multiple people at once instead of typing in each name at a time? Or perhaps a way to make contact groups? Obviously not a pressing issue, but another crutch for all those lazy folk out there like me. ;)

Hey Lumi, I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, but you can add more than one person at a time to a PM:


Just add one person per line, then click on Add.

It would be cool to have contact groups. With the new YWS, one of the features I hope to implement are lists for the people you are following. It shouldn't be too hard to then make it so that you could send a PM to a specific list.

You are the most incredible kangaroo. Good thing it only took me seventeen months to find out about this!

Yay, my name is in Nate's PM. Hopefully it isn't to fire me for not doing my job properly.

Anyhow, I have two other suggestions.

The first is the ability to see view counts within a work as opposed to only in the list view of the forums. The second is to see the size of a work. Word counts would be great, but the size in kilobytes would probably also give us some idea.

Hm... is there a way for the mere mortals (like myself) to check out how many reviews have been done overall in the month, other than following your blog, Nate? Maybe I just like data, but it could be neat to have stats in a more find-able place. Also, is there a hall of fame? "Most reviews done in a 24-hour period by one member." Not that I think people here are competitive or anything and might want to challenge records..or anything.

RachaelElg wrote:Hm... is there a way for the mere mortals (like myself) to check out how many reviews have been done overall in the month, other than following your blog, Nate? Maybe I just like data, but it could be neat to have stats in a more find-able place. Also, is there a hall of fame? "Most reviews done in a 24-hour period by one member." Not that I think people here are competitive or anything and might want to challenge records..or anything.

Well... I hesitate to give this away, but there is a way.

First, the statistics broken down by year and month are here:
All Statistics

Second, the stats showing the number of reviews by day for the last 90 days are here:
Reviews by Day

I hesitate not because I like hoarding data to myself, but because they can take a very long time to load and too many people accessing those pages will cause the server to crash. So, try to access them only once a day. Also, if neither page has been accessed for more than a few hours by anyone, it could take up to 20 minutes for it to load. After that initial load, though, it only takes a few seconds during the next few hours. If nothing loads after 20 minutes (or alternatively, if nothing is shown after it stops loading), simply refresh. Keep in mind that these were really built just for my use, so I haven't taken any steps to make them user accessible. However, they do work.

Regarding the all-time stats, stuff like that could be done. However, at the moment, I can say with near-certainty that the most reviews in 24 hours record belongs to Demoness.

On the front page there's a button (showing your current number of reviews) that links you to: my_reviews.php . I like how it shows your last few reviews, and your grand total so far, but would it also be possible for it to show how many more reviews you need to do for the next star? It's not essential, but it would be quite handy (and motivational!).

If that's going to put too much load on the server, then perhaps it might be worth putting the review star reference table on there, or at least a link to it, so it's really easy to find? Or perhaps there's another way of checking this that I've missed!

Charlie

Would it be possible for there to be an option where we could edit our statuses and replies to statuses? I'm not sure if it would be possible, but I thought I'd ask.

I'm extremely prone to typos, so I often have to delete statuses and rewrite them. Plus I sometimes just read over my replies/statuses and realise that I made no sense whatsoever... I'm sure (or at least I hope) I'm not the only one.

Thanks!

Skins wrote:Would it be possible for there to be an option where we could edit our statuses and replies to statuses? I'm not sure if it would be possible, but I thought I'd ask.

I'm extremely prone to typos, so I often have to delete statuses and rewrite them. Plus I sometimes just read over my replies/statuses and realise that I made no sense whatsoever... I'm sure (or at least I hope) I'm not the only one.

Thanks!

I agree with Skins... Yup.

-Just

Why is it we can't unfollow our review teams? I mean, once the review day is done, I really don't want all the notifications that follow.

I'm still getting some from team Power Ranger from May....

borntobeawriter wrote:Why is it we can't unfollow our review teams? I mean, once the review day is done, I really don't want all the notifications that follow.

I'm still getting some from team Power Ranger from May....

I agree with you Borntobe! Also, why can't you delete your clubs? I have a club from NaNoWriMo I did last year that I didn't even finish. No one wants to see it so shouldn't we make it an option to delete it?

I would suggest making the moderating more transparent (less totalitarian) and redesigning the site from ground up. Feeds for instance have cyclically destroyed everything good about this site.

inkwell wrote:I would suggest making the moderating more transparent (less totalitarian) and redesigning the site from ground up. Feeds for instance have cyclically destroyed everything good about this site.

Right.

Here's the problem, inkwell. Regarding moderating, the moderators frequently have to make decisions based on information that should not necessarily be shared. In fact, it's a lot like sexual harassment cases. You don't want the victim to be victimized anymore than he or she already has.

And in fact, I think if you compare YWS to moderating on a lot of sites, our moderating is actually quite transparent. People are always free to disagree with decisions, and if someone contests a ban, we do take into consideration what that person said. In all cases, we even try to get both sides of the story. Compare that to a site like WritingForums.org where I was permanently banned for posting a link to the YWS Kindle contest back in June. My attempts to get any sort of explanation whatsoever or even just a one-word response have been completely in vain. Yet, as a private company, that is completely their right. In fact, I have no right to an explanation. It's just annoying, which is why I make sure that every person who is banned gets an e-mail and a way to contest their ban. Sometimes, the decision is wrong and it is reversed (we even have some people on the all-volunteer YWS staff who were "permanently" banned at one time or another).

Now if you have a specific critique, then message me and we can discuss it rather than you simply making a back-handed insult to the moderating team on this site. By the way, if you think the moderating style is totalitarian, then you really are quite loose in how you define the term. I prefer to reserve such extreme terminology to governments like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or the military junta of Myanmar. You seem to prefer to apply it to people who are volunteers, mostly minors, and who work very hard to do a good job.

On your "suggestion" of redesigning the site from the ground up, do you really comprehend the magnitude of your suggestion? Do you understand that YWS is simply a home-brew endeavor, and that your suggestion entails months of work for one man (namely, me)? I suppose you do not because you just called the moderating team totalitarian, which would imply that you see YWS as a powerful entity rather than as something that was put together in one's free time.

Although, for what it is worth, I am working on redesigning the site to take care of a lot of issues. However, as I said, that's going to take a ton of time and effort. I appreciate whatever patience you can afford me in that task.

Lastly, about the "feeds," most of those features have been in place since you've been a member. They aren't slowly killing the site. Far from it. Rather, all that's going on is that you don't enjoy them while other people do. As I'm sure you understand, it's impossible to satisfy everyone and it's a fool's task to even try. So when I do redesign the site from the ground up, I hope everyone will understand that certain decisions will need to be made that will not please everyone. Some will like the old site better, and some may hate the new site so much that they move on to other writing sites. That is of course their prerogative, and I hardly begrudge anyone's decision to join a non-YWS site. What I do begrudge are ridiculous characterizations, impatience, and the freeloader mentality.

Don't take it personally! I just have to get 100% of my information off-hand. It would be nice to hear from the mods themselves sometimes. The stories I hear about peoples' accounts being entered by moderators is horrifying. Perhaps I took too much liberty in expressing myself. Compared to other sites, you're absolutely right. Little inkwell's not worth getting all hot and bothered by.