How to locate new stories

[thethundercloud]

How are people really using this site to locate stories? The reason I ask is that I find it annoying as hell since I always stumble over the same stories. There are lists of the most recent stories in all categories, but myself I would very much prefer avoid entering the category, story code etc to see if there is a story updated or not. If every category listed the date of the latest update (and optionally if you had visited the category since it was updated) then I would save myself a lot of clicking. I have a reasonable grasp of how often I have time to check new stories here so the actual last update of the story is a great way to make me keep track of what I have read and not read. Apologies if there is some way to achieve what I desire that I have missed, but I have been unable to find it.

Speaking about something else I also wonder what the point is with listing empty categories? Maybe the category might prompt people into writing something for a certain fandom...but on the other hand an empty category also pretty much prove none of the fans of the fandom is here, right? Little reason to start writing if nobody is interested. As an example, looking at the books category about 30 of the 35 sections are empty. I think the experience of using the site would improve if the site automatically filtered away empty categories and only presented them when people are about to really add new stories.

Thoughts?

[Trae]

It isn't necessary for you to enter any category to view the most recent stories.  The five most recent stories are listed at the bottom of the main page of the archive.  Alternatively, you could also click on the Browse Stories link at the top right of the archive.  By default this will list all stories, with the most recently updated at the top of the listing.  In this view you also have the ability to change how the stories are being sorted.  You can change the sorting order from the most recently updated to the oldest.  You could sort them by alphabetically by title, when they were first posted, number of words in the story, number of chapters in the story, etc.  In other words, in this view you can sort by any of the columns that appear there.  From this view you can also apply a filter to your view, by clicking on a story category, or a story code, or even a character that appears under any of the story titles in the listing. 

In regards to the empty categories.  We (the EFFN staff) have discussed multiple times how to deal with empty categories.  The pros and cons of them being visible versus them being hidden.  Ultimately we decided to take the optimistic approach that if people see the categories available, that they will come and post stories.

[thethundercloud]

It isn't necessary for you to enter any category to view the most recent stories.  The five most recent stories are listed at the bottom of the main page of the archive.  Alternatively, you could also click on the Browse Stories link at the top right of the archive.  By default this will list all stories, with the most recently updated at the top of the listing.  In this view you also have the ability to change how the stories are being sorted.  You can change the sorting order from the most recently updated to the oldest.  You could sort them by alphabetically by title, when they were first posted, number of words in the story, number of chapters in the story, etc.  In other words, in this view you can sort by any of the columns that appear there.  From this view you can also apply a filter to your view, by clicking on a story category, or a story code, or even a character that appears under any of the story titles in the listing.

Thanks for the assistance. The browse story feature does indeed solve many of the issues. I had no idea I could drill into a certain category from this view.

Btw it would be neat if you could have custom filters...for instance Celebrity stories and poetry is not my thing so having an option to remove those from the browse story listing (or reduce them to one lines with just category and title) would be great. About 20 stories is nice number to view, but preferably it should be 20 stories you are interested in... 

In regards to the empty categories.  We (the EFFN staff) have discussed multiple times how to deal with empty categories.  The pros and cons of them being visible versus them being hidden.  Ultimately we decided to take the optimistic approach that if people see the categories available, that they will come and post stories.

I very much understand the reasoning about people getting prompted to write when they see the categores...how often do you evaluate the rate empty categories get content?

Perhaps you could have an option that let the user select if he want to see the empty categories or not?

[Trae]

I shall have to ponder your suggestions regarding being able to filter out things.  Though we don't have a story code for poetry, so being able to filter that out would be difficult. 

I don't keep track of the fill rate of the categories.  The rest of the staff would have to speak to that one. 

The option to hide empty categories seem fairly reasonable.  I'll add it to the list for potential features for review.