Likes in the writing contest

[Arry]

This could be easily fixed by leaving the story out the spoiler tags, but that does mean we'll end up with some super page of text, so is it not possible to limit the number of posts per page on this part of the forum to 3-5 rather than 15?

Maybe I am missing something, but I'm not sure how leaving it out of the spoiler tags would make a difference in this case. The number of likes is still visible and just as likely to be seen before reading. Having been around since before the writing contest used the spoiler tags, I have to say I love that submissions are handled that way now. Many members use the 'View Recent Posts' feature from the first page, and it made it too easy to miss posts when they were in the middle of long writing contest entries.

I'm not trying to discourage discussion here, just wanted to point out that I see real benefit to the forum overall in using the spoiler tags. And that in this case I am not sure I see how it would impact a users recognition of likes on the post.

[Raptori]

Could you not just have a standalone submissions forum where all the submission threads are consolidated, and then create a post with a link to the submissions post for that month in the monthly contest subforum? That way somebody looking for a quick read (or a masochist!) could access all the submission threads at the click of a mouse without needing to go into each subforum to do so.

Yeah I guess that'd be possible too, pretty much what I suggested but without moving the submissions thread at the end right?

[Raptori]

This could be easily fixed by leaving the story out the spoiler tags, but that does mean we'll end up with some super page of text, so is it not possible to limit the number of posts per page on this part of the forum to 3-5 rather than 15?

Maybe I am missing something, but I'm not sure how leaving it out of the spoiler tags would make a difference in this case. The number of likes is still visible and just as likely to be seen before reading. Having been around since before the writing contest used the spoiler tags, I have to say I love that submissions are handled that way now. Many members use the 'View Recent Posts' feature from the first page, and it made it too easy to miss posts when they were in the middle of long writing contest entries.

I'm not trying to discourage discussion here, just wanted to point out that I see real benefit to the forum overall in using the spoiler tags. And that in this case I am not sure I see how it would impact a users recognition of likes on the post.

The like thing is at the bottom of the post, so you wouldn't see the number until you've read the whole thing. If the submission threads were in their own subforum maybe they could be hidden from the recent posts page...?

Seems like we're getting further and further from any simple solutions though. 

[ScarletBea]

Thanks all

[D_Bates]

Maybe I am missing something, but I'm not sure how leaving it out of the spoiler tags would make a difference in this case. The number of likes is still visible and just as likely to be seen before reading. Having been around since before the writing contest used the spoiler tags, I have to say I love that submissions are handled that way now. Many members use the 'View Recent Posts' feature from the first page, and it made it too easy to miss posts when they were in the middle of long writing contest entries.

As Raptori said, for most entries the story is so long that you can't see the likes at the bottom until you get there. Obviously you can still scroll down and look anyway, but for those who don't want to see them before they've read they don't have to when it's not glaring at them in red bracketed writing just beneath where they have to expand the spoiler bar.

This is just a suggestion though to try and appease both sides. I won't pretend I know anything about forum structure and didn't even know of the view recent posts feature. I guess one advantage of submissions all being kept in the same forum is that you could cater the forum rules specifically to those types of posts. Heck, I don't know, could you even change the styles of that section so that the text comes out easier to read?

[Rukaio_Alter]

Just off the top of my head, but I've had a thought for a potential solution. How about, once the submission period is over, in the voting thread, we have a master post (or posts if there are a lot of entries) with every single entry reposted on it in spoiler tags, like so.

Jmack's Story Title by Jmack

Spoiler for Hiden:

Jmack's story

Elfy's Story Title by Elfy

Spoiler for Hiden:

Elfy's story

Raptori (and Saurus)'s Story Title by Raptori (and Saurus)

Spoiler for Hiden:

Raptori (and Saurus)'s story

That way, people like Bea will have a way to read all the entries without being led astray by the likes (since it'll be impossible to tell which likes are for which stories.) Certainly, that may be a touch more work for xiagan, but even if he doesn't want to do it, I'm certainly one of us would volunteer to set up something. Heck, I'd be willing to do it.

[D_Bates]

I considered something like that as well, though I was more thinking that the author posted something in the discussion thread for people to like instead.

Copying and pasting every story into one huge thread at the end of every month would be a huge task for anyone to undertake though.

[Raptori]

Just off the top of my head, but I've had a thought for a potential solution. How about, once the submission period is over, in the voting thread, we have a master post (or posts if there are a lot of entries) with every single entry reposted on it in spoiler tags, like so.

Jmack's Story Title by Jmack

Spoiler for Hiden:

Jmack's story

Elfy's Story Title by Elfy

Spoiler for Hiden:

Elfy's story

Raptori (and Saurus)'s Story Title by Raptori (and Saurus)

Spoiler for Hiden:

Raptori (and Saurus)'s story

That way, people like Bea will have a way to read all the entries without being led astray by the likes (since it'll be impossible to tell which likes are for which stories.) Certainly, that may be a touch more work for xiagan, but even if he doesn't want to do it, I'm certainly one of us would volunteer to set up something. Heck, I'd be willing to do it.

With that we could even try out the anonymous submissions idea, which I think at least @Elfy was in favour of. Could be worth considering I guess! What's the character limit - isn't it 20k characters? Wonder how many stories would fit per post that way... though I suppose if someone is copying them all anyway it wouldn't be much more effort to spread them across multiple posts.

[JMack]

@xiagan, do not listen to these rocket scientists.    We need to keep named submissions, especially if we don't have likes.

No on the other hand, I'd keep Likes and drop names. That might actually be pretty cool.

But, really? Let's just keep things as they are.
Though the mad scientists do seem to be having a lot of fun.   

[Rukaio_Alter]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

[Justan Henner]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

Or one no vote to switch sides...

How many likes are you willing to pay? 

[Doctor_Chill]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

Or one no vote to switch sides...

How many likes are you willing to pay? 

I will give you 77 of Jmack's.

[Justan Henner]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

Or one no vote to switch sides...

How many likes are you willing to pay? 

I will give you 77 of Jmack's.

Perhaps, but I'm going to need some assurances.

[Doctor_Chill]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

Or one no vote to switch sides...

How many likes are you willing to pay? 

I will give you 77 of Jmack's.

Perhaps, but I'm going to need some assurances.

If you need a court order, I can help you with that. But don't make me bring out the blackmail folder.

[Justan Henner]

Come on people! We need two more votes for Yes!

Or one no vote to switch sides...

How many likes are you willing to pay? 

I will give you 77 of Jmack's.

Perhaps, but I'm going to need some assurances.

If you need a court order, I can help you with that. But don't make me bring out the blackmail folder.

*Ahem* I'm still sitting at 125 likes over here... Clearly you're not seeing how this phishing scam works.