6 replies to this topic

[kalia]

So it seems our comments thread here is booming right along, but the stories don't seem to be getting much attention. I know I feel a little odd commenting in the middle of someone's story, and the main stories section here at Spellhold Studios has it set up a little differently. There's a dedicated "Comments On...." thread for each posted story thread.

Opinions?

[Xetirox]

Hmmm, I think a comment thread for each story might clutter the place up a bit. But on the other hand, commenting in the thread might cause some interruption in the flow of the story (if it happens to be multi-chaptered, or if several stories are included). However, at this point, all the threads are kept relatively short, and new things come out at a slow rate. Perhaps a possible compromise at this point in time would be the "author" could give the "okay" in their thread for people to comment if they feel they won't be adding anything else to the story for some length of time.

Another thing about the story board is that many of them are used as a vehicle to present screenshots. Nothing wrong with that at all, but what feedback are people looking for? Comments on their screens are probably most definitely desired, but would they like some on their writing as well?

[SeV]

way to make use of the polling system Kalia-bear

[Rumpleteasza]

I see what you're thinking, and it does have a precedent, but I voted no.

I think, with picture-stories, commenting in the thread is less likely to interrupt the continuity, because it's a slightly different medium to plain prose. In the Scribbles on the Wall section the separate comment thread works very well, but that's because people are posting multi-layered plots and ongoing narrative developments, which random interspersed comments really would disrupt. But the picture stories are usually focused mainly around the screenshots, and it's easier to follow a visual train of thought than a textual one.

Besides, picture stories recieve less detailed critique and review than the other types of writing here do, and so the comments aren't really all that long or obtrusive. Reading the stories we already have up, I never found the scattered comments annoying or disruptive.

[kalia]

So perhaps it would be up to the authors' discretion, but maybe a post like this:

"COMMENTS PLEASE! - end of story" (or "end of section" or "no story for a while") after the last story post? That'd be helpful for me. And if someone wanted writing critique as well, they could mention that there -- I know we have a lot of folks for whom english is a second language, so I don't as a rule "critique" the writing, just comment on general story setup. Then what I'd really like is right before the next segment the author could post a "NEXT CHAPTER" -type post to signify the beginning of story again. That's more work, slightly, for the authors posting, but would make separating comments from stories very easy. Probably only needed in the text/link stories, and not so much in things like VanQa's more comic-type stories.

[Chiglet]

Could always leave it up to the individual author. If someone, perhaps intenting to write a rather long epic, didn't want comments in the middle, they could set up a comments thread for that story. Others might alloew comments during their story-line. Or simply not care either way.

[VanQa]

Could always leave it up to the individual author. If someone, perhaps intenting to write a rather long epic, didn't want comments in the middle, they could set up a comments thread for that story. Others might alloew comments during their story-line. Or simply not care either way.

I like this idea. This leaves it up to the author to decide whether he or she wants comments or not in his/her story thread