Regarding your second point: if the story is not part of a group, it can be added to by anyone, just like now.

If it’s part of a group, it has to respect the rules of that group:

- If the group is open to anyone and public, then yes, anyone can see it and add to it.

- If it’s a private group, the story won’t be visible to the public anymore and only group members can add to it.

- If it’s an public but invite-only group, it’ll be visible to the public, so anyone can read it, but only group members can add it to it.

- A story can be removed from a group at any time, but it needs to conform to the group’s rules if you try to add it back again. The site will let you know whether you can add the story to the group or not.

I realize it’s a bit complex from my description, but that’s the only way to do this so that it’ll work properly. If I loosened up the way it works, I’d have to remove most of the possible rules moderators can add to their groups, and in that case everyone loses. This way, if the group wants public, open-to-all stories, they can configure themselves that way, and the stories within then will still be open to everyone as they are now.

As an aside, you won’t be able to change group rules unless the group is empty of stories. Just to reassure people that the rules won’t change after the fact.

As I mentioned over on James’s profile yesterday, I’m really hoping this does change the usage flow on-site. I fully expect circles to crop up where small multi-author collaborations on larger stories or projects can happen. I’ll be adding other, related new features to help this happen, like dead-ends, methods to export your work to standard file formats, and ways to mark-up or edit someone else’s posts. I think this will really help people in terms of collaborating between a couple of authors on a novel, for instance.

Moderators will be able to edit posts within their groups, too, which should make for some interesting changes to how the system works.

The other aspect to writing circles is to try and break up some of the clique-y stuff going on currently. I think it may be scaring off new users a bit, aside from the bold and brazen. We’ll still have some system groups (i.e. official Protagonize groups) where the core members who are on here all the time can keep chatting together, but I really want to encourage growth and limit the watered-down effect I’m seeing right now on the site as we grow without much structure.

Again, any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. And yes, I’m painfully busy. :/

I’m really happy with the new additions in recent weeks, but I can’t help wonder how the addition of groups will change the flow on-site.

I can see a lot more potential for encouraging off-site collaboration (“hey, let’s try to write a book together!”) by creating genre and “feel”-based groups. Also, the group approach will really step up the possibility of workshops, where writers can submit a chapter and ask for more in-depth criticism than would normally be offered.

You’re a busy man, aren’t you?