Comments on: A few upcoming treats

By: the protagonize blog » A preview and a retrospective

the protagonize blog » A preview and a retrospective — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:20:47 +0000

[...] in January, I put together a laundry list of features and enhancements that I had lined up for the site, including Challenges, a visual overhaul of author profiles, [...]

By: Nick

Nick — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:56:14 +0000

Hey guys, just a quick note to let you know that the editing feature is now live on the site. You can make a story editable at any time via story settings (if you’re the original author) or when you publish it. Let me know how you like it!

By: TERRY L. ROBISON

TERRY L. ROBISON — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:55:12 +0000

I’d like to put my toes in the water to try this site out, for as my mother used to say: here’s at least one book in each of us; so I take that to apply to her only daughter, who was writing poetry for the fun of it by age 12 and who went on to graduate from San Francisco State University with a BA in English/Literature/drama/speech. After TESOL training at UCLA, Terry Lee, a new Peace Corps Volunteer to Nigeria, taught for two years at Mercy Secondary School in Okigwe, Nigeria, and now hopes to return to teach p/t and to write there f/t; however, moving to Tuscaloosa, AL is her first priority in order to hone rusty writing skills at Skillman College in Tuscaloosa. Sometime in 2009 though, she will, Lord Willing, with seasoned passport in hand, Hele on to Bayelsa, Ogume, (Novena
University) to serve again some 40 years later: what goes around hopefully does come around again, only sweeter than before! Mahalo for listening, ALOHA, Terry Lee

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 02:03:36 +0000

@DarkLiquid Yeah, sounds kinda Wikipedia-style. That’d be a bit more challenging to implement, so I’ll probably leave the option open for adding it down the road.

I’ll see what I can do about adding this in my next batch of changes… hopefully in the coming couple of weeks.

By: uselessness

uselessness — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:06:15 +0000

I think that sounds like a fair compromise. Editing earlier chapters can be used to fix continuity errors (via retcon) just as easily as it can be used to make them. I think generally it’s a good idea just to give authors the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their work.

By: Dark Liquid

Dark Liquid — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:13:48 +0000

Another idea would be to take a similar approach to dead-end stories, etc and allow edits, but on collaborative stories edits to things that have posts that continue on from it need to be approved by a majority of people further down the chain.

By: nick

nick — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:15:42 +0000

Your suggestion gave me an interesting idea. To be honest, the time limit on edits is pretty arbitrary – it used to be an hour, now it’s 24 hours. It could be infinite as far as that goes. As for not allowing edits when someone’s posted a follow-up, that’s to avoid continuity issues.

Now, if I were to add a switch to stories where the author could decide whether to allow edits after-the-fact or not, would that be a suitable solution? It could be a toggle in story settings, much like the mature flag and solo/collaborative flags. That way, authors worried about continuity issues could disable edits, but you could also leave them on and edit at any time… thoughts?

By: uselessness

uselessness — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:30:50 +0000

Wow, so many great things on the way! This is an exciting place to be part of. I particularly like the one about tagging other authors for participation in a story.

I think my biggest wish list item is just the removal of the 24-hour-or-someone-writes-a-sequel restriction on editing. I don’t much like having a story of mine Stuck Forever with a typo that I didn’t see at the time but is now glaringly obvious. And sometimes you just want to rewrite part of something old, and make it better. Back on Ficlets (which I’m sure you’re more than sick of hearing about) it was nice to go back and blatantly retcon a chapter for continuity or to add foreshadowing. Of course people may abuse it from time to time, but I think it’s still worth it!

Anyway, I like your approach. This place shouldn’t be too similar to Ficlets, keep innovating and looking for new lands to explore

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:25:29 +0000

Hey Ana,

Yeah, you’re right that the inspiration feature would be kinda cool. I’ll think about it; the only thing is I’d prefer not to rip-off unique Ficlets features quite so blatantly. I wonder what I could build that could provide similar functionality without being exactly the same…

By: Ana Cristina

Ana Cristina — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:29:31 +0000

I love the ideas you posted here, most especially the ability to leave stories in “Draft” form, which is something I really took advantage of in Ficlets. I think Protagonize so far is pretty darn awesome.The only thing it doesn’t have that I dearly miss from Ficlets is the inspiration feature, where you could use a picture, a quote, etc. to jump-start your creativity.
Go here to see what I mean: http://ficlets.com/inspiration