Plugs?

I don't know how this suggestion will go over but here it is. The Plugboard is a good idea but I would suggest that it be in a separate category such as Latest, Stats, Favs, etc. are rather than on the Homepage.

Right now the Plugs, which are essentially advertisements, are taking over the Homepage. In other words, advertisements are crowding out discussions on the Homepage and that situation can only get worse. I say this as an author who might occasionally use the Plugboard myself.

I'd recommend using the standalone version of the forum rather than the 'snapshot' provided by the home page of the main library site, that is really just intended to show the last few posts. In addition, the forum software isn't written (just modified and integrated) by myself so I don't really have a say in which forums get sampled.

The standalone version of the forum is at:

http://www.spankinglibrary.co.cc/forum/

I agree with you there, Tiptopper. The plug board is an awesome idea, but having it separate from the general forum will certainly prevent other forum posts from being missed. Also if a reader wants to check out stories of interest, they will be able to head straight for the plug board, where all the recommendations will be conveniently grouped in one place. I still think the plugs should appear on the home page so that they can be easily spotted...but in a separate box from the rest of the forum (if that makes sense) :P

Is their a need for a seperate plug board even? I don't mind a bit of plugging, especially if it's entertaining plugging. Personally, I would let the plug out on all this plugging but of course that may be a minority point of view on plugging. In which case, please feel free to tell me to plug off!

I think it's important that we have a separate plugboard since the stories we load don't include any direct interaction between author and reader like you would find on a forum where stories are posted. We want the actual stories loaded to the library part of the site to be just that, stories, and nothing else, so this is somewhere that additional dialogue can take place. It doesn't have to be used for actual plugging, we just named it like that for a bit of fun, but simply a means of drawing attention to a particular work or pointing something out about it that the author would like readers to be made aware of.

Also, given the volume of material that gets loaded, submissions sometimes run the risk of disappearing into oblivion before they've had a chance to be read. Admittedly, this is largely due to the obsession by readers with the latest loaded page but the plugboard forum and the latest loaded display on the author pages will hopefully help to make these submissions more visible. That's the theory anyway...

I appreciate the plug forum very much and think it deserves the prominent placement. In my opinion there is no better purpose for a library forum than the literature provided. As Februs said it should give authors and readers the chance to exchange views and discuss on certain story-related topics. The comments are quite nice to read, but they are more or less a one-way-channel between one reader and one author. I often would like to respond to other comments from other readers or discuss some topics in greater circles. This new forum gives us the chance to do so. As a reader I don't mind plugging at all. How else could we know what is important to the authors when they don't announce their work or talk about their stories?

I agree with mati, it's the interactivity with readers that I'm looking for and any feature that enhances that capability, I'm all for it. I'll leave the design to Februs, but he is correct that in the large volume of submissions a newly posted work will disappear from the front page quickly. Readers have to be guided to areas where they can easily find stories they would have missed if they only focused on the front page

I personally enjoy talking to readers, so anything that facilitates that, I'm all for it.


me too.

Probably less so since I retired. Still I think it;s a good feature (for others)

I started this topic as I noticed that at the time the Plugboard plugs were taking over more than half the Homepage. The way it is set up it is theoretically possible for one author who has many stories in the Library to use the Plugboard to plug ten stories at a time and completely dominate the Homepage. Luckily that has not happened and, in fact, the number of plugs has decreased.

The ideal way to deal with any potential problems without any technical changes is for the authors to use restraint and to not plug any stories if there are already more than one or two plugs already on the Homepage. In other words, simple courtesy will solve any problems without the need for any other changes.