Not sure if this has been asked or suggested...

[Guest Opinionated Asmodeus]

But is there any possible way to make the entire archive area and whatnot more user friendly, as well as posting stories? It was a complete headache to figure out how to post the one fanfic I currently have up, and I am not looking forward to posting the remainder of my stories up here because of how...complicated the whole process of getting to that is.

[BronxWench]

It would help if we knew what parts of the process were hard for you to use.

On the whole, it's a pretty straightforward process. I've posted fics elsewhere myself, and AFF is no harder than most. I actually found FFN to be the largest pain in the nethers, because I had to upload my story to their editor and then fix everything their editor did to my formatting. I haven't posted there in years but I can't imagine it's much better.

[BelleLaVictorie]

The whole process seems counter-intuitive for me, personally.

I can see how the interface is organized to try and make it easy for people to put a story where it belongs, but I find that it is unusually difficult to actually make the story they want to.

I have used other sites to post original content, but have been looking for other places to submit fanfiction. I would personally love to have an editor section and the ability to go back after a story is submitted to make changes and edits to the original submission. It might just my sleepy-brain talking, but I joined this website thinking that it was a bit more... Refined.

The category widget thingys on the left side of the screen seems like the second or third step you should take when submitting a story.

I was expecting a button chain like as follows:

Upload a Story(button) > Name Your Story & Add Summary > Submit Your File/Paste Into Editor > Preview Submission > Assign category and tags > Final Submit > View/Edit/Delete Submission

Or something like that. For that particular chain, assigning a category would come as the 5th step.

I like submitting stories 80% finished and getting user-feedback on my work before making the final 20% in changes and fixes. That is my personal style as of late and the whole "finalized draft with needing to submit a new file with administrator review for any changes" really intimidates me.

I don't mind admin oversight, but I do mind administration bottlenecks.

Sometimes I don't notice a simple misspell until after I submit. For minor edits to the submission like that, I want to go in, change a letter or two, and no one notices except for me.

I don't want an admin to go and tell me: "It's only one letter. Merging your submission takes too much effort, so I'll just delete your second copy."

I'm sure this whole administration method is an artifact from a previous era of the internet when administrator permissions were required to do simple tasks. With modern website programming, this should no longer be the case. Having to rely on administrator intervention every time something little goes wrong should not happen.

Right now I'm second-guessing my choice of using this website. It feels like the only reason this place succeeds as much as it does today is because there is literally nowhere else to go.

I would reccomend a review of the archive system and a full website rework and modernization from scratch. Clone the archives, user accounts, and all the relevant and salvagable info and port them over. I've seen it done before and all I can say is that it was a hell of a mess. However, the end result was well worth it. Old accounts had missing information, but that was more due to archive incompatibility with the new system.

I hope this is partially helpful. I've been meaning to find a place to submit my adult fanfictions for quite some time, but the websites all have debillitating issues. This website has user interface problems with lack of features such as editing existing submissions and retrograde editing/tagging/reclassing.

I'm sure there are other things, but this is the deal-breaker for me.

[BronxWench]

I'm not understanding why you can't edit a story or chapter once it's been published. It's quite easy to do, and there is an option to edit the story. It's done in the Rich Text Editor.

At no point in the process of submitting a story is administrator intervention necessary. It never has been. There is a validation procedure to create your account, and that's it. The rest is all done by the user directly. Can you point me to where you needed an adminstrator's approval?

While we would love to be able to purchase new software, and revamp the archive, we are a free website. We make enough money from our advertising banners and the occasional member donation to cover our hosting costs and that's about it. The entire staff, owner, administrators, moderators and clean-up crew, are volunteers. We do this for the love of the site.

We're well aware that we can't please everyone, and we're sorry that you find us lacking. Hopefully, you'll find another site more to your liking.

[DemonGoddess]

While I would LOVE to be able to do that, where the category is assigned later on down the chain, it's not possible. Not with a code rewrite, or anything like that. That has to do with the database structure itself. Each subdomain has, for all intents and purposes, a mini db. At the time this split was made, it was necessary due to OS limitations for database size. We were able to trick it by using the tables as mini dbs, in to seeing the different table sets as mini dbs, which made it so we didn't exceed the (at the time) 2GB database size limitation.

Now, many years later, this database is 9GB in size altogether. There is no feasible way to merge all those tables in to one set, and make one database to be able to do what you want. Not even with cloning. We already HAVE a mess we're fixing, and frankly, I am not at all interested in making it even worse and having that much more to manually repair. Me, myself, and I, that is.

If we were to "start from scratch", we'd lose a huge amount of data. That is not acceptable, so won't be happening.

The software itself is actually in the process being completely rewritten and modernized, as we are well aware of the code deficiencies in the old software. However, the rewrite is being done in such a way as to PRESERVE all the data, not lose any of it.

[BelleLaVictorie]

The software itself is actually in the process being completely rewritten and modernized, as we are well aware of the code deficiencies in the old software. However, the rewrite is being done in such a way as to PRESERVE all the data, not lose any of it.

Have you considered the possibility of starting a new website from the ground up and "freezing" the old website? That way you can keep all of the old stories nice and safe while taking in new stories through the new website in a new, singular shared archive/table/whatever. This way you won't have to worry about manually porting anything until much, much later.

I understand money is tight, but you have a dedicated community. I'm sure with some thought you can find SOME solution that won't require you to "live with what you got."

I keep reading announcments from as recently as this month on the front page about how the community is growing. Here in the forums I keep reading that you're struggling to keep this thing afloat. This is sending mixed messages.

It sounds a lot like you are working with an outsourced server with all the talk of data limits and hosting costs. Have you considered the possibility of hosting your own server? Terabyte hard drives are not that expensive anymore, and since fanfiction.org is a text-based site, bandwidth is a lot cheaper. I've seen simple servers that go for as little as 400USD (software not included, but linux can get you stuff for free). As a server owner, you would have more control over what you CAN do as opposed to what you are forced to do.

Again, you have a dedicated community and you would have to crunch the numbers yourself because I have no idea what things would cost where you live. You know your local companies better than I do. With websites like kickstarter, you could potentially fund a professional upgrade of everything including software. By professional, I mean hire a contractor to do the heavy lifting.

1000 people donating 10 dollars each will get you $10,000.

If those numbers on your front page are not just for show, that is. I'm trying to help, here. Running a website isn't easy, I know. However, the problems you are running into right now sounds like a chronic problem that won't go away without a major change in something fundamental.

______________________________________________________________________

As for Bronx, I'm one of those users that actually read all of the FAQs before posting as well as all the TOS and User Guidelines. The fact that I know as much as I do about this website comes from what YOU guys have posted and what I have seen. Your hostility is unhelpful. I reccomend YOU read the stuff YOU write before accusing others of not doing their homework. The one thing I hate more than a broken website is when the staff get hostile when someone points out a problem. It is unprofessional and most of all wrong.

The only reason why I KNOW how to submit stories is because I spent an hour SEARCHING for the FAQ.

The user interface is a mess, and new users struggle to figure it out. That much is obvious.

A broken user interface is the number 1 reason why websites fail.

"I know where everything is because I've been here since forever" is NOT a legitimate excuse. If anything, its a sign that the website is in decline when the community and staff say that. Turning away new users because you don't want them in your 'sekrit klub' never works. If anything, it HURTS ad income. You want more hits and clicks, and the only way to do that is new users.

Accesibility should always be your number 1 priority.

[BronxWench]

One of the limitations of communication via post is the inability to determine tone and mood. I am not hostile, and in fact, I was making every effort to interpret your post as merely youthful brashness.

To edit a simple misspelling does not require administrator input. In reading what you wrote earlier, it appears that you are confusing the procedure for merging stories that have been rewritten from the ground up, generally after the stories were completed, or if the author has decided to go in another direction. In such cases, we ask that the author post the rewritten version of the story separately, since editing multiple chapters in the Rich Text Editor, especially when there are extensive changes to be made, is difficult at best. At such time as the new version is either fully posted, or has reached the same point as the original story, we merge the statistics and reviews for the stories. This allows the author to retain all the original reviews, ratings, and hit count data as well as the statistics and reviews accrued on the rewritten version. In other words, we are not penalizing the author for rewriting a story.

This is NOT the normal procedure for editing a story, which I do believe is quite clear in the FAQ on the topic. Database access is limited to DemonGoddess alone, to prevent corruption of the data. Given that she works full time and more, beyond the time she volunteers here at AFF, it would be irrational to have every single edit require her approval.

I do not believe that I ever said to you that I know where everything is because I've been here forever. You would be hard pressed to find any of the staff having said that, nor do any of us see ourselves as part of an exclusive clique. I would prefer that you not put words into my mouth, so to speak. I am a blunt old thing, and I will say exactly what I mean. I will point out that your tone in your initial post was not exactly conducive to establishing a cordial atmosphere. Generally, when I offer constructive criticism, I do try to offer a bit of positive input as well as pointing out areas which can be improved. You might want to keep that in mind when you offer your critique of the site.

[DemonGoddess]

• I do not appreciate you reading in to what I say, something entirely different from what I said. As with Bronx, I'm a blunt old thing. In point of fact, I'm blunt enough that I TEMPER that here, so as to not offend people.

No one, was, in fact, hostile, except perhaps for you.

"Freezing" a site, as you say, to rebuild from the ground up is not practical. By doing that, we have an archive that cannot be added to while this ground up rebuild is done. That is not going to happen. The whole POINT of what we're doing, is to stay live while the changes are made.

If this archive is not to your tastes, find another one.