Lunchtime poll!

[corinna_5]

So, after quite literally years, I am finally updating my fic site. I'm also tweaking the site architecture a little, to accomodate the writing I've done in that time. There are a couple of decisions I've gone back and forth on, so rather than decide arbitrarily, I thought I'd ask

Comments

[nestra]

I don't really have a preference in terms of multiple index pages or a single index page, as long as things are clearly marked.

And under "what have I left out", I didn't have room to type "a sensible organizing principle." Not that I'm concerned about your site, as I'm sure you will be sensible. But about once a month, when I check links for PolyRecs, I find someone's site where fic is organized either by date or by length. I have no idea when you wrote this story! I have no idea what the word count is! Would you call it a "ficlet" or a "short story"? NO IDEA.

And then I give up checking links and just reread fic.

[corinna_5]

Rereading fic is always a good idea.

But if you want, I'll draw you a sitemap also :)

[isiscolo]

You don't like organization by date? Personally, I dislike alphabetical organization. Because if I want to find a story by title I use the 'find' function in my browser. But if I want to find what's been added since the last time I was there, the only way I can do that is if dates are listed, and it's a lot easier if they're organized that way.

But I agree about sensible organizing principles. I did a poll a while back ( here, and to my surprise, the biggest plurality was in favor of organizing by pairing.

[nestra]

I don't mind organization by date if everything is on one page because, as you said, I can always use Find. Same case with alphabetization. My problem is when, say, I click on a fandom, and the resulting page has links to "2006 stories," "2005 stories," and "2004 stories." At that point, Find is useless, and I weep like a child.

I did a poll a while back (here, and to my surprise, the biggest plurality was in favor of organizing by pairing.

That's a surprise to me too, and it seems like it could cause problems with stories that are gen, or are hard to classify by pairing. Thinking about it, I would guess that explicitly dating stories isn't that important to me because I assume that I would read something in an author's LJ rather than on their site. It's definitely a big change from the way I used to consume my fan fiction.

[corinna_5]

LJ changes everything, doesn't it?

The only stories I've got pairing listed on right now are the DCU stories, because they're the only ones where I don't have an OTP.

Right now, I've got all the stories organized into fandom categories; fandoms with more than about 6 stories get their own page. Currently, the newer pages are organized reverse-chronologically, and the older fandoms are listed alphabetically. This is a problem, and I'm either gonna have to suck it up and try to figure out the dates of the older fandom stories, or maybe put in something at the top of the page about organizing principles.

Sadly, part of what's stopping me from reverse-chronologizing the Angel fic is that alphabetical listing leaves my favorite story in that fandom (my ridiculously long Angel-in-China fic) at the top of the list, and reverse-chron puts the "how I think S4 should have begun" story first, and I don't think it's as successful. So there you go!

[angiepen]

Sadly, part of what's stopping me from reverse-chronologizing the Angel fic is that alphabetical listing leaves my favorite story in that fandom (my ridiculously long Angel-in-China fic) at the top of the list, and reverse-chron puts the "how I think S4 should have begun" story first, and I don't think it's as successful.

OK, I'd never thought about that before but yeah, it does make a difference, doesn't it? [bemused smile] When I first really got into writing fanfic almost three years ago I was a bit tentative. I still like those stories, but they're sweeter and shmoopier and not much like what I'm writing now, or have been writing for, like, two and a half years or so. The first story on my index page is the earliest one and someone who comes along now and reads it is either going to think, "Ick, shmoop!" and go away, not knowing that there's a lot of darker, sexier, edgier, plottier stories just a bit farther down, or they're going to think, "Awww, shmoop!" and keep reading, in which case they're in for a surprise fairly soon