Reviewing the forum, Battle For The Last Post! makes me think a real time chat would be a good feature for this website. Anyone else have another suggestion for bettering LitReactor?
I'd like a chatroom as well but I don't think it's going to happen.
The team seems to be very open to suggestions, so I wouldn't snub the idea of a chat room. I recently messaged Kirk about having different criteria in the workshop for non-fiction pieces since essays generally lack characters and dialogue.
Do you need it to be integrated into the website? If you're willing to download a client, it'd take maybe 45 seconds to create a #LitReactor IRC channel.
I think we totally need a chatroom.
I would download a client and go to an outside website.
A chat room would kill my productivity at work. Right now it suffers because of Litreactor, but seriously... I won't be able to resist a chat room! You guys make my day brighter. Talking with ya'll in real time would be too awesome.
I'm confused on the downloading part but until then we should all meet up in a chat-room somewhere, that would be cool. I hang out in the Cult chat sometimes but it's usually just me :/
Oh, just thought of something else that would be helpful -- for me at least, but I'm sure there are others. If there were an option to manually pay the $9.00 workshop fee rather than have it automatically charge your account. I'm a poor college student worried about overdraft fees, so the control would be nice.
More achievements... Maybe reward points for a few of the achievements.
A masterclass taught by Chuck. Just throwing it out there...
Chuck will teach one eventually I'm sure.
We discussed the inclusion of a chatroom, the truth is, they tend to not get used frequently enough to make it actually worthwhile. So it's not likely that we'll run our own. However, if it turns into the sort of thing a lot of people want, we might look into a 3rd party option first, to gage it's popularity. It takes a lot of resources to run a chat room so I really need to be convinced.
If you guys opt to use IRC for now, I will gladly promote that.
If there were an option to manually pay the $9.00 workshop fee rather than have it automatically charge your account.
Pro-tip: You can technically just sign up for a month, then cancel your membership immediately after if you so choose.
More achievements... Maybe reward points for a few of the achievements.
Working on more, but it is unlikely that we will award points for achievements. Doing so gives people a tanglible reason to try to exploit the system.
I set up a quick and dirty #LitReactor channel on irc.synirc.net.
Webchat link is here: http://cgiirc.synirc.net. Pick a name and put in #LitReactor as the channel name. Any desktop IRC application will work, too.
I have a weird love for achievements. Glad to hear that.
I'll hang out in Steve's Litreactor channel when I'm on here so we can all party there!
Wait, Chat Roulette isn't the official Litreactor chat room? Then what the hell was that dude talking about last night? Wait? Am I the little bitch?
Sorry that was me, you clicked out before I got naked though.
@bryanhowie
I thought everybody just liked to read with their pants off.
@jacks_username Rookie mistake. Gotta get everything out before you cam up, or you could lose the opportunity.
Or I could wear a bra, build up the anticipation.
I'd love to be able to sort through submissions by rating at well as by number of reviews. Sometimes you just want to read something really good, sometimes you want to help out someone whose piece may have been ignored or overlooked.
If possible, I'd also prefer it if, when you responded to comments on your own piece, it wouldn't get added into the number of total reviews. A back and forth conversation with one person can end up looking like everyone on the site has already given their two cents which might discourage someone from commenting.
If possible, I'd also prefer it if, when you responded to comments on your own piece, it wouldn't get added into the number of total reviews. A back and forth conversation with one person can end up looking like everyone on the site has already given their two cents which might discourage someone from commenting.
- Totally agree. I just replied to the three people that reviewed my story, now it reads as if six people have reviewed it.
Working on that. It will be in the next update.
@Kirk: Cool. Thanks.
More ways to win free subscritptions.
Free book giveaways and nude member photos!
I wouldn't mind going to LA for a Litreactor meet-up.
I'll go if Chuck Palahniuk and Craig Clevenger are there.
...maybe Vegas?
I was originally going to say that as a joke, but flights are usually pretty cheap from anywhere to there I think.
An achievement for 5-star overall reviews. Maybe it has to stay consistent for a week or so.
I second @EricWojo on that one.
I think that a lot of them would end up with something like -nkwilczy got stoned and forgot he downloaded this story three times already, because when I go through my downloads folder to clean it out recently I usually have 3 or 4 copies of stories I read most of or read once before I got distracted and usually a couple more of stories I actually reviewed, it doesn't really mean that those stories weren't compelling or were less compelling than the stories I actually reviewed, I just didn't get around to breaking them down properly in a timely fashion and moved on. Because there are a lot of stories in there.
So I feel like that might cultivate unnecesarry tension in, what I assume would be, a group of people more than ready to freak out about whether their story "hits." I could totally see me beating myself up about a completely meaningless number like that, any meaningless number that pertains to my writing becomes this existential judgement, and that is not an emotion cycle that is productive, do you know what I mean? Obviously, I may well be a freak case here, so don't mind me if most people want to see download numbers, I just wanted to list the cons.
Have you guys seen Secretary? I think we need something like that.
You think we need a mentally unstable slutty secretary?
I think we should evaluate the drawbacks too avery, I mean, sure she'll be crazy and slutty, but how good is her dictation? Will she lose paperwork?
Seriously, if she doesn't have at least 1-3 years of experience with Microsoft Outlook, I'm out.
That movie is insane.
I was thinking of the taskmaster that will spank us when we misbehave. But yeah. We can go with the masochistic woman in the throws of sexual liberation and self-discovery. Either works for me.
Okay - not sure why my brain went to slutty secretary first...
The taskmaster does make more sense.....
Either one is pretty damn fine motivation.
Not to break the Secretary minithread we got going on here, but what if there was a way of showing people what we are still actively working/ still looking for reviews on? It seems like they kind of top out around 8... I know I generally pass over highly reviewed pieces just because I'm not all that sure that I've got THAT much different to say, but if there was some way of designating it as Active or something, I'd be more likely to hit it up.
I know this is probably a pain in the ass to code but I figured I'd throw it out there.
Ok, end of rant.
What more is there to say about a story after 8 detailed reviews though?
Well, touche Jacks_Username, great point.
I'm thinking more along the lines of suggestions to an issue. Bryanhowie came in big with my 'battle' story with a comment that really pulled the whole thing together. So I guess it wouldn't be so much for detailed reviews.
And it wouldn't have to be anything huge--just an icon or something to put in the header, or a searchable category maybe?--again, not sure how much other users would find this useful and/or how hard it is to code, but figured I'd throw it out there.
I understand not coding signatures but a quote button would be very useful. I'm probably sounding like a broken record now.
Free book giveaways and nude member photos!
I've been considering this (the giveaways, not the photos). I've gotten so many ARCs and even finished books that I'll never have time to read, so I'd like to find them a good home. But you guys would have to EARN them.
@David - I think that's a good idea. I mean, if you, as a reviewer, don't feel you have anything more you can add, then by all means don't review it. But I think everyone picks up on different things.
...thinking....I mean, would it be easier if we just deleted stories we were no longer looking for reviews on? Can we do that?
You do the give aways, I'll handle the nude pictures!
The problem right now is that 8 reviews sometimes are 3 reviews and then 3 comments and 2 followups. As soon as the coding gets put in to show only reviews in the number of reviews, it'll really change the number of reviews a piece gets.
And I don't read other people's reviews before I post mine. So there's always something to say, even if it's been said before. If it's repeated, then it's a problem everyone sees, I figure.
I always read the other reviews and try to craft my review in a different way (you have 7 LBL's and no real discussion of character/plot mechanics...)
But, yes, right now I am scared to reply and give proper thanks/seek clarification until I think that I've gotten all of the reviews I can get, just because I don't want my replies to inflate my review numbers.
Not a surefire scheme though, I still end up going early a lot of the time if I need some clarification.
I always do my questions and thank yous in a PM. If you review me, I will likely have a question or want to run something by you. So I do it in PM so I can feel free to have a conversation without looking like I've had a billion reviews.