None story “stories”

[Ginger Herten]

I’m curious what other people feel about “stories” that aren’t typical short story form stories. The recent posting of the “story” that was actually a collection of AI generated pictures is what got me thinking about it.

I have already expressed some thoughts on this over in the “report a story” forum, but I wanted to have a more general discussion.

[Ginger Herten]

The original post

And my thoughts from it:
“I guess part of my indecision on the subject is that I’m not sure whether or not it adds value. I’ve still got an open mind on the subject. The AI generated stories are what has been pushing stories off the front page really quickly, so far, this has been a one off, so I’m not too worried yet. Leaving it up till HSNadmin gets to form his own decision seems harmless enough. Of course even when I do take stuff down immediately, I don’t do it permanently, I leave the final decision to HSN admin, because obviously this is his site, I just lend a hand.

It does feel more like something that belongs here in the forum than with the stories, but this forum is very under utilized, so I get why it was posted as a Story instead.

In someways it’s sort of a story, like a picture book, though the picture aren’t in the stories they are illustrating. Of course, there are reasons adults often prefer books without pictures, it lets us use our imaginations to fill in some of the blanks.

I’m not sure why this forum is so under utilized. You’d think it would be a natural place to congregate. I don’t know if there is one around I just haven’t found yet that’s lively like LTAH used to be before it was deliberately taken over.

We probably should have a broader discussion of this subject, what about none story stories, in the more general discussion section of the forum.”

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Ginger Herten.

[klaatu48]

I had a very similar thought — I love the idea of the pictures being shared, but I felt it should be a forum post. But I also knew that seemed to be a losing battle…

Maybe the forums need to be more integrated with the front page? Like, maybe a very small section that shows the 5 latest active discussions and links to them? Then people could see whenever the picture thtead is updated, as opposed to putting up new stories or adding pics to the current one, which would probably go unnoticed.

Of course, I can’t even pretend to know how much work would be involved to accomplish this.

[Marquis.d.ayre]

Well, as I don’t think there is another way to post pictures but in a ‘story’, what else is left ? Not share ?

I see mentioning ‘forum’, but I didn’t even know there is a forum on this site, so I guess a lot if not most others do not know this.

I would suggest a tag for non-story posts. Anyway, I usually know quickly whether I would like to read the story or not – usually not I’m afraid.

[Diacritical]

I’m feeling perhaps a little outspoken but I absolutely think they bring the quality and utility of the site down. There is a forum, there are comments sections. Both of these are much more suitable places for announcements or low effort content like matching images to stories. An author’s note at the start or end of a story would be fine too for an announcement. The site promises two things in its name: it is a site about hair, and a site about stories. You should be able to click on a title and reasonably expect there to be a story to read and for it to involve hair. In the same way I don’t think it would be right to allow stories that don’t involve something to do with hair, I don’t think it would be right to allow things that aren’t stories either.

Non-story posts have happened in the past, but I think the novelty factor of so-called AI means it’s happening more often. That’s a different discussion though, and one I think my position is clear on.

Incidentally, I don’t think the post that brought this up is particularly about hair either, it could easily have been posted to a site about anything, yes the characters in the image get their hair cut, but not in the post, you have to go to other actual stories to read about that, there’s very little in the post itself that makes it relevant. Given it’s so depdendent on the context of other stories I would consider it much better suited to the forums or a comments section.

[Kenneth Grueling]

I literally just created an account so I could come on here and talk about how absolutely stupid this is.

I understand that AI stories are saturating the site, but this is nothing like that. I might understand Ginger’s outrage if this was all this writer did over and over and over again without contributing anything to the site. But this is Long2Short we are talking about, and they have written dozens of super long tories for the site. A lot of them are personally some of my favorites. This guy or girl is clearly just trying to do something different and innovative and I think we should let them after everything they have contributed to the site and guess what, I actually liked the idea and I hope they do it more! And I can tell you right now that I would have never seen that entry if they had posted it in the forums instead.

And for people saying that story belongs in the forums, nobody ever uses them! Even Ginger had to insert themselves into the entry itself just to let people know that they should come over to their thread in the forums to talk about it.

Sorry but I one hundred percent think it should stay. In fact I hope the author does more of them, since it’s the most innovative thing I’ve seen on the site in quite a while.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Kenneth Grueling.

[Kenneth Grueling]

Also I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this post actually made me go back and read stories like Rapunzel no more and Leaving her hair everywhere. The authors should be thanking the author for the cross-promotion.

[Hairfan30]

Long time lurker here.

This is the Hair*story*network. Story submissions should be actual stories. Anything else, like derivative generated images, should be posted in the forum. In my opinion, ever since chatgpt became widely acessible there has been an increase in low effort stories dominating the main feed. Allowing non-stories to be posted on the main page as well sets a dangerous precedent to the usability/practicality of the site.

[jellet]

I liked the post that is in question. Mainly because it threw me back to some good old stories in a different POV. Don’t think giving space to a new idea is a bad thing (specially coming from a recognized author) but that’s just my view as a reader.It could have bad consequences. Discouraging writers is the last thing we want. So maybe a using a separate space/forum (keeping the stories as main theme) is the best solution.

[Ginger Herten]

Kenneth Grueling, trust me, I am very far from outraged. If I was outraged, I would have taken the story down and emailed HSNadmin about it, not left it up and invited broader discussion about the subject. And Long2Short being an established writer did factor into my trusting that they were not planning to spam the page with dozens of posts a day.

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