Number of New Stories Displayed

[klaatu48]

HSN noted that ‘likes’ are taken into account as well, so that might provide a buffer for your concern, AB.

[HSN Admin]

Hi AB, there are a few factors taken into account and I can assure you that the sheer amount of posts is not one of them.

[AB]

Awesome, thanks for clarifying!

[f35h]

Thanks for addressing this issue, Admin. I think increasing the number of visible stories is a good move, certainly better than any kind of policing of which stories are ‘good enough’ to feature. I think Ginger nailed it earlier in the thread, pointing out how subjective any kind of judgement like that is.

I have to say I don’t especially like the word ‘trusted’. It kind of implies that other stories / authors *aren’t* to be trusted. I think something suggesting consistent high quality would be better. Top author? Star author? Leading author? Outstanding author?

[HSN Admin]

Hi f35h, I like your ideas and think I’ll change the label to “Leading Author” as it’s not my intention to imply other authors are of less value.

I’ll try to add a definition for leading author’s somewhere basically saying that they’re writers who consistently produce well-received work as judged by the readers of this site.

There’s a slight problem in that some authors were posting before the “like” system was in place and it’s harder for them to gain this “leading” rating which is something I’d like to address in the near future.

[AB]

Because I know a member on another thread raised a concern about the verbiage here, what about “trending author”? That might more accurately depict the fact that these are writers who have recently been read/engaged with, without a potential value judgement.

[Makeoverlover]

I don’t like highlighting certain contributors as ‘better’ than others, and no matter what language you use or where the limit is set, it’s going to end up feeling like that.

It makes for two arbitrary tiers of contributors, first and second class citizens if you like.
We have plenty of that in real life.

[AB]

I don’t think there’s a problem with a little quality control. There have been some legit trolls posting in the forum. That’s how this conversation got started.

[Anonymous]

Against my better judgement, I would like to say how much I totally agree with the two above posts by Makeoverlover and AB. It’s refreshing, and encouraging, to read their honest, well thought out comments. And, to AB in particular … it’s so sad that we appear to be in the minority with regards to the real issue. Such is life.
Jenna

[Ginger Herten]

Insatiable, I think a lot of us believe it is a real issue. It’s just that it’s also a really difficult issue to solve. Most of the changes HSN Admin made to address the problem have been really good. It’s just the “Trusted” or “Lead Author” feature has caused some new problems.

I kinda feel like we’ve asked HSN Admin to do renovations on a house of cards.

[HSN Admin]

Why’s the site a “House of Cards”?

[Anonymous]

Ginger,

I truly believe that we’re on the same side. That being said … why do you refer to the real problem as ‘it’ instead of being a little more specific? And exactly what were you trying to say when referring to HSN as ‘a house of cards’?

Again, I would add, we’re all on the same side. We all love the concept of HSN, and what it offers to all of us (writers and visitors alike) who have some form of a hair fetish to explore through writing and reading ‘well written’ creative, imaginative, entertaining stories. Key word – WELL WRITTEN. Not just a few sentences, one paragraph, or (put as clearly as possible) sometimes the worst that the internet has to offer.

As I’ve said before, it is not a perfect world. Don’t expect it to be. Not trying to make anything in it perfect. Just a little better.

One last thought … everything in life subjective. Everything. We are all unique. We see, hear, feel everything slightly differently than everyone else. That being said … there has to be some degree of organization, guidelines, rules, etc. or, the ‘house of cards’ eventually falls down.

And yes, any solution would be subjective. In this case (in my opinion only), it is all up to the administrator of HSN to address the elephant in the room. And, in the end, we can either stay, or leave.

The solution is simple. It’s the implementation that might initially be a challenge. And again, it would be very subjective. And, necessarily so.

Jenna

[HSN Admin]

I’ve banned Waynebill after a particularly nasty “story” today. It seems like his posts seem to have been the catalyst for all of this and hopefully this restores some sort of harmony here.

[totallyhairless]

I couldn’t agree more with you and Jenna (Insatiable). Waynebill has been a nuisance for a long time and I hope that him being banned will be a catalyst for improvement. Nobody expects any contributor to be a budding Shakespeare (I am anything but) but there really has been some awful, ill thought out (or vexatious) stuff posted in recent months. Good riddance!

A word of caution though – unless the internet address of Waynebill is blocked and not just his profile name, he may well resurface under one or more other guises. We all need to be vigilant.

Rules and/or guidelines and maybe help monitoring stories would be invaluable. I, for one, would be willing to help if needed. Many of us love this site and get hours of pleasure from it either by way of contributing stories or by reading others’ work. We need to get rid of this scourge as best we can.

[Ginger Herten]

I guess “house of cards” was an overly dramatic and not really great analogy. Now that I’ve been asked to explain it, I find that my explanation would fit poorly.

Better analogy, that I can explain, like trying to do layout in a microsoft word document. You try to shift a photo over a tiny bit and everything else shifts in unexpected ways. It doesn’t collapse or anything, it’s just a time consuming pain in the ass.

I just figure this isn’t HSN Admin’s full time job, so s/he can’t spend all day everyday on going through stories. Admittedly, I’ve sometimes made complicated suggestions, but I don’t know all the ins and outs of this platform, so figure that sometimes what sounds complicated in my head is actually simple.

[Author]

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