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Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

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• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  Alvin Eriol > March 6th, 2015, 01:30 PM

  I suppose this is the right forum to discuss this issue.
  
  Mordomin & I got a little debate going after I posted a "gateway" in the fanfic forum for the memoirs of Elrond. Here is a copy of my reply:
  
  

  ---

  
  

  Mordomin Wrote:...Please break "An Embassy to Fate" into its original "chunks" (aka postings) and post them that way as well. ... perhaps ... you do not feel the need, but it would make your stories more accessible, IMO.

  
  Hmm. Interesting take. (Or should I say, in view of my current avatar, "Fascinating"?)
  
  I have given some thought to your suggestion (and had a good chuckle over "Mister Tenth-most-viewed" LOL! ). I assume that "Embassy", which had grown to almost a novella, is the only thread so far that arguably needs this treatment.
  
  Frankly, from a stylistic view I personally had rather preferred my approach over yours for long episodes. I suppose each has advantages and drawbacks, and different readers might have different opinions on what is more "accessible".
  
  I don't know if either approach particularly taxes board resources, although I'd observed in the past that threads maybe 4x or more the length of "Embassy" have been cut off by admins because they create technical issues.
  
  Maybe this is an issue worthy to be put in front of the community for their opinions and feedback.
  
  

  ---

  
  So, now I have put it in front of the community.
  
  Do members have a strong preference? Does anyone find long single narratives of that kind more "accessible" in one format or another? Is there another popular possibility not covered?
  
  Also, the Board Administrator and other admins might want to weigh in on whether either approach is more of a burden on Board resources or creates technical issues?
  
  Well, there it is. What do you all think?

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  Michael > March 10th, 2015, 02:35 PM

  Can't talk about resources with much authority as Vbulletin is all really a black box for us. There is a practical limit to how much text you can put into a single post. Without looking it up I think it's at 10,000 or 20,000 characters.
  
  And the board paginates threads after 25-30 posts, I think.
  
  As for my personal reading tastes, I hate having to click on "More ..." and "Next Page" buttons on Websites. I used to code them into Xenite.Org's content for technical reasons. Readers tend to get fatigued with long copy on the Internet. However, if it's engaging copy then they actually want to keep reading and so those continuation thingees get in the way.
  
  You lose people if your content is too long or too paginated.
  
  There is no perfect technical solution to the issue.
  
  Also, I might as well point out here that reading these forums on smart phones is not easy. I am going to have to do something about that before April 21. Google will begin demoting Web documents that are not mobile-friendly on that date. This is a page-by-page thing and no matter what I do between now and then a lot of SF-Fandom content will be demoted until it is recrawled and seen as mobile-friendly.

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  Michael > March 10th, 2015, 03:10 PM

  Well, that was simple. Turns out there is a default mobile style that we never installed. I have now installed it. Won't look pretty but the forums will be easier to read on smart phones than they have been.

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  badlands > September 5th, 2017, 02:28 PM

  I love to read either form.

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  Alvin Eriol > September 6th, 2017, 09:49 PM

  badlands Wrote:I love to read either form.

  
  Well, that's very kind of you to say!
  
  I was cheered by this comment by you, too, even though it wasn't specifically addressed to my poor efforts!

• Fanfic Posting Style: Long or Short Threads?

  Michael > September 15th, 2017, 10:25 PM

  I can take fan fiction either way, too. I don't have a preference for style.
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