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

[therck]

I tend to prefer a consolidated index that links to sub-indices for fandoms that have more than a certain number of stories. I've done something of the sort with my recs site. If a fandom has six or fewer recs, all the recs are on the main page under the fandom header. Once I have seven recs for a fandom, I break them out into a separate page so that the main page doesn't get too long (I have recs in about 150 fandoms

[corinna_5]

That *is* a lot of links! Thanks for the feedback.

[angiepen]

That is, chapter six of a fic on a multifandom site should have links to chapter 5, chapter 7, the chapter index for the fic, the index of fic titles in the fandom, the index of fandoms the author's home page (assuming all of those exist as separate entities) and the author's preferred means of feedback.

Absolutely. [nodnod] You never know how someone got there and also, especially with a long fic posted in chunks, you don't know how they're reading. I'm often in the middle of a longer story and have to stop, so I'll bookmark that chapter and come back later. If I've restarted my browser then all I have is that bookmark -- there's no page history anymore. And like you, I really hate playing guess-the-URL. :/

I wonder how many people are so used to LJ, where everyone who's here knows how it's organized and can do basic navigation (profile, memories, top of journal, etc.) no matter where they are, and forget that when you're creating a web page for yourself your readers aren't going to have that knowledge? [ponder]

Angie

[melaniedavidson]

Separate index pages for each fandom if each fandom has a large amount of stories (say... more than a page, or so, maybe) but everything on one page if there are only a few for each fandom. Or a combination--each fandom with lots of stories gets its own page, and fandoms with only a few get combined onto one page. But please, please don't just label the combined page "other"! Knowing what fandoms it'll be is nice. If it's just "other", I might not even look at it

[corinna_5]

Yes, but what if the combined "other" page has fic for six different fandoms? What do you do then?

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!

[melaniedavidson]

I guess it depends on how big the combined list is. If it's under... two screens, maybe... I'd still put it all on one page, linked like so: Fic for Fandom A, Fandom B, Fandom C, Fandom D, Fandom E, Fandom F, and Fandom G. If the list is huge, I think it's better to either split it up into more groupings, or, if it's all going on one page, put the fandoms in alphabetical order and put a list of anchor links to each fandom at the top:


Blackadder
Discworld
Good Omens
Harry Potter
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Narnia

Blackadder
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

Discworld
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

Good Omens
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

Harry Potter
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

Narnia
[list of links to fics]
Back to top

That way there's no scrolling necessary.

[corinna_5]

Whoa, code and everything! And Blackadder references! (I do have a House story...)

Thanks so much - I'm actually revising the front page tonight to surface the minor fandoms, based in part on your feedback.

[mmebahorel]

I said multipage but I'm really with ratcreature in caring only based on how much I have to scroll to get to my stories. If there are two stories each for ten fandoms, it's a lot easier with them all on one page.

I also didn't bother answering the "links to Livejournal" question because I don't care. If I care enough to leave feedback, any decently designed site will make it easy enough to find how to contact the author.

[corinna_5]

It's all about the not having to scroll, isn't it? Thanks for the feedback!

[thawrecka]

As far as seperating stories by having different pages for different fandoms or all on the same page - I don't care either way unless the story page is so long that it takes an inordinately long amount of time to load. I prefer to seperate onto new pages for every fandom with more than a few stories on my own site but whatever works best for other people is cool by me (that is, as long as they do actually tell you which fandom a story belongs to. I have been to fic sites where the author does not mention which story is from which fandom, which is usually also the sites where they don't warn for pairing and have annoyingly vague summaries

[corinna_5]

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!

[corinna_5]

Author's name is a go: that makes me crazy too. Thanks for the feedback.