Wishlist Cont. (Page 6 of 9)

Fair enough, Sol. May the Force be with you.

Amen.....

Links are good, works for me. Take care. Vern

KHip, that was my understanding of your original suggestion, and the reason why I started to warm up to the idea. 

My understanding is we don't want more forums?  But that we would like to be able to have a single point of reference where we can can have more in detailed discussions to fine-tune our writing without having to go back into in-line reviews and clicking through how many comments to get to the feedback that helps us to fine-tune our writing as per the site's intent.  The existing forum format more than adequately give us access to discussions of a general nature, etc. and I don't think any of the wishes put forward here was referring to anything else but to fine-tune our writing.  Or am I missing something?

In any case, like Vern said, everyone has their own way of doing things - some writers don't want and don't have any further in-detail discussion of their work for example.  So I'm guessing Sol and the team will come up with a solution - and some will have to adapt.  No problem with that.  Hopefully by adding our comments here it helps them to find as good a solution as possible.  Although reading this, I think it only helps to confuse!

Well, yes.  I'd attach the forum threads' interfaces directly to the work.  Note 'interface'.  I see no purely programming reason why a forum thread cannot apppear in several thread listings ... but that's the question of what the name of the song is called--the question of indirection.

Obviously we want to be able to view things in an appropriate way, whether it was entered 'traditionally' or by linking into the text of the work ('inline review').

I'm getting a little lost in this thread. Sol suggested enhancing the review format to allow for a more meaningful exchange.
njc, you said you see no reason why a forum thread cannot appear in several thread listings. What is meant by a thread listing? Are you advocating for a link from a work or chapter to a forum thread for all subsequent discussions about the work/chapter?

Sol, I agree that the discussion should be tied to the work. I also agree that the review interface could use improving for usability.

I just want to reiterate the usefulness of forums in the process. Hopefully, a new process won't lose the benefits of the existing one. When one of my connections posts a chapter, it can take me days or weeks to get to it because reading entire works or chapters is very time consuming. On the other hand, I'm far more likely to look at people's forum posts, since they're usually short and I do want the option to keep up with discussions about their books and resulting nuggets about writing craft. Currently, I get notified about all posts to my group forums, and about activity in individual posts to which I've chosen to subscribe. Usually, those posts are work-specific, as opposed to chapter-specific. It's also easy to quickly scan a forum for potentially interesting posts based on the subject lines in the forum view, the number of replies to a thread, and the number of views of that thread. I've picked up reviewers when they came into a group forum, saw a discussion they were interested in, and then decided to start reading my book.

In a new process, will I be able to subscribe to the book, so that any discussions about the book are readily available to me? Will I be able to subscribe to chapter-level discussions? Will I be able to navigate easily among and within active discussions (e.g., discussions organized into pages, ability to see the most active discussions, etc.)? I'm not sure if "subject lines" for discussions would still be needed if everything is tied to chapters; perhaps it would be considered one big discussion.

I'm fine with whatever is decided, although I suggest doing it incrementally. Start by improving the review capability's major limitations (e.g., clean up the posting view for consistency and to reduce scrolling, allow us to jump directly to the next unread chapter, the ability to see/print all inline comments at once, the ability to move the inline comment box out of the way of the text below it, moving the cursor for inline comments directly into the comment box without the extra click, the ability to quickly identify where there are follow-ups within individual inline comments, etc.). Big wins first. Organizing additional feedback with the work can probably wait, since most people don't even use the concept today. And there are workarounds (e.g., using additional reviews for an ongoing dialogue with the author, private messages, or an additional feedback post in the forum).

Thanks.
Dirk

When you have replied to a review, the original writer NOW can add another review, answering your reply.  Would you like that capability removed?  If not, would you like the original reviewer to be able to attach hiers counter-reply to your reply?  And would you then like to be able to respond in like fashion to hiers counter-reply?

Personally, I would prefer such an opt in/opt out button to default to opt in. I always prefer as much feedback as possible. Perhaps you have to be a group member to post? I never saw mass invasions in the old site when people posted an Additional Feedback thread for their work. What I saw were constructive discussions. We're becoming increasingly siloed on this site.

As always, I'm sure I can make it work, whatever Sol decides.

Dirk

NJC,

I don't like third party comments. I mentioned that before. So, yes, I would love to opt out of that too, right now I just ignore comments not made by the writer/reviewer.

I just want to deal with one person at a time.

I really didn't think it was going to be this big of a deal. We're a diverse community. Not everyone wants their work discussed in a forum. I'm one of those people. I am hoping if SolN enhances the reviewing process with forums attached to each piece of work, he gives us the option to disconnect them.

My sentiments precisely.

I'm ambivalent regarding that. My issue is with uninvited  third parties butting into a dialogue between what should be a writer and a reviewer trying to work through issues. If some people want to have comments as open season, fine, but give us the ability to turn off the noise and be one on one with our reviewer.

It seems to me a simple request for someone not to comment on your work is a far better method than resorting to impersonal technology, kind of like driving a nail with sledgehammer. Take care. Vern