3,626

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Chapter 4 version 2.  Chapter 4 takes us back to Lifspynth.

Gauss, Volts, Amperes, Joules, Newtons, Amys.

Eh?

3,627

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

About halfway to the Ch 4 rewrite, I think.

3,628

(217 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I notice that when I have read a group's new articles on my computer and later go to my Android those same articles show as new again.  It seems that the last-read status is associated with (stored in?) the device or browser (in cookies?) rather than with my account in TNBW's servers.  Not a bug, exactly, but a feature weakness, especially for mobile users, who are more likely than others to also use other devices.


Your shaded background in the entry form still causes me eyestrain.

3,629

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Okay, I have a level zero draft of chapter 4 version 2.  Melayne's part is beefed up.  Some details are tweaked.  And Melayne's extended story surrounds the Merran/Jamen part.

I don't have 1.0 Amys of description in it.  I don't even  have my accustomed 0.085 Amys in it yet.

3,630

(9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Sorry, I misunderstood.  The inability to see and print the whole of the inline review for a work is a stumbling block for me, so I ask reviewers not to use them, no matter how much easier it is for them to enter the review.

3,631

(14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

And I'd suggest that some should occur on the level or a work or a division of a work--and perhaps some at the level of the author.

Which suggests that using groups, and groups alone, to organize forums is probably wrong.  I don't know whether they are using any packaged forum software, but it might limit their ability to create forums skimble-skamble all over the site.  In the new site, the author links in the forums go the the authors` main pages; in the old they went to forum-specific places.  That suggests that the software MAY be different, or that it may be being used in a more customized or more sophisticated way.

But it seems like forums, and forum hierarchies, should be placeable in many places in the site's data model.

3,632

(9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I want to learn, help other people learn, and maybe have a little fun doing it.

As to the working model: when I compose email in a web-based interface, the page periodically--and often--sends change updates to the site.  (In the web model, the operation is called POST.  Sorry.)  These are saved as a draft until I am ready to send the email.  Would something like this, with the ability to save the draft, recover it on a web failure, and go back and resume work, satisfy the need as you see it?  (On the `real' keyboard now, though it's more a keyboid--on a flaptop.)

TNBW is the only site I'm on.  If I used multiples, I would never get anything done.  What never?  No, never!  What, NEVER.  No Not Ever At All.

So you have more knowledge than I do.

I want the same thing when I look at reviews of my work.

In which case I recommend that you ask that TNBW people do conventional reviews, not inline, until they fix some problems stemming from their model.

3,633

(9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

You, I, and the site owners all have a different take.  But there's no conceptual reason that your flow couldn't front mine.

My flow is based on the interactions I have here.  I've given reviews that hit the old site's 1kword limit, and had to continue the review in the forums.  (On one chapter, too.)

Sounds like you've spent time with either human or machine processes.  I'd love to brainstorm##########analyze and debate this with you at length--around my other projects/commitments.

3,634

(9 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I think the basic design rationale was that a review is a set of comments, but not  a 'work'.  My own preference would have been for a work's reviews to be more like a forum thread, but with the option at some point for, say, a chapter's thread to fold into one (or one of several) general threads for the encompassing work.  It would be possible to go from a review post to the version active while the post was made, which gets to the topic of versioning in multlayer works.

I'm thumbing this reply on the Android, so I'll cut it short here.

It seems to me that the difference between 'painful' and 'unusable' is the jump-to-top combined with the lack of cursor movement control.  Fixing those might be a stopgap.

3,636

(14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I'll try to get a few hundred coherent words on the subject by Tuesday Midnight EST.

3,637

(14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

The old site was organized like that.  The decision was made to organize the new site by groups.

I keep meaning to go properly analytical on the subject, but other things come up.  I'll file this data point away.  (In case you haven't noticed, I'm the cranky one about the new site.)

When the site first came up and I tried the inline review (I did, I did!) I had something like that happen.  But because I didn't have to do the precise point-here-point-there that you had to, I didn't suffer so much, and I had cursor keys to work with.

Just posted here:

njc wrote:

I just wrote a fairly detailed review.  The attempt to submit was interrupted by a connection failure.  When I went back from the IE error page to the review page, none of my contents were restored.

This isn't a bug in the site, exactly, but it would be a very nice thing if the contents could be saved until the update's completion was validated.

I will wait about half an hour and rewrite the review.  It was fairly detailed and plot-analytical, so this loss may cost both me and the author.

And the victim is you.  Sorry.  I'll recreate it as best I can, if I have to.

3,640

(217 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

I just wrote a fairly detailed review.  The attempt to submit was interrupted by a connection failure.  When I went back from the IE error page to the review page, none of my contents were restored.

This isn't a bug in the site, exactly, but it would be a very nice thing if the contents could be saved until the update's completion was validated.

I will wait about half an hour and rewrite the review.  It was fairly detailed and plot-analytical, so this loss may cost both me and the author.

-Edit-: I just tried to re-enter it and ran into a glitch.  Something, perhaps a stray keystroke, caused an otherwise empty review to be entered as I was trying to edit the title.  Is that title a single-line field in which an <ENTER> will cause the entire form to be submitted?  If this is as is to be, could we have a confirm on the entry of a review with an empty body?

-Edit-:  Just to be persnickety, "Your comment was successfully submitted! You got 1.34 points!" reminds me of those hours, years ago, playing Rogue on an RS-232 terminal:  "You found a cinnabar staff!"  It makes me wonder if success in the venture is cause for surprise.  I hope not, but today's review saga might make me wonder.

Has Alda's 'cast cleanse' remark gone away?   It was a good line, even if it's not quite consonant with Alda's character.

Now, finally, to do the review.

I don't belong to whatever group owns that forum. Are you sure that the images are actually hosted on TNBW?  You can tell by asking to quote the message and examining the BBCode that results.

Why do you have to write that out?  Then who does take over Lucas's school?  What are the alternatives?


The review will have to wait until after an early PM errand.  One point here: Kha seems to be the person who's known to all the players.  He is the human Nexus.

Is a Horror a creature/creation of Faulter or something older?

I want to think a bit before doing your review, but I'll drop a preview here.  Yes to the big question.  Now, you have Anver clipping his staff to his seat.  This is in Anver's school or Katerin's?  If in Katerin's, do the chairs have clips?  Her students wear their wands.

By the way, will she be taking new, non-construct students?  What about Littles?

Will there even BE Magic and Mages when this is all done?

And, if the Magic of the mages is in conflict with Saundon's nexus, is the conflict fundamental?  Is magery, as the unfortunately gifted humans know it, a 'dark side' product?  Is that why the gift comes in bursts of anger?  Is that why you've shown us the utterly vile Alina making mules?

amy s wrote:

Breckin is half an elf (like Kha).  She has been a slave of the Horror since she was about 20.  (On both sides of the ring)  Since I imagine her to be about 50-60 years old, that makes it 30-40 years that she hasn't had a Horror-free moment.

'On both sides of the ring'?


But if we believe Sil, a Horror can be destroyed.

3,646

(217 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Extended characters: The new software seems to take exception to valid characters outside the USASCII range.  I've been using Greek letters as placeholders and they are being turned into question marks.  For me this is a ruddy nuisance, but for people writing science fiction or anything technical, it could be a lot worse.   Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta, Sigma, Kappa, Epsilon and the rest all have valid codepoints, upper and lower case, in the Basic Multilingual Plane.

-Edit-: Your mobile interface puts the editing window up in HTML, in a 2.6 line by 30 char window.  The character in question is shown as a question mark in the HTML.

I note that you now allow the smartphone user to request and get the regular interface.  Thank you.

Yester-today problem seems fixed.  Thanks

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe this site will host images, apart from author photos and covers.

That might be a problem for the authors of illustrated children's books.

3,648

(217 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)

Medieval Fantasy Magic group, forum, Sorcerer's Progress thread.

As of this moment of posting, posts 23 through 25 show as "Today" and the subesquent posts 26 through 28 show as "Yesterday".  I think there's a little mixup in your horology routines.

I'm assuming it was after Charm was Charm'd?  I can't imagine Brekin and Slash seeing much in each other?  At least not much that would keep them together.

Why did Horror-Charm allow Brekin to stay with Slash?  Clearly she feels something about him, even if it's only that he can protect her.

I'm not sure now if I'm confusing different versions.  I remember Jaylene telling Sulder that Alda >destroyed< a Horror, but now the Horror resides in that mustard pot, ready to come out when Jaylene jumps in the river.  (AAaarrghhh!)

3,650

(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic &amp; Sci-Fi)

Well, you're not a True Mystery Fan.  John Dickson Carr called it The Grandest Game in the World.