So I saw people were complaining about the quality of some of the writing.com episodes Dogmann has been archiving here, and it got me thinking. Tags are as good a way as avoiding something you're not into as finding what you are. So would there be cause for a tag for this kind of episode - 'chaff' or 'junk' or something if we're feeling mean, maybe 'short' if we're being kinder? That way when they came up as search results people would know they probably weren't worth the time to check out.
The issues would be that no-one would tag their own episodes like this (indeed, such episodes are rarely tagged by their creators at all) so it wouldn't be much use on the recents list, plus if used over-aggressively it could create a passive-aggressive or unwelcoming atmosphere and may put off authors who perhaps start like this but may one day develop to more substantial episodes. Thoughts?
The other thing I wanted to raise is that when I see links to the UBEA posted on /d people complain about the site's impenetrability. I've been here years, and tags are a good step towards making the site more navigable for newcomers, but being given results as single episodes is only of limited use in a site revolving around long-running and ever-building storylines.
Since storylines - by which I mean these (
http://bearchive.com/~addventure/game1/trees/tags/root1572.html) pages, sorry if it's the wrong term - display tag totals, would it be possible, I wonder, to make a storyline tag search? Results would most usefully be listed in order of frequency of the searched for tag(s) (If multiple, the frequency of both tags added together is probably the simplest way to do it). I'm not sure whether gross (raw number of episodes with that tag in the storyline) or proportion (episodes with that tag divided by episodes in the storyline) would be a better measure for ordering.
If feasible, such a search would do the most good somewhere prominent like the landing page, or on a dedicated 'search' page off the landing page (which could also contain a link to the episode-search) rather than the recents page where veterans know to go straight off.
It could also be done with authors since they have tag-totals too, though storylines is perhaps better for newbies navigating the site.
Finally, while not tag-related I do have another idea to help newcomers navigate. Say they come via a search or a link and read something they like. Would it be technically possible to put a 'Read this story from the beginning' link next to the back to parent link?
For example clicking it in a 'Mitch & the Maigic T-Shirts' ep would take you to 1199488. Clicking the link on
that ep would take them to 1199480 ('Mitch's Impending BE Addventure: Yard Sale'). Then on through 870387 ('Mitch & Blue: To Live a Dream'), 791911 ('Meet Blue', the start of the 'Blue the Blueberry' storyline), and finally to 1572, the ultimate start of Mitch's Blueberry. This may seem long-winded when some would argue after jumping back to the first Magic T-shirt ep, the next most-relevant jump-back is the start of Mitch's Blueberry all together, but providing as many jumping-on points as possible strikes me as the most friendly option.