Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Hi Lazeez,

I often like to read the discussion about a story. Especially on stories that are thought provoking or that have rare ideas.

Also, I suffer a bit of eye strain when reading off the led monitors. They are still much better than the old crt(s); but not as good as a dedicated erader with an lcd screen.

How difficult would it be to append a section to story in the generated epub(s)? If it's more difficult, do you think there is enough interest to justify the effort?

FWIW Background:
I've been a mostly quiet off and on reader for 20-25 years (it's hard to remember and i probably went thru a few user ids after forgetting passwords).

When the 2nd gen kindle came out, it was my first ereader. I loved its' form factor and how I could read it in sun light. At that time (as I'm sure you know) there were no automatically generated epub(s). So, I'd download the text, use calibre to format it into a mobi. I never sold or shared those stories, just used them to have the story correctly formatted for the ereader. I'd read SoL stories for a year or two and my attention would wonder to something else and then come back to SoL in a few more years.

The time before this last one, I noticed the epub option but didn't try it out. This last cycle, I finally gave the epubs a test drive in November 2023 with a premium account. GREAT job. I love them. I like how most of the formatting is preserved in the translation.

The only thing I missed were the "reader comments." I like finding arcana that readers contribute beyond what the author wrote. I like most of the byplay.

Reader comments are an extra on the site and those comments aren't part of the book itself. My guess is most readers who download the epub are not interested in the comments as part of the book. The moment you download the epub the comments section would already be outdated because you don't see the comments from after the download. There is a link at the end of the epub to the original story you can use to view the story online and with that the comments.

Hi Keet,

I believe you may be thinking of the story(epub) book as a final product. In fact the epub is a "snapshot" of the story at a particular point in time. This is especially evident in the case of ongoing serials: at one point it may have 10 chapters, weeks later, it may have 20 chapters. Or in the case of beloved stories, they may go thru further editing and development.

The hyperlinks in the epubs are great. I love the multiple levels of links, site level, author, story, and voting.

My thought was just adding to the story snapshot, a comments snapshot. And adding after the end of the story; so that for readers who don't care, they won't have to scroll/page past them.

To your second sentence, that most read 'are not interested,' I have no idea. That is why I tossed my suggestion out there, to see what people think.

If no one cares, that's fine, this idea can fade away like an ephemeral thought.

Peace & Goodwill