Chapter likes... and you (want some?)

Frequently, when I'm reading/writing on CHYOA, I'm literally masturbating. I don't need to figuratively masturbate by "liking" my own chapters.

I value the "Likes" and "Favorites" that I receive because they tell me that other people are enjoying my stories. I don't need to tell myself that; I already know how I feel about my own writing. The only reason I can see to self-like is to boost one's numbers just a little higher. What's the point of that? There are no real prizes being won here; the only rewards are the accolades themselves. I get encouragement when other people Like my chapters, and it makes me feel good that I'm writing what at least some people find to be a compelling story. If I also happen to like it myself, then I get that reward without needing to click anything.

 

I see by recent activity that it has begun. Ah well, c'est la vie. Enjoy your 'likes' guys.

 

Already done. By you, Nemo of Utopia. And it was after I suggested something similar.

Sort of. It wasn't a formal idea, rather something for Hypnoticus to use as justification of the request for a return to self-Liking, but the idea to reveal the identity of every Like ever in a more efficient manner has been suggested before.

 

So you just search a way to wail about something you dislike?

There was a community suggestion to remove the ability to like your own chapters.
So your goal is to fight back against the community?

Do you want the ability to like your own chapters because it was possible when you joined the site?
Because: New is never good!
So I assume, that all changes should be reverted, going back 4 years in time!

Oh, wait! Rating your own chapters wasn't allowed back then! If you feel better, you can even think of the change as a long overdue bug fix.

What point do you want to prove?
The point that your only intention was to raise the Likes of your chapters?
Or that you just have to cry loud enough to receive preferential treatment, not giving a damn about what others want?

 

There is nothing about safety.
Disabling self-Likes would more likely do something like protecting the "weak". Young authors who would compare their work in terms of Likes and have to think they are writing pure crap, not "knowing" that they "have to" cheat to be on par with authors of the same skill. Just another anti-community effort.

Also, what is freedom for you? Anarchy? Even anarchy has and must have rules!

 

Hey, why stop there? Let's go all the way back to CHYOO! The magical original version where:

Ratings were done on a scale of 1 to 5, which means Dislikes were possible.
Self-rating was not allowed.
Comments were visible only to the thread writer.
Submitting a comment could only be done if the thread was rated, but threads could be rated without comment.
Submitting comments and ratings required the user to either advance the story or go to a previous thread, meaning comments and ratings were lost if someone didn't know as much.
Users could only submit one comment and rating per thread.
The ratings had a bug that caused the publicly visible average - which was used to calculate Top Stories - to be significantly less than the true average.
Comments and ratings were completely anonymous.
There was nothing anyone could do about malicious ratings or comments.
There was no Game Mode.
Stories had exactly two immersive variables with fixed text.
Hacking the site was the only method to have more than four threads as a child to a single thread.
Users could be blocked from adding to a story without petitioning an administrator.
Blocked lists could hacked and edited.
Threads could be hacked into closed stories.
Threads could be denied or edited via hacking.
There were no cookies to keep users logged in for more than 15 minutes since their last activity.
Banished users weren't immediately locked out of site functions, they had to timeout their sessions for that to go into effect.
A single e-mail address could house as many usernames as one could create.
E-mail addresses used in registration did not have to be valid.
Changing your password eventually became a non-option.
There was no capacity for an IP ban.
A bug in the system eventually resulted in no backwards navigation through stories without using the story map.
Stories could spontaneously disappear.
Administrators had no ability to help us.
Administrators had no desire to help us.

And much, much more.

This is what we've overcome, folks. If you don't like our progress, feel free to spend the rest of your interactive fiction days on CHYOO. Or you can go to writing.com, where the number of additions are also fixed but can't be hacked, and starting your own interactive story requires a paid membership. Or give editthis a try with its wiki format and additions that can be edited by anyone for any reason - including vandalism - and such behavior can result in additions being purged, history and all.

Or better yet, stay here, soldier through this change without trying to find a way around it, and talk about it rationally with the community.

 

Appears I've been a busier beaver than even I remember...