Hi all. I started a story a long while back, and made the unwise decision to allow it to host stories of a similar nature, granted they abided by certain in-setting rules. Being a moron, I pretty much approved any chapter that didn't have glaring grammar issues or site rule violations. Now, I've run into an issue; due to the high number of threads, virtually all of which are inactive, any updates to my own thread or the other few inactive threads will likely go unnoticed, as new readers will are most likely to click on dead chapters. Obviously, I could prune the story, delete all the other threads, but I don't feel great about permanently deleting the work of others, especially because I'd initially approved it- it's not on them that I didn't foresee this. There's also the off chance they could come back. Is there any way to hide these chapters, for if/when the authors return? Am I best off just making a new story and porting my stuff to it, being more careful going forward?
While an author can't directly unpublish their stories or chapters, asking for help from Friedman is a thing. Just send a DM asking for the specific chapters to be removed, with a link, and fingers crossed.
Gotcha- thanks for the reply. The story map is a mess, and what I was wanting to do involved removing visibility of like 80% of the CHYOA as a whole. Though presumably Mr. Friedman "unpublishing" the starting chapter of each route would remove visibility of subsequent chapters... I'll have to think on it- don't wanna waste the man's time with an unreasonably big request.
I think a possible course of action could be for you to withdrawn your own chapters and create a whole new story. You could change the name o the original story so that you can use the original one on the new story too.
I somewhat agree with Serious's suggestion here. Drop a Google Doc, or a multitude of them. separate each chapter by header or by page, and delete the chapters that have been retrieved. Both are time wasters, yes.
Appreciate the input- I guess that's probably what I'll go with. I suppose for the watchers' convenience I can just add a chapter linking to the story's new home.
I'd be surprised if Friedman went ahead with such a request. It's not really within your rights to remove other people's content simply because it distracts readers from your own content. By the same argument, perhaps I should start deleting popular stories in the Fantasy category so that readers notice my own stories more often. It is certainly within your rights as story owner to tailor the story's content however you see fit. Unfortunately, by allowing so many chapters to be added without discrimination, you have missed the opportunity to force the story to have fewer, more curated chapters as you now wish were the case. It's not really fair for you to change your mind and purge everyone else's content for your own personal benefit. Additionally, you should consider whether the absence of other contributors would actually improve your own chapter's popularity. Looking at the story map, your own contributions comprise a rather small minority of all content. The story has nowhere near a 'high' number of threads (12 distinct branches all up); the problem is that yours are among the shortest available. Based on a few glances at those chapters, they could all be read in one (admittedly long) sitting. They have almost certainly benefitted from the publicity brought to the story by other users who have made many more updates to their own branches. If you were to indeed port your own content to a new story, and even 'game' the front-page system by adding each chapter only once every 12 hours, it is simply inconceivable that they would have anywhere near as many likes as they currently do.
Yeah, you're right. In the heat of the moment, the idea of other people wanting to contribute on my base was really exciting, and I allowed the CHYOA to drift from what I'd intended it to be. The idea of just hiding the chapters appealed to me because I tricked myself into thinking it was somehow more ethical than just going in and deleting em. It's on me for approving them.
