Ha, how's that for clickbait? Let's see if it works...still, though I think it's true. Let me first preface this by saying that this post is going to be pretty negative, but I hope it will be seen as constructive criticism that might lead to a better site with better features. I've only recently started posting on this forum as I came closer to publishing actual stories, but I've been a lurker on the main site since 2016. I have no intention of leaving regardless of the criticisms. I think CHYOA provides a great service, and I applaud Friedman for his hard work. That said, I'm now going to criticize. Generally Generally, I think CHYOA feels like a beta product, feature incomplete. I assume that upgrading in any meaningful way while maintaining all the work and content that already exists would be time, resource, and manpower intensive, none of which Friedman has, which is why it hasn't happened. Maybe I'm wrong, and there is a team of admins and moderators, but it doesn't feel that way and the site doesn't list any. (Edit: apparently I'm wrong, it's only the FORUM staff page that is unpopulated. Staff appears limited to moderators, however, without technical staff to assist Friedman with development). I'll get into resources later. It's worth noting that, in my experience, adult fiction websites do not receive updates. Usually, they spring up, people join and post stuff (if the site is good), then the site grows unwieldy, or something goes wrong. Either it stagnates, or there is a technical problem (hackers, hosting provider, etc.), or the leadership disappears. Some degree of content preservation effort is engaged, and in some cases the community moves to another, similar site and tries to take the content along with. CHYOA is actually a perfect example of this, as it was created to address the prior stagnation and unwieldy nature of CHYOO, while other content has come from writing.com after their horrible pricing decisions. I suspect that the majority of the complaints I'm going to make are not feasible to solve without a similar mass migration to a new platform, and it would be unreasonable/verging on insane for me to request one. Nevertheless, I'm going to continue enumerating the issues I see anyway. The Editor I hate the editor. The Rich Text Editor (RTE) is garbage. No fonts, no colors, minimal size or style control, lists that only half work, no ability to insert images without code, no way to edit links or images already edited, etc. The fact that you have to use code in an RTE, when the whole point of an RTE is to not need to use code, is crazy. What's more, even using markdown doesn't actually give you that much more control or options, limits your ability to preview results, and the process of switching back and forth (having to go into your profile and change the setting) is annoying as all get out. I can't really understand why it's like that, either. You need only look at THIS forum's RTE, which has so much more functionality and ease of use, as well as a built in RTE/Code switch, to see what the editor SHOULD be like, and the forum's editor is little or no different than has been available for free products for many, many years. Main Site Communications/Collaboration Chapter and story comments are pretty much useless as a means of communication or discussion once more than a few people get involved. There are few useful collaboration tools built into the site, other than simply the ability to make someone an editor and let them run wild. Messages is sort of there, but I despise the annoying "load older messages" button and difficult/impossible it is to search through a long conversation. I also don't understand why you can't add/remove conversation participants after creation. It would also be incredibly useful to have some sort of system to help writers find editors. The Main Page I have a separate thread on this. Story Maps/Navigation Large stories are incredibly unwieldy to navigate in, with no meaningful ability to find new chapters or updated content that I'm aware of, short of scrolling endlessly and hoping you notice something jump out at you. As much as I hate what Writing.com has done to itself, the "Recent Chapter Additions" page is a basic quality of life that this site desperately needs. Its narrower and more condensed story map pages are also something CHYOA could learn from, though huge stories would still be somewhat difficult to navigate, if less so. Some of this might also be alleviated if story owners had the ability to move chapters, so as to organize large stories in a way that didn't inevitably become an utter and complete mess once too many people get involved or even just to highlight new additions or noteworthy story arcs. Searching and Story Discovery There are plenty of other threads on how bad the tag system is, and it's not helped by how unsuitable CHYOA's modular chapter setup is to searching for terms. This problem will only get worse as the site continues to grow. The tag system desperately needs to be fixed so that it is useful for users looking to find new--or old and undiscovered--stories. There was a Patreon goal about algorithmic story discovery, but as far as I know that doesn't actually exist. Patreon Many of the issues here might be fixed by simply throwing money at the problem, either by buying tools or hiring someone to address them. Right now, it looks like CHYOA's Patreon only gets a bit under $1200 a month...that's not enough to pay even one minimum wage employee, much less a web admin. So why doesn't the site get more, when it has nearly 200,000 members (even assuming a majority aren't regulars). I'll freely admit here that I am not a Patron, though I've often considered doing so. Fixing some of the below would probably help people like me get over hesitation. The Thank you page lists 272 Patrons, even though Patreon only lists 199. It references 350,000 chapters when the main page says over 800,000. There is barely 1 post per YEAR. There are 3 contribution goals on the Patreon page, with all 3 reached. Yet, so far as I know, the second and third goals have never been enacted. If they have been, it's not communicated well, which is a separate problem. It really all just comes together to create a feeling like the Patreon page has been abandoned, which is not a good way to get people to part with their money. I don't know that Patreon is really the best funding model, but I DO know that for a Patreon to be successful, it can't appear to be an abandoned afterthought. What is more, the tiers...they're just not good. Sorry to be harsh, but they're not. Let's go through why. Generally, every single tier is wildly overpriced. I know you have funding needs, but it's worth considering that if the tiers were more reasonable, you might make more money by not scaring people away. Ad-Free - $6 per month to remove adds is really expensive, and virtually useless for most people. Literally everyone I know uses ad blockers. I suspect most of your users don't even know the ads are there. More Readers - $14 to a spot in the Highlight section. This, again, seems wildly overpriced, but I also question how much it even works. The Highlight section is "below the fold" so to speak, and quite large. In fact, the more people purchase this feature, the LESS well it will work to actually draw readers. Chapter of Your Choice - This is actually an interesting idea, in theory, but $26 for 750 words is a lot of money . It's worth noting, of course, that many commissioned writers charge this much, but many charge far less, and the difference with a commissioned work is that you A) get to pick your author and B) have extensive control over what they write. $26 is a lot when you are going to essentially roll the dice and just hope you get an author who writes a style you like. The fact that you LOSE the More Readers tag by paying nearly twice as much is not great either. Usually, Patreon levels always build on prior levels. More Readers + Chapter Of Your Choice - It's just too much money, IMO. Thriving Patreons are active and rewarding. You have to make people want to give, and I just don't feel like this one does. I think the numbers also support this. I'd say something like "I hope this doesn't come off as too critical," but that would be stupid. Instead, I'll say that I hope these criticisms are helpful, and that they are taken in the spirit they are given, trying to help improve, not to try and tear down what Friedman has built already.
There are surely some fair points. There are also many things planned but you still need to have the time to realize them. (The thing happening in the last few years is still taking up a lot of my time.) There is a list in the CHYOA Guide. I don't know how active they are. Content from there is quite problematic as there are violations of Rule 4 and/or Rule 1 on a regular basis. The Markdown format used to store the content in the database doesn't allow for fancy colors and fonts. Though I don't see why you would need 65 colors in a story. It might also cause problems when offering different site themes. (The forum editor actually has problems if you make extensive use of colors in long text passages. In that case, it will just ignore all the coloring you just did.) But it might indeed be good to find an alternative RTE that can work better with CHYOA's version of Markdown. (Unfortunately, Markdown is still not completely standardized and the RTE to Markdown translater might not use the same flavor as the Markdown interpreter.) As far as I know, most of that is actually used to cover server expenses. Chapters, not stories. As of now, there are about 19.5k stories. Do you think they should be removed from the Thank You page after they have ended their support? They have a content policy that might be problematic depending on what gets posted. So you're saying it isn't overpriced at all. (Though I think that there might be additional places to show highlighted stories.) A) it's not like you have no say in who the author might or might not be. B) the type of content and the outline will be discussed beforehand. (I actually once rewrote half of a chapter because I added something that I considered unproblematic while the user disliked it.) These chapters need to be written. So unless the authors do it to support the site without the use of money, you have to give them something in return. Also, this is a community-based approach. I see the support of the site as the main goal. If someone wants to commission chapters from their favorite author for the best price per word, using Chapter Of Your Choice doesn't seem a good idea at all.
Sounds interesting and mysterious. I was going off the Staff page for the forum, which I guess is my mistake. Strange that they don't show up there, but not super important, I guess. Not really connected to my point, but interesting to know. Also interesting to know. I doubt anyone would actually need that many options, but having SOME would be nice in certain circumstances. A handful of colors (I personally suspect red would get used the most) and fonts would probably be enough. Even if no other changes were made at all, the ability to switch between RTE and Markdown on the fly, like you can with the forum, would be so incredibly convenient. I assumed as much, which is kind of the point, unless that's all Friedman wants. So it is. I'll correct that mistake. Is that the reason? If so, I'll remove that point. Could be, though I'm on other Patreon pages that are...quite explicit, if that is what you're getting at. I'm not advocating using Patreon as a content delivery system, however, I'm just pointing out potential reasons why the membership might be so low so we can get Friedman some more resources. Though for all I know he's perfectly happy with what he gets now, and I'm trying to solve problems that aren't problems at all. Shrug. No, it definitely is. I like the idea of finding other ways to highlight stories, though. I feel like this is an economy of scale problem, and Friedman could lower the cost if more members were at that tier. Of course, that is a chicken and egg problem, because he might have to lower they cost to GET more members at that tier. However, the "more members at that tier" solution runs into the problem of having the highlighted section simply get too big, which was the point I was trying to make. Your additional places idea could be the answer to that. Really? When I was reading through the COYC thread, it seemed more like just whoever volunteered. Unless I'm missing it, there is little explanation of the system, however, so if you were to tell me all those details are explained privately to people in that tier, I'd believe you. The bigger issue, for me, was just that the COYC system doesn't seem very active, so I was theorizing as to why. When I first read about COYC it seemed very cool, so I was surprised at how little activity there was.
I appreciate you taking the time to write down your concerns and criticisms. There are valid points and I hope and plan to find time to address them soon. If you have any feature suggestions, I'd love to hear them. In particular, how CHYOA could be adapted to the increased posting volume. Frankly, back when I started CHYOA, I had additional hopes that CHYOA would help me escape the rat race. I'm incredibly happy that CHYOA has found a place on the internet and is loved and used by so many and I have not lost my motivation to continue developing CHYOA. However, I still have to earn my income from my day job as a web developer, so I only work on CHYOA in my spare time. This I think also explains the situation and why many other adult sites are being set up and not much is happening to them. I appreciate the dialogue and I'm glad you got in touch.
I addressed this in my post about the front page, but those ideas are really just bandaids. The Patreon talks about implementing an algorith, and I think that might be the silver bullet, especially in conjunction with a re-worked tagging system. There is a point (I think CHYOA has reached it, but either way, eventually it will) at which just trying to fit every update onto the front page just won't be feasible. With tag based searching and algorithmic story discovery/new story presentation that powers a more dynamic front page, I think the site could scale much better. I realize, however, that while that's easy for me to SAY, implimenting AI for tasks like that is a huge lift, possibly impossible at a small scale like this site. I figured as much, hence the Patreon section. I wish I had more to offer than just saying that the existing tiers don't offer sufficient value/temptation and that you should offer "something else. There's also the balance to strike between offering value and taking content AWAY from the 99.9% of users not on Patreon, which I would not want to see happen. I wonder about perhaps affiliate links for writing related products? The only product I use is NovelAI, but that's $10-15 a month. I wonder if you could work something out with them to have a referral link here that could get you some cash if you send people their way, rather than generic cam links and (as far as I can tell) non-monetized links in the sidebar. Plus, maybe it would help people write more. Certainly, it's helped me far more than I expected. I know that there have been other discussions about paid writing and diagraming tools that others use. Maybe those too?
