User talk:Defnota

From Create Your Own Story

Current revision as of 02:01, 4 July 2014

Dirty Me's Messages

Hello Defnota, to have a page deleted, just blank all the text on it and save it with nothing on it. Platypus will delete pages that the authors have blanked in this manner when he is on. --Dirty Me 04:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes I wonder the same thing, if anyone is really around. It seems like we get lots of new accounts. Many just write for a day, then never seem to do anything else. Plus, since page counts were removed, we do not see the results of someone reading our material. There are a few active users, but yeah, I don't often see alot of feedback given to writers. That is why I try to occasionally leave messages on users talk pages, so they know someone is around. --Dirty Me 05:23, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I noticed your message to Platypus. He will probably answer you too, but wanted to let you know, I am just a user too, not an admin. Basically, Platypus has no issues with us helping around the site to clean things up and try to better organize. My personal opinion is, normally I just drop him a message letting him know what I am doing so he can look over the changes, but I think it is basically a "Go for it" if you can help clean it up. That is just what I have seen from my limited time on here. --Dirty Me 10:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Platypus is the admin, but doesn't have rights to access the code. If you want, you can check some of the messages he has left on my page. Sadly, the code itself is a completely different person, RobKohr. I am not sure how to reach him though. Sorry, I guess I misunderstood. Cleaning, I was thinking of things like cleaning up the pages, sections, things like that through editing the pages themselves. I don't think you can do any code, I tried myself with a collapsible table...sadly, we have not figured out a way to work it. You might be able to also reach RobKohr on the editthis.info home page. idk on that side, sorry, I have only been here since February :o --Dirty Me 06:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, I can tell you what I have been doing to help clean up the site.

First, I started going through the All Adult Stories and moving old ones to the Pit of Abandoned Stories. Technically, the rule is 10 pages or less and have not been worked on in over a year, unless the story is complete. My rule of thumb has been to move stories under 5 pages that have not been worked on since before august of last year to the pit, 10 pages or less, I mark them as pit watch so me, Platypus, anyone, can keep an eye on them. Then we know if they hit the 1 year mark. You can see this in the All Adult Stories page where I have put many on pit watch. I go over 10 pages to check, but under 15. Eventually I will also go through the Pit of Abandoned Stories and mark all the category indexs as [[Category:Abandoned Stories]], and probably even check through the longer stories, but still under a certain amount and see how many redlinks they have to see if they should also be marked as abandoned.

Also, I went through All Adult Stories and sectioned them off by alphabet as well as made sure they were properly alphabetized. It used to look like the All PG-13 Stories or All Mature Stories index, but with all the stories, I felt it would be easier to use with a contents and divided them up in 4 letters, like #-C, D-G, etc.

I have also started making sure all stories in the adult section has a category page created, as well as adding them to [[Category:Adult Stories]]. Eventually, all the other categories will need to be marked, like the Family, PG13, Quizzes and Challenges, and Mature Stories.

I removed the redlink story list on all categories, as people have put a story in, and either not done it, or wiped it so it was deleted. Then, there are no broken links in the indexs.

I have put the first copyright notice, but will probably take a look at wikipedia's and update it later, so at least there is a copyright notice.

I am thinking we need to do something to make the main page more friendly, but I have not figured out how we will. If I can think of a better way to do it, I will create a mirror, then suggest to Platypus. If it seems to be nicer, then we can look at implementing it. These are what I have been doing, but it has taken a long time, so I have only focused on the adult stories, since I am better at writing erotica than other things. I doubt this is everything we can do to make the community better, these are just where I have been looking into it myself. Basically, it is just self driven, so if you see something that looks like it might be good to organize, I don't think anyone will object. These are just a few things that I have done, aside from regularly checking the Recent changes periodically, checking grammar sometimes when I see new pages on, especially when you get to know the users and know which will need editing (I normally ignore Platypus' and Teejay's, and rarely check Arthur's), and check to see if people are forgetting the categories so I can warn them with {{warn1}}. Basically, some major areas, some little things, that seem to help make the entire site overall just a little better, and take the pressure off the only admin we have, Platypus.

Hopefully this helps give you an idea. I know this community is not that big, but I am having fun with my own story, and I feel like I matter, at least a bit, here by trying to make the community just a little better. It feels like a little home to me, at least right now, and I hope my stories are reaching out to people and touching their heart (And, well, this site is more adult oriented, so maybe even making them happy, in other ways), even if for a short time.

Sorry, yes, I talk too much in real life too :o I will stfu now xD --Dirty Me 12:59, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

lol, no worries, you didn't ignore. I typed all that in one setting, just going through. As I said at the bottom, I type too much, and irl talk too much=P Bad habit of mine, writing short stories for quick answers xD --Dirty Me 13:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

<3 the box effect you have on your test page. I think it makes it look much nicer. I know a little HTML, but have never been that great at it. I just use it for my ebooks, so very simple html, but it seems like you are much better, and know how to handle tables better than me xD --Dirty Me 02:36, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

lol, think Platypus will have more ideas on that. I, sadly, normally stick with black text and white background when I do my ebooks. I have seen some sites with good color schemes, but I have also seen many sites that put up horrible colors xD Sorry, I am not very good at web design D: My own blog is rather boring too, mostly because I am unsure how to make it look better. The other problem is, you can't really use much in the way of patterned backgrounds since we cannot upload photos to this site. Maybe you can do it with a link to a patterned background, but you can only link to external sites once per 20 minutes, and with the captcha, well, I have never successfully linked to external sites, since it always gives me the "you can only link externally once per 20 minutes" when I try to save it. One reason I do not insert pictures of the outfits I am thinking of when I write a story. It would make it much more interesting, as well as give people an idea of the types of outfits I wear, but I cannot get the links to work D: --Dirty Me 03:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I have noticed one thing about using the pagesincat magic words. It seems it is expensive, and warnings start popping up if it is used in too many places. I was doing that originally for all adult stories, but then noticed the warning when I edited the page. So, I removed and put the pages, and just put it on my own story. I think, basically, for those who like to use it, and know how, they can, but I don't think we want to use it for all stories. Not sure what the "expensive" thing actually does, if it puts too much of a load on the server or what, but I figured those familiar enough to use it will be limited, so it is probably fine for the people to use on their own story if they know how. You can see more about it at: www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words --Dirty Me 05:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I wish, but I am not sure...I tried a few things on my Dirty Me/Storyboard, but couldn't get it to work. I want to be able to collapse all the paths, so me, or others, can go through option by option to see the flow. Unfortunately, nothing I tried seemed to have worked, since many of the needed code would need to be part of the .js for this wiki, and do not seem to be enabled. I have even made a request to allow admins to activate, at least some, codes, but it seems like the request a feature questions don't get much attention. Which sucks, because my storyboard is a mess without it, and way too long if I show all paths. So, basically, I see if I can find something that will work occasionally, but will just get rid of it if me, Elder, or Platypus cannot figure out how to make it work properly. You can probably see the discussions I had with Platypus on his talk page. --Dirty Me 05:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

lol, sorry, way past my ability. I can do something if I have a template to follow, but am not really good enough to do something completely on my own like that xD --Dirty Me 06:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

<3 the new Main page. It looks much better now ^.^ --Dirty Me 01:51, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

o.O Getting rid of your story? Or just restructuring it? --Dirty Me 05:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello, wondering if I can get your advice. I copied your format from the front page to put everything in text boxes and try to make it look better. I am also trying to put some photos into my story, so it can show outfits or whatever. You can see an example on: Dirty Me/Try to seduce him. However, it doesn't seem to work well. What I am hoping to get is the box on the left side with the options below it, then the image on the right side. However, that page just sort of jumbles everything around. Can you let me know how to get the effect I am looking for? --Dirty Me 04:48, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, sadly some do have whitespace which I cannot remove. However, I am not as concerned with that, I guess my question was more if I could thumbnail the image down to a certain size. I know in my HTML ebooks it uses things like: <div><img src="../Other/Graphics/EOTWcover.jpg" width="100" height="153.5" alt="EOTW Cover"></div> to scale down the image. I am just wondering if there is a way to do this either in the page with the story, so by putting something around the {{Template:Dirty Me/Image}}, or by putting something around the html in the template itself to force the image to be a certain size.

Also though, I notice with the floating thing, the boxes end up anywhere or everywhere. How would I use the format to enable it create the boxes (I like your curved edge boxes more), and have it placed where I want. So, for example, I will have the box for the story on the left top, the options on the left bottom, and the images on the right side. I understand it will change depending on how big your browser window is, but I mean as a default desktop view? Sorry, I am okay at copying someone else, but not good at coming up with it myself. --Dirty Me 06:17, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Sadly, it may not matter. The last picture I tried to link to last night took me to a page which stated linking has been disabled. I have submitted a bug thing on this, but no idea how long it will take to get it addressed. I also wanted to mention, I have taken and included the HTML code in some of my pages, so people can take, copy and paste into a .html file, and be able to use their native browser to read my story. Well, as long as they follow the proper naming/folder convention as listed in my Dirty Me/Info page. Right now it is very simple HTML, but I will probably refine, and possibly even put my master.css and outline.css html in there at some point so it can create a much better experience. But, that is for another time, since right now I have very little done. Just up to right before the end of the intro with the first option selected on each page. The rest are still missing the HTML code. I got the idea from one of the requested features posts, where someone asked to be able to download the story. This way, they can just recreate the story, although they will need to go through every page of the story and copy the proper HTML code. I will see where I go with this.

definetlynot.a@gmail.com Hope it helps.

Platypus's Messages

Welcome aboard. As Dirty Me has explained above, I don't mind anyone who wants to assist with basic site cleanup, but actual coding changes are another matter. If you can think of ways, using the current, limited, coding available to us, to make the site look better, we're open to suggestions, but any ideas involving changes to the underlying coding would need to be brought to RobKohr's attention. --Platypus 11:31, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

A lot of things that you would expect to work, don't. You would have to ask RobKohr to find out why. --Platypus 22:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

As long as things are easily readable, I don't have any particular color preferences. I definitely agree about removing SSR as the featured story. While the bulk of our traffic is adult oriented, there's no reason for us not to be a little more family friendly, and frankly, I would just as soon have SSR receive a little less attention than it garners. Way too many awful writers try to jump into the middle of it. --Platypus 11:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

While I have read a lot of stories on the site and I've contributed to several, I've mostly been concentrating on the Adults section lately. Not what we're looking for in a featured story! Unfortunately, the users who seemed most interested in having a Featured Story are rather intermittent in their appearances. I'll think about it and if any particular story comes to mind, I'll tell you. I suppose if no one can suggest a suitable story, the Featured Story could be left with a call for nominations rather than having any one story featured.--Platypus 22:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

You have my permission to replace the Main Page, and you have my thanks for all the work you've put into it. --Platypus 00:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The sorting feature isn't really necessary, but I put the contents of the boxes in tables just to align everything in columns and get the || out of the display. Tabling the box contents doesn't displace anything on my display, but if it shifts things around for other people, I might have to revert things to the way you'd had them. --Platypus 11:35, 14 April 2014 (UTC)