Story Story Forums - Feedback/Suggestions

[surendar]

Hello everyone,

Well, it is disappointing to see that this forums, which was one of the busiest forums here, have gone quiet for last few months. Ok, what we need from you members ( readers/writers ) is, the suggestions. Yes, the suggestions/feedback on story forums & its management.

May be, we moderators didn't do our work interms of encouragement/duties properly. Or we moderators were hard on our writers. Or, readers not liking the choice of the inconsistent story lines here. Or, some writers just start new story threads every now & then discontinuing their previous ones leading to annoyance for the readers & hence loosing the interest. Or the rules in story forums needs to be improved. Or What writer expects from us. Or what members expect from this Forums, etc etc.

In short, we have to do our self-analysis for where & why this forum is going down & cultivate the intention to bring the story forums busy like before. :upray Hopefully, with new AC09 game's arrival, the interest in stories might get seeded up again among the writers/readers.

Lets be transparent & discuss all our downfalls/problems/suggestions/future of this Story forums. :onpc Lets roll on..

 

[Amiya]

Agree with you Suren that it was one the busiest forum in the past with brilliant stories, good response from Readers. What i think is that the Reader doesn't bother to post comment.

 

[surendar]

What i think is that the Reader doesn't bother to post comment.

Well, if thats the case, then what could be the reason? We do have some quality story readers like Trev, Leftie, Roo, Arslaan & some more. If those story readers aren't interested in coming forward to comment, then something wrong in writer as well? Or it could be some other reason like lack of quality storylines?

Anyways, I have added up the poll too. I hope, even the readers of this thread doesn't hesitate to come forward in commenting here. Because, we need your views to make it work in better way. :onpc

 

[ZoraxDoom]

All reasonable suggestions in the poll, but the problem will be the only ones who write the stories are the ones who read them. There are a lack of comments, but each story has to put it's own effort into getting comments, stuff like quizzes and prizes, etc. Also, you can't possibly control quality and how frequently stories get updated. Some get updated every day, some once in a while. It's a part of what makes them unique.


At most, maybe incentives for readers (a raffle draw or something? Each post = a ticket, every week a lucky reader wins some cash), or further incentives for story writers. But I think it's fine as it is.

 

[treva]

I find that it is a mix of problems, mainly down to the writers of the stories. Firstly, like said in the poll, there are far many stories that never make it past a few games let alone a series. Secondly, the quality of stories has seriously dropped. There used to be masses of quality with stories from Short Leg, Suren, Gamerkid, MWaugh and so on. Now they are all messy and haven't had any effort put into it. Most stories now just don't interest me because of the following reasons:

- Unrealistic scores
- Messy presentation
- Half arsed updates
- Lack of effort
- Lack of longevity

Hope this helps Suren.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Hmm. Now see, I'm trying to make my story seem as messy as I could be, and was planning to do several jokes over the course on how I just can't be bothered at times to take screenies and such. I intended on keeping that style to make it easier on me, and to make the story feel more casual and laid-back, let is focus more on the writing and the cricket rather than presentation and gimmicks. So I don't see stories that are messy or have infrequent updates as a problem.


Longevity is a problem, but it always has been. The way you know if a story is a good story is if it goes the distance. Milestones like 100 posts, 200 posts, 1000 views, etc. are a goodway of measuring the quality.

And in the end, stories with poor quality updates and unrealistic storylines tend to, over time, get ignored, get less views, and fade away. It's how it has always been.

 

[Pakistani Army]

Personally, I feel that there are various problems.

Firstly, I feel that there are members constantly starting new stories even I am to blame for this. However, it has been on the increase in the past few months. Due to this, members begin to lose interest.

In addition, there are members who write replies to stories like "great pres mate..." As said before, I used to do this. However since I have returned to PlanetCricket I have changed my posting quality especially in the stories forum.

An idea to stop members frequently starting new stories could be to have a 1 month story limit. I.E: You can only have one story in the space of a month?

I hope this helps.

Kind Regards
Arslaan

 

[Gary123]

Well being a reader of the stories[just the ones which i like],
I think the stories presenatation matters a lot for the people to read it.
Just I started reading stories seeing the one of Tom Baker[Three Lions On The Shirt?].
Then i got interested in some other stories like Suren's Career Diary,Roo's Story.
This was just because of the presentation of these stories and very easily readable matter.
Some stories which i saw but never bothered to comment is which are just filled with ball by ball updates and almost half of the page is filled with writing and no screenies.
Graphics make the stories better.
I personally feel there should be a mixture of both Graphics and Matter[Not a lot] to make people interested in the stories.
And The Stories Which i mentioned Above[Suren's And Roo's]Are just perfect as also was of Tom Baker.
Other Day i saw A World Cup story by timmy[don't exactly remember],It was great because of the videos it had after an innings.

Also i think if users are given incentives there will be many readers for sure then but the forum will get messed up by some unneccessary comments just because the users need those incentives.

I think mods are doing their job perfectly in this forum.

Cheers

 

[Dr. Pepper]

Those who used to frequently post in the story forum when it was at its peak, grew up, got a busier schedule and didn't have time to write stories. The new breed so to speak don't really have many guidelines to follow and post poor updates which people can't be bothered to read.

I think a good idea for stories would be to have them run for at least 3 months, or around about, before they can be nominated for SOTM. Hopefully this will stop members starting a story, updating like crazy for a month, get SOTM then give up on it. I've seen it soo many times it's annoying.

Also the incentives could be higher I s'pose lol. The current vcash reward is nothing considering how much vcash member now have. I'm not that bothered personally but I guess it could raise the level of activity.

 

[Jaztheman]

Those who used to frequently post in the story forum when it was at its peak, grew up, got a busier schedule and didn't have time to write stories. The new breed so to speak don't really have many guidelines to follow and post poor updates which people can't be bothered to read.

I think a good idea for stories would be to have them run for at least 3 months, or around about, before they can be nominated for SOTM. Hopefully this will stop members starting a story, updating like crazy for a month, get SOTM then give up on it. I've seen it soo many times it's annoying.

Also the incentives could be higher I s'pose lol. The current vcash reward is nothing considering how much vcash member now have. I'm not that bothered personally but I guess it could raise the level of activity.

Mani's idea for SOTM could actually work I guess. 3 month is a bit much I feel, and it should be moved up to 2 months to start with.

I left the Cricket Stories section a while ago, when I resigned as moderator, mainly due to not getting excited when seeing members updated their stories or enjoyed reading them as much. The fantastic story writers of old have, as Mani said, grown up and moved up. However, there hasn't been an influx of new members that can fill the giant gap left by those members. I look on the first page and there are only a few threads that have 500+ posts. Stories are so stop-start, that they are basically meaningless.

A good storyline helps bring in the readers, who could then go onto make their own story. A unique story brings a sense of change to the forum, instead of the same 'Amatuer player to International player in 7 weeks'. The story forum needs a mix of quality written stories and fabulous graphic stories to entertain the readers who read specific stories.

There has always been sudden drops in activity in this part of the forum, since I have been here. It always picks up in the end mainly due to the story writers finall coming together. If someone comes into this part of the forum wanting to create a story but see's stories that get no comments, they could be disheartened. Same as the owner of that story. This is why there should be a 'Author's Pact' in which story writers have to comment in eachothers threads to keep them going and to intice readers, potential legends, to start their own stories.

We need to be constructive with out replies and not just the 'KUTGW'. That won't help the story progress and won't help the writer in what he really matters about. Improving. We need to start reading updates in full and picking out any bits we didn't necessarily like. This doesn't mean flame in threads saying they are terrible. You should offer advice on how to rectify the problem you have found. We should encourage new story writers and old story writers alike, ensuring the survival of the story forum.

A long-ish post, considering I don't particularly visit this section much, but it could easily pick up the activity if everyone pulled together and started supporting eachother. It is a community afterall.

 

[treva]

Hmm. Now see, I'm trying to make my story seem as messy as I could be, and was planning to do several jokes over the course on how I just can't be bothered at times to take screenies and such. I intended on keeping that style to make it easier on me, and to make the story feel more casual and laid-back, let is focus more on the writing and the cricket rather than presentation and gimmicks. So I don't see stories that are messy or have infrequent updates as a problem.


Longevity is a problem, but it always has been. The way you know if a story is a good story is if it goes the distance. Milestones like 100 posts, 200 posts, 1000 views, etc. are a goodway of measuring the quality.

And in the end, stories with poor quality updates and unrealistic storylines tend to, over time, get ignored, get less views, and fade away. It's how it has always been.

I wouldn't say your story is messy, and it's done purposefully so it's not a problem. It's when people make their presentation, to put it bluntly, crap. It's just not appealing and it's very rarely a good read. Yours is neither crap nor a bad read, so I wouldn't class your story as messy at all.

 

[Roofrom50]

i myself find it difficult to update like i use to back in the old day. Like other members have said in this thread, the older story writers like myself, Suren, Gamer have all grown up and do have a busier schedule, so it's hard to find time to do a quality update.

I think when the new Cricket 09 does come out, their will be more and new stories coming out. Im not going to say that they'll be quality stories, but there should be more interest in this forum.
I myself find it frustrating with the amount of stories that have been started, and then stopped a week or so later with no updates. People don't comment on other peoples stories because they are waiting to see wether the story will advance and be quality with their updates.

I think the forum has hit a low, but will pick up again as the future progresses.

 

[surendar]

On the basis of the above inputs, there has been some thoughts put in the system discussed here,

http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...ategies/story-forums-rules-changes-55996.html

Let me know in case of any issues. We will discuss & change if necessary.

 

[Skater]

I can't help but feel the new rules are a bit too strict.

 

[surendar]

I can't help but feel the new rules are a bit too strict.

In what way? Can you elaborate them please. As I said in above post, we will discuss & change it if necessary!