13 KiB
Rational Reads
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 32
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Created: 2015-02-16T21:05:24
Post:
[deleted]
Comments:
u/Memes_Of_Production [+9] (2 hours later)
A very nifty feature! Reddit is sadly very bad at being a "depository of stories" due to the way threads work, so its great to have a condensed into one place. Not sure if the community is large enough to sustain such a project (i think others have tried before?) but having a well developed glossary of stories would be very useful.
Only thing i can say is to maybe have a tagging system? That people can sort between say fanfic and original fic, or rationalist vs. "has rationalist elements", and such.
u/None [+3] (2 hours later)
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u/mynoduesp [+1] (22 days later)
Just found this, I'll be using it!
u/capsless [+6] despiser of hpmor (6 hours later)
looks great. one thing i'm noticing is the large number of singly-rated works in the "highest rated" block, which seems a little sub-optimal; this guy suggests using the lower bound of a 95% confidence interval. other than that, everything's working smoothly -- even on my phone, which is apparently an issue for 90% of websites. kudos.
u/xamueljones [+5] My arch-enemy is entropy (9 hours later)
I have been carefully recording and storing the titles, websites, and whenever possible, offline copies, the stories of the best possible genre for a period of several months to just under a year.
The List is extensive and through. Tomorrow, I am going to sit down in front of my computer and add so many works to your fledgling website.
This is your last and only chance to make any final requests.
u/None [+3] (11 hours later)
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u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (19 hours later)
Okay then, I'll get to it around 8 tonight. Quick question, should I include stories that aren't posted anywhere online, but can be bought through Amazon?
For example, I have a link to Ted Chiang's stories, but he also has all of the stories in a published book on Amazon, so should I include the website link or only direct people to his Amazon page? The other three works would be Blindsight, Echopraxia, and Accelerando.
Do you want only fiction for the website, or should I include some good nonfiction books on rationality such as Thinking, Fast and Slow?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
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u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
I'm posting a few stories to the site and I noticed that there are no opportunities to edit the summaries or comments if I make a mistake. In addition, I'm trying to leave a blank line in between parts of the summaries, and instead the site combines it all as one paragraph. I can't separate the typed-in tags from the rest of the summary.
Suggestions:
To be able to edit summaries, comments, or titles.
To be able to search by author, titles, tags, phrases in the summary, rating, and to check what someone has in their bookshelf or recommendations.
To be able to see who submitted which stories. I'm not too sure how useful this would be, but it's a suggestion.
To be able to mark stories Complete, Updating Quickly, Updating Slowly, Dead, or just Incomplete.
To be able to include more links than just one and to allow other people to add new links (the story might get moved to a new site).
To allow future editing by other people other than the one who first posted the story. (If you are worried about someone ruining the summaries, just look to Wikipedia for how well that turned out.)
Don't have the default length be set to Short. Have it be a blank field which is required to be filled before submission, or set to Unknown. I already accidentally submitted a few stories labeled as Short.
Allow people to see the URL address they are clicking on. Some people might submit a link to a bad website to be funny and I sometimes prefer to Google search the address if it looks suspicious.
Recommended tags: Rational, Hints of Rationality, Comic, Web Novel, Blog, Offline Book, E-book, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Original Work, Fan Fiction.
Have genre tags like Horror, Mature, Sci-Fi, Slice-of-Life, Action, Adventure, Drama, Family/Friendship, Science, Math, History, Textbook (?), etc...
An option for a darker background. Some people don't like having to spend time looking at a white background.
The search bar seems a little wonky. It's fine when there are multiple potential matches to what I type in, but when I get more specific by typing the full title, it will repeat the one or two valid results multiple times.
Include formatting options such as italics, bolding, underlining, strikeout, and all of the nifty stuff reddit provides for us in our comments.
A way for readers to request the removal of a certain story. Maybe the story doesn't fit the theme of the website, someone is being a jerk by adding bad stories, the story has changed into something people don't like, or just have a filter such as stories posted on the site for at least a month, have 2 stars or less, and have 20 voters should be removed.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
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u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
If you invite me, then sure I'm willing to do stuff like edit summaries, tags, and whatever duties a moderator has.
Do you want to include a contact page (this can include me as well), F.A.Q. page (if there are any common questions yet), and/or forum to discuss the stories?
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
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u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (2 days later)
Sure, I'm willing to join up as a moderator. If you're giving me an e-mail account, I'd prefer it to be something like matt@rationalreads.com.
Just to be clear abut my expected duties upfront, I'm only expecting to be doing things like editing summaries, answering questions, mediating arguments in the comments, approving or disapproving certain stories (suggesting what should stay or go; final authority lies with you), sorting and tagging stories, and/or beta-testing. I'm not expecting to be able to help out with the coding or web maintenance.
I recommend moving the Contacts page to the About page, so it's a little more obvious for people to see. I wouldn't have ever noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out to me.
Make it look like:
About
blah, blah, blah
Contacts
E-mail Addresses
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
I now have finished adding all of the stories that I feel belong to RationalReads. The total list of works was at three pages. After I finished, it DOUBLED to six pages. More precisely, 32 books to 60 books. Let's see if people like the stories I included.
u/libertarian_reddit [+1] (a day later)
There should be tags for submissions stating whether or not it's webfiction, book etc...
u/omgimpwned [+3] Sunshine Regiment (10 hours later)
A good initiative! I see several favourites on there.
I'm flattered In Fire Forged made the list, even though I must appear soo dead to people around here by now. I'm sorry about that. It's on a temporary hiatus, which will last at the very most until summer begins, and hopefully there will be an update or two before that time.
If I'd known the future when I started publishing, I might have gone with a much more conservative publishing schedule until everything had been weathered through. Alas, I've proven to be very bad at telling the future.
u/Cariyaga [+2] Kyubey did nothing wrong (11 hours later)
Good to hear! I'm really looking forward to it. It's one of those fics I checked for obsessively, like HPMOR and 2YE.
u/libertarian_reddit [+1] (a day later)
You just made my day. I thought In Fire Forged was dead. It's one of my favorite fics right now and I've been holding out hope for more updates.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
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u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
I now have finished adding all of the stories that I feel belong to RationalReads. The total list of works was at three pages. After I finished, it DOUBLED to six pages. More precisely, 32 books to 60 books. Let's see if people like the stories I included.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
[deleted]
u/xamueljones [+1] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
Oops! How is that possible though? I know a fair amount of computer programming, but very little of it is applicable to website programming (I focus on AI stuff).
Also, when I found one more rational fiction story to add this morning, the site is not linking to the Add Work page. Did you disable it, so you could have time to resolve the problem?
u/libertarian_reddit [+1] (a day later)
I am really appreciating this site. I've already found two works that I wish to read, but I do have a couple suggestions for the site. Firstly, there needs to be some way of contacting an admin to fix inaccuracies and whatnot, which leads into my second point of instituting some form of moderation for submissions etc...
u/None [+2] (a day later)
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u/libertarian_reddit [+1] (a day later)
Don't worry about it too much, you gotta get dat cizash first.
u/rationalidurr [-2] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (2 hours later)
Rational Reads To be clear, this site is not meant only for rational fiction, otherwise it would just be a glorified list of 15 works, but for works which those who like rational fiction might enjoy.
Then whats the point? We already have that on this sub, minus the listing function.
Why not just make a site to contain works that are strictly rational in nature? There is definitely more than 15 of those btw, and I mean more than 15 stories that were written by the rational community to be rational stories.
With a name like rational reads you would think it would be all about stories that are rational. Yet here were are.
u/None [+6] (14 hours later)
Then whats the point? We already have that on this sub, minus the listing function.
You just said it, dude.
Reddit is awful for listing stuff, and as the sub becomes more popular newer works are easier to find than older works independent of quality.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (a day later)
So what this subreddit needs is a designated place to put all of the links for the works, and that place would have be easy to find, easy to use and have the option of on the fly editing and user commenting/discussion. Like some sort of dedicated thread, color coded for convenience. And we could call it something like Tricky Thread or maybe even Lickey Thread, or something equally phonetic.
Ok sarcasm mode off.
But in all seriousness why bother with maintaining a site when a pm to the mod for a sticky thread could do the same.
Im gonna ask eaturbrainz just for that brb.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
That doesn't work, threads in reddit don't last forever and enter a read-only mode after some time.
u/None [+3] (2 hours later)
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u/libertarian_reddit [+1] (9 hours later)
Seconded.
u/None [+1] (14 hours later)
Just go ahead and add a way for people to publish their work directly on your site. I've been hoping someone would make LWFictionPress a thing for a while.
u/libertarian_reddit [+2] (a day later)
That sort of hosting is expensive. Not to mention this is supposed to be an extensive list of fiction from everywhere.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Drat, there goes my centralization efforts.
u/rationalidurr [+1] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (a day later)
Hey you're a mod right?
Is it possible to make a sticky thread doing the same thing /u/amitpamin site does? It would be easier for use, discussion and would be easily visible with a different color when entering the sub.