Show HN: Passback Stories: collaborative storywriting for fun and hilarity

#1

Post by bionic_apple » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 7:55 PM UTC

Show HN: Passback Stories: collaborative storywriting for fun and hilarity
passbackstories.com

Re: Show HN: Passback Stories: collaborative storywriting for fun and hilarity

#2

Post by bionic_apple » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 7:56 PM UTC

Hey guys, this is has been an on and off project of mine for the past year, so tell me what you think!

Here are a few things that are on my TODO list:

* Deletion/editing of paragraphs you submit. I'm still deciding on how to approach this without making people who respond to you angry.

* More ways of sorting stories/parts than recent and best rating respectively.

* Auto-updating of a story while you read it.

* Markdown support for italics, bold, etc.

So, tell me what you think, I would love to hear any feedback.

Re: Show HN: Passback Stories: collaborative storywriting for fun and hilarity

#3

Post by mikkel » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 8:35 PM UTC

First off: This idea is really cool. I've been playing around with user-contributed story creation as well, and I must say you've done a much better job than I dreamed of.

That said, I feel theres some room for improvement:

1) It's hard to tell where to start. Should I contribute to a story, edit a story? Read a story, and if so, which one? doodleordie.com does this really well, as in it gives you one task to do when you first use the site. Then another.

2) It looks like a graveyard - fill it in with some sample stories. You may have to do this yourself. Make the stories fun or interesting or w/e. Remember that Reddit did this http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/6/21/how-reddit-got-huge-to...

3) As far as marketing, it would be cool to appeal to writer communities. See what features they would want. It probably won't be what you have in your queue ;)

As far as deleting and editing - maybe have a story owner? The owner could be the only person able to delete/update non-owned paragraphs?

Auto-updating of a story seems like an overkill until you get an active community IMO.

Markdown is great for tech folk. Other people are scared off by the strange markup in my experience. Who are you targeting and what would they like to use?

I recommend usertesting.com (or a similar site), as you will get tons of cool information as you develop this. I just did this for my latest site, and it had unforeseen results.

Sorry for the rant, again the site is very cool, and looks great - could use a bit of tweaking though IMO. -Mikkel

Re: Show HN: Passback Stories: collaborative storywriting for fun and hilarity

#4

Post by bionic_apple » Mon, Sep 10, 2012, 9:13 PM UTC

mikkel wrote: post #3

First off: This idea is really cool. I've been playing around with user-contributed story creation as well, and I must say you've done a much better job than I dreamed of. That said, I feel theres some room for improvement: 1) It's hard to tell where to start. Should I contribute to a story, edit a story? Read a story, and if so, which one? doodleordie.com does this really well, as in it gives you one task to do when…

1. That seems like a great idea and I totally agree. I've been wondering on how to approach an introduction for a while now, I will definitely look at doodleordie.

2. I just got the website into a state where I would want the public to see it, so I should be adding to the content in the coming days/week. That's a very good point though, no one wants to use a barren website.

3. That was actually my next step! I posted this on reddit and HN, but I totally can see writer communities sticking to this idea a lot more. So far, the response on reddit has been absolutely nil, but then again that might be from posting to a small subreddit (/r/somethingimade)

4. Editing/deleting: that's a decent idea. I was originally thinking of letting people edit/delete a paragraph if no one has responded to it. After that, a 'mod' would only be able to edit it. That moderator might be the story owner, I'll think about it.

5. Auto-updating: you are right, this should be put on the backburner for now.

6. Markdown: there was a nice gui editor somewhere that used markdown, I was thinking that would pander to both crowds.

As for the ranting, you weren't! This is awesome feedback, I wish more people would comment like this.

Thank you!