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Multi-Part Articles (Serieses (sp?))
By tech , Section Wishlist [] Posted on Fri Oct 26, 2001 at 12:00:00 PM PST

Often I have wanted to submit an article to K5 that was incomplete - Perhaps I wanted to document a project from start to finish, or I wanted to chronicle a set of events in real time that hadn't all yet occurred; and you really can't do it.

As of right now, there are two ways to create a pseudo/multi-part article:

Submit multiple stories.
Upside: You can actually have a multi-part article without changes to existing Scoop.
Downside: Moderation can easily disrupt the flow of the series - future editions are not likely to be posted. Also, even if they are, one article is given more 'play' - time at the top of the front page / section page - than single-part articles.

Add comments to a single story, as the series progresses.
Upside: Article does not get an unfair amount of play.
Downside: Later parts of series get almost no play - no exposure - which makes the first part incomplete, and the later parts mostly pointless.

I have thought quite a bit on the different ways to implement this, and (from a policy perspective) the best way seems to be:

Add 'This is a Multi-Part (Series) Article' checkbox to the 'Submit Story' dialog screens.
Create a 'My Multi-Part Articles' box, which appears by preference, or automatically on author's main screen when they have open (see below) multi-part articles.
Create a 'Close Series' checkbox on the 'Append to Multi-Part Article' dialog screens. After an article has been closed, it can no longer be appended to, and it will be removed from 'My Multi-Part Articles'.
Create a new box, on by default, for 'Recently Updated Multi-Part Articles', or better, 'New Series Additions'. The box would show articles originally posted FP when viewing the front page; likewise it would only show stories posted to the specific current section when viewing a certain section. Hopefully the new box would give multi-part articles the proper amount of play.
When a new article appears, it is somehow tagged with "This is only the beginning of a full series! Check back later for more editions" etc etc.

Not much to say in closing, except I leave it to discussion...
Regards,
Tech

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Multi-Part Articles (Serieses (sp?)) | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)

Guess I don't see this as needed... (none / 0) (#1)
by Vectro on Sun Oct 28, 2001 at 02:11:22 PM PST

I guess I don't see the downsides of posting multiple stories as downsides.

With respect to "equal play", a multi-part story should be big enough for each part to be substantial enough to be a story by itself. That's not to say that it should stand alone, but the single part should have as much meat as a regular story. Given this, it seems quite reasonable to give each part of a multi-part story as much prescence as a single-part story.

As for the possibility that future parts get voted down: I think this is a good thing, not a bad one. If people like the story, they will vote it up; if they are tired of the series, they won't. It's also my perception that people are less likely to vote down subsequent parts of a multi-part series, for the sake of continuity.

i can see it.... by hrishi, 10/30/2001 06:01:07 AM PST (none / 0)

Extensions by pkej, 11/14/2001 05:43:35 AM PST (none / 0)

Multi-Part Articles (Serieses (sp?)) | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 hidden)

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