Frustrated at teen-ink
My key word in this is frustrated. Not outraged, not indignant not disgusted or furious just frustrated. Frustrated because I have been on this site for years, yet the number of people who have viewed my work is minimal. I’ve had an article posted here for almost two years, and it doesn’t even have half as many view as some of the other articles. Why is this? It’s a fundamental design flaw in the organization of the website. There may be good authors on here who have gone unnoticed because of the way this site works. Basically, an article is really good and gets published, so it then goes on the front page of the section it’s in. People see it and read it until it become one of the most read articles there. People see the most read article and think “Hey this must be good”, which it is good, it’s usually fantastic, but there are other fantastic pieces of work out there as well, which go unviewed because they are covered up, on the bottom of the page in the ‘recently submitted section’. This means one or two people may read it, but nut after a few days, it’s gone, because someone else submits a story and it gets replaced by that new work. After a few months, it’s buried in the bottom of page 12, which nobody wants to look at. They want to read the best. There are so many good stories that go unviewed because of this design flaw. My proposed suggestion on how to fix this is to have, at the very top of the page, a section not dedicated to new releases, or to the stories that have been published, or the stories that are the most read, but a section that just changes what stories are in it every day, so one day there may be a few mediocre stories, mixed with some good, mixed with some awful, but it won’t matter because the next day there will be new stories. I think this would make a lot of people feel like their work is more appreciated, while increasing the number of stories read on this site, and the appreciation for different writing styles. More people will get feedback on what they write, and people who have a true writing talent but are not recognized within a few days, which is what it takes to get recognized on this site, are finally seen. It’s a winning situation for everyone. After all, in the words of Terry Pratchett, “A good plan isn’t one where one person wins, but where everybody is happy.”