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[julilly]

Yeah. You still can do that on that little bar at the top of the page. You can select it to be sorted as Most Recent, just Nick stories, just Romance, etc.

[RokofAges75]

That's what I thought.  I knew you could still sort that way, but I was just trying to remember if that was the only way stories were displayed in the beginning.  I don't do a lot of browsing for stories besides what's on Most Recent anymore, so I can see the importance of having your story displayed on that page.  That said, it's still up to the story itself to attract my attention, no matter if it's at the top of the first page or the bottom of the last page.

[julilly]

Sometimes I'll use it if I'm just bored and cruising the site to see what's on there lol

[Purpura Lipstick]

I'd like to thank you for the new rule personally! 

[FrickingKaos]

I haven't been on most recent lately, and you're right...if people have huge summaries and banners it takes my phone browser a long time to upload the page. So I'm glad we have these rules so people don't have this problem.

[Carter-Orange]

I would never have thought people would do such a thing as update constantly to stay top of the most recent

Steph, I've been on a Twilight site in the past where writers would write crap like that about not posting more until they had a certain amount of reviews.  Made me not want to read!

I'm glad there are rules here and I like how they are enforced fairly.

[mare]

I remember my early years of fanfic when people would always threaten the readers saying they wouldn't be updating unless they got reviews lol Talk about pet peeves, that one is a ginormous one for me!

Thankfully, I don't see that much if any these days.

[Carter-Orange]

That's a pet peeve of mine too, makes me think they are only writing for reviews and not because it's something they care about.

[FrickingKaos]

I don't like that either, I actually stopped reading a story once because the author kept saying she wouldn't update until people left feedback. This was a long time ago. I've asked for feedback in my chapter notes but nothing that extreme.

[Tri]

I haven't been on most recent lately, and you're right...if people have huge summaries and banners it takes my phone browser a long time to upload the page. So I'm glad we have these rules so people don't have this problem.

I agree!  I didn't notice how long summaries were until I started going on the site on my iPhone.  I was so happy to see the new rule.

[colorguard_diva]

Well anything on a phone is going to be long, including summaries. I've read a short chapter of like 700 words and it seemed liked a never ending saga....lol.

I've seen a few that have had 16 sentences. It didn't bother me and it didn't give away the whole story either.

I really just think it's a matter of personal taste. We all have pet peeves when it comes to the site, fan fiction and life in general. I'm sure we could go on for hours talking about them....lol.

I don't think people should abuse the sumarry rule and post a whole chapter, but I'm okay with a longer summary if it doesn't go overboard in telling the whole story or repeat itself.

Sometimes I think people don't actually read the summaries anyway. I think they look for who the story is about and if it's about the guy they like they read it. I don't think I've ever gotten a review that said, well I really am not into Nick, but your sumarry was so captivating that I just had to read it.  Personally, I'd love that to happen, but maybe it's a wish  of mine. I think people are definitely more incline to read stories about the guy/guys they like more than anything.

[julilly]

Before the rule was even in place there was already a couple of people we contacted and asked to trim it down because people started posting their prologues as summaries. 500-700 words.

Like I said before, this has been a topic of discussion for years. It's up to the discretion of myself and Mare to determine whether or not something is "too long".

It's not like if someone posts a summary of "I came. I saw. I conquered." we're going to say the sentences are too long. I think I speak for both of us when I say we have pretty good judgement and up until this point we have used that judgement to make executive decisions when it comes to enforcement of the existing rules.

It's not about the quality of the summary, or whether or not someone reveals their whole plot - I'm not reading them, nor do I likely want to. It's about allowing every single author the same amount of space to get the attention of readers in the interest of being fair.

Since you keep bringing up the fact that it's all about personal taste I would have to disagree that people will just read anything depending on who the main character is - summaries do matter. That's why stories with badly written summaries usually have a lower read count and less reviews than those that don't. Those are facts, not opinions.

[colorguard_diva]

I don't think anyone is judging the choices you and mare make. Personally, I think you do a fine job. 

Personally, I think it all comes down to preference of each person on the site. I've read a lot of great stories that have great summaries that didn't get a ton of reads (looking at the read count) or reviews because they weren't about a certain Backstreet Boy or weren't about the Backstreet Boys. You can't tell me that it's not about what people like or don't like. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. People read what they want to read.

You go to the book store and you see the same exact thing. Certain books are read more than others for various reasons. Sometimes really great books go unnoticed.

I've also seen not so good stories on AC get tons of reviews. This are ones that have grammar mistakes,  no plot line, etc., but were about a popular Backstreet Boy. (But that would be my opinion of a story, other people might find it to be the best story out there.)

I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Just an observation. I'm usually not one who is of the common opinion about things. As you can see my opinion varies from most. We can openly discuss this topic of the rules and never come up with a perfect solution for everyone. I do like hearing everyone's thoughts even if we all don't agree. If we all agreed, I'd worry because then we'd be robots....lol.

[Tri]

Just throwing my two cents in from a reader's point of view.  The function of summaries is, in my opinion, to give a brief synopsis of the story.  If summaries are too long, I usually pass over them.  I almost always read the summaries before I even look at the genres, characters, or categories.  I know I don't speak for everyone, but it might be something for authors to keep in mind if they're trying to draw readers in.  I have gone outside of my genre/characters comfort zone because of really awesome summaries.  

[mare]

If its true and summaries don't matter, it's all the more reason to cut them to short as possible.

Summary: eh, it's about Nick and he's hot, so please read it.

Perfect length! lol