Since I have some time on my hands, here's a list of features that I wish an interactive story site would have -- some are based on what's already available on other sites, some pulled out of my imagination. Some of them may be on the new site already, some of them you may be working on, some may be impossible...but here they are.
% Using HTML tags to style text -- or, at least, something reasonably well-known like BBCode. (Possible on the BEArchive and CYOC, and Writing.com uses their own odd tags that are akin to BBCode. I am really not a fan of the use of asterisks, underscores, carets, and pipes for this here on FB.)
% A proper forum for discussion, rather than it being in the same format as the stories. (Found on both the BEArchive and CYOC, albeit used very little for discussion of the interactives in both places.)
% Ability for each chapter's author to create some potential titles/jumping-off points for follow-up chapters, while also allowing future authors to create their own. (On CYOC.)
% Numerical value for the number of children listed next to each title/jumping-off point. (CYOC distinguishes between nonzero, appearing under the "What do you do now?" heading, and zero, under a "The following are suggested titles..." heading if they exist.)
% Potential unlimited number of follow-ups to each chapter. (Right here on FB, and also on CYOC.)
% "Mandatory" preview of chapters before final submission. (On the BEArchive, CYOC, and Writing.com; would also be here on FB if the "preview episode before submitting" checkbox defaulted to being checked.)
% Comments on individual episodes. (On the BEArchive and, in a more limited form, on CHYOO2.)
% Optional links to an author's email/website on each chapter. (Email links on the BEArchive and CYOC; Writing.com links to their internal messaging system.)
% Optional emails when a chapter has been added to/commented on. (On the BEArchive, Writing.com, and CHYOO2.)
% Ability to see all of an author's chapters. (On the BEArchive, Writing.com, and CHYOO2.)
% Statistics and graphs about the site -- top authors, posts per day/month, word count, etc. (BEArchive has statistics available, although I believe they require manual intervention to put together -- seems like an interactive story site starting from scratch could be programmed to do the stats automatically.)
% Ability for authors to see the number of views they've gotten on each of their chapters. (Writing.com has this, although I believe the only way to see it there is to go to each individual chapter -- I'd love to be able to go to my list of chapters and sort by number of views.)
% Internal spell check.
% Ability for authors to edit their own chapters (for a limited amount of time, such as until there are follow-ups?) after they've been submitted.
% Ability for authors to let other authors, chosen by them, edit their chapters after they've been submitted. (The main purpose of this would be if authors had asked for proofreading help.)
% Or the ability to easily contact the site "managing editor" to make minor edits to chapters without having to use the comments. (BEArchive uses the comments for this purpose, and I feel like it's something that should be done a bit more "silently.")
% Distinction between visited and non-visited links, at least in the site's default stylesheet. (Right here on FB, and also on BEArchive and CYOC.)
% Indication of the time/date chapters were created. (Right here on FB, and also on BEArchive and CYOC; Writing.com shows it only for the most recent 20 chapters in each individual story's "List Recent Additions" menu.)
% "Compressed" view of recent additions, especially if there's more than one story. (I'm thinking of CYOC's format for its recent additions page, with one list showing all the stories and links to the titles of the new chapters, each day.)
You can assume that I'm at best ambivalent about any features that I haven't mentioned here, such as CYOC's content tags and Writing.com's "gift points" system.
