Quick question that I didn’t feel was worth a thread of its own:
From the main site, we can click on “Community” to get to here. Is there anything clickable here that brings us back to the main site? If not, could there be, please?
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Yeah, I know. No, there is no apparent way to go back to the main site.
I’d have to customize the Discourse menu, which can be done, but it’s a beast to work with, especially if you do it for the first time.
But it’s still on my list and it’s good to know that people are missing it!
The reason, that there haven’t been any updates recently, by the way, was a major round of updates of all kinds of frameworks, plugins and other middleware that’s been used and, as usual, this causes an enormous amount of unforeseen work. There are always some things breaking with an update, which you never expected.
But it’s working now and I’m slowly adding the new functionalities I was planning.
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You could always make a top always present page with the link as a temporary solution.
Oh, does the site allow visible announcements on top. Because if so the link could do there.
That said, you do good work so I personally don’t suggest spending days wrestling with the code for the link.
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So while catching up on the community side of the site I was reading through this thread and:
- Chronivac? I’ve never even heard of this before.
- Speaking of Master PC, I actually have been considering a story that spins off from that, tentatively titled Master PC Media Player. It’s an app.
So now to return to being on topic, I agree that a link back to the story part of the site would be nice, it’s not so important you should knock yourself out over it.
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This year’s Christmas update
Sorry for the many outages today. I’ve changed a lot in the background and uploaded a major update. Unfortunately. There haven’t been that many changes for the end user, though.
Here’s what’s relevant to you:
2018-12-25
- Added a new “Category” filter on the main page and several Story lists. You can now select multiple categories you want to see or un-select those, you don’t want to see. The selection will be remembered in a cookie, so the site remembers you’re preference each time you visit us.
- I’ve redone the “Top Rated Stories” feature once again. See below for the details.
- The list of random stories from the archive is now persistent (i.e. the contents cannot change when the site is restarted). This way it really only changes once a week and it won’t repeat stories already listed before (starting from today).
Some more changes, which aren’t that relevant to most users, are listed in this thread’s initial posting.
About the “Top Rated Stories”:
First, I apologize that I reworked this a second time, now, and that it’s going to start from scratch once again.
The reason is twofold:
-
The previous algorithm actually created an all new list whenever I restarted the site. That was not intended, but I didn’t take into account that people add new ratings and therefore the actual list of top rated stories was changing all the time…
But this completely wrecked the whole idea to show each of the best story/series exactly once. Some were shown multiple times and others not at all. Not good. -
The algorithm I created wasn’t considering the rating categories equally. The average score in certain categories tend to be higher than others (like “Hot” and “Writing” is usually rated higher than “Mind-Control”). That resulted in only very few stories/series listed for “Mind-Control”.
But I figure that the best stories for “Mind-Control” might exactly be what people are looking for…
So I’ve changed the algorithm. For each new selection that’ll be shown, there’ll always be one entry for each rating category. That means 6 stories/series for each selection. To compensate, there’ll only be a new selection every other Saturday.
The first selection using this new implementation will show up on Saturday 5th.
As a bonus, you can now see all the series/stories that were previously featured on the all new “Top Rated Stories” page. You’ll find that in the menu under Story → Top Rated Stories.
As a new selection comes up on the main page, all entries will be added to the list shown there. At the end of the first run (mid of 2019) the list will show the 78 entries (6 categories and 13 selections), i.e. all the highest rated stories and series of the first half year of 2018.
Then we’ll continue with the 2nd half of 2018.
Hope you like the changes!
I wish you all a happy holiday and a great new year 2019!
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Martin, thank you for adding a filter on the main page. I think it could be a tremendously valuable addition to the site, but right now I do not believe it is realizing its full potential.
Now I could be way off base with this, and maybe others could weigh in and correct me if I am wrong, but it is my view that many people ultimately visit the site to read stories about guys being mind controlled. It does not matter all too much what the means are to reach that end. Whether it be drugs, hypnosis, technology, or whatever, those things are not as important as the characters, context and specific sexual themes.
For instance, I particularly enjoy stories that have a ‘preppy’ element. It is not my only interest, of course, but sometimes I am in the mood for it specifically. It does not matter to me at all if it falls under ‘reprogramming’, ‘drugged’, ‘hypnosis’, ‘magic’ or ‘brainwash’ (which is roughly half the tags on the current filter), I just want to find the stories that involve guys being compelled to dress ‘preppily’ and all that entails. The methods and means to achieve that change are of little import.
Again, I could be totally wrong on this; perhaps a significant portion of the community does specifically want to read about hypnosis and abhors every other form of control. If that is true I will shut the fuck up. But if it is not, I would suggest that the tags be changed to filter for maybe the 5-10 most common tags (whatever they may be) beyond the method of MC itself. For example, I imagine options in the dropdown box for things like ‘Muscle’, ‘Humiliation’, ‘Incest’, ‘Dumber’, and ‘Jock’ (these are the first things that popped into my head for an example, I am not saying they are the best choices) would allow people to filter for their particular interests more acutely.
I think what Martin has implemented is the best compromise. As one of the people who helped with the big tag tidy up, I often found it a bit difficult deciding how to categorise stories, as often stories would cover more than one category, so I’d have to pick the most dominant category, then ensure it was suitably tagged.
Having said that, you do realise if you go to the search page, if you only select a category and suitable tags, all stories in that category with those tags (and related ones if selected) will be shown?
However, a suggestion for @Corin is the search page could possibly do with a bit of a tweak. With the current layout and separate search buttons for each input box, it gives the impression only the one search input will be used for each button, but all the buttons use all the inputs, so a single button would perhaps make it clearer all the inputs are used.
Also, a personal request, can you set the default to ‘Only listed tags’? Perhaps with a notice once you’ve searched, asking if you want to expand the search to similar tags?
First of all, thank you both for your input. Nothing is more rewarding that people showing interest in what you’ve done, even if it’s criticism. If you get no feedback at all, you always feel lost, like what you’ve done isn’t relevant to anyone.
@Swizz
I totally understand your point. When I started to add the categories about a year ago, as a part of reorganizing the tags (and with the tremendous help of mw-scot), I’ve spent a lot of thought about how to define those categories - especially with the focus on what people would want to look for.
Of course I had my own way of using the site in mind. I like certain kind of stories and I don’t like others. I’m not so much into “transformation” (because it usually revolves around guys being turned into muscle sluts), but I really love if someone’s mind is slowly corrupted and altered.
But how to categorize this? A rubbrsome story (which I love) might be categorized as “Transformation” or “Reprogramming”.
Same as “Freeze”. I like those stories, even though they’re rare, but some of the hottest stories (for me) just fall into this category.
I know this will never be perfect. But I’m totally open to any suggestion to add different, better or just other categories. The only limit is that there shouldn’t be too many of them.
By the way, Categories are just what you described as “5-10 most common tags”. That’s how they were created in the first place. Based on my idea on how a most basic way to differentiate the stories. Yes, I took the “means of mind-control” as the basis, because I couldn’t find anything else.
I understand what you’re saying. That’s why I went to great length to describe the search dialog. In the past, I’ve enabled logging of all search requests for a while and was surprised how it’s used in reality. Most people are just toying around, using it quite aimlessly. Only very few people use all the features in a meaningful way. I guess that’s just the way it is.
The reason that all the search buttons are doing the same is quite simple. I just know that if I give them a different meaning (like giving them a context), it would confuse the hell out of people. If I’m ever going to add an “Or” mode (instead of the current “And” mode, which always forces all stories listed to meet all three search lines, if they’re filled), I’d add a separate switch button to switch between these modes. Than it’s crystal clear what’s happening. But I just know that 99,9% of the people would never use that.
The tweak you’ve suggested… well, there’s actually already a way to get what you’re asking for. Just open the search dialog with this link:
Perhaps what I should of just said, is instead of having 3 different search buttons which all do the same thing, just have a single search button.
I think the search is excellent with the key information to help people, it’s just the 3 separate search buttons gives the impression you can only search using one field at a time. Moving to a single button would emphasise that all fields are searched.
I’m not entirely sure why you’d want to do an “or” search on all fields.
Ok, I just like this simple, space conserving design. Using a separate button requires more space. But I’ll think about it.
I don’t want to add an “Or” search, I just thought that might be something you were missing. Just a misunderstanding I guess
Thanks for your input!
2018-12-30
- Added a new icon making it clear that a story needs more ratings before any concrete rating icons can appear.
- Rating icons are now also displayed for series as well.
- Improved mail text sent to authors after they have supplied a new story
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I love everything you’ve done with the site so far Martin, but i do have a bit of feedback.
I feel like the new red question marks are a bit unnecessary. I also feel this way about the green stars too. The fact that a story doesn’t have the little ratings icons is indicative enough that it needs more ratings, which I feel is enough.
With these icons, it feels like they only exist to get the reader to do something, and then they disappear. But as a reader, i don’t want to click on every brand new story, or rate every story either, especially if it’s not something I’m interested in. Because of that, I now have all these red question marks and green stars all over the page.
Lastly, for the ratings system, I feel the Hot category and Wanking category could be merged as well. I don’t think anyone ever wanked to anything that wasn’t hot to them, so it seems a bit redundant.
It’s not a big deal, nor anything close to a dealbreaker or anything, but I’d thought i’d share my thoughts on it.
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Hi @MstGay3000
Thank you a lot for your feedback! As I’ve said many times, I’m always more than happy to hear from people, no matter if it’s positive or negative.
I understand what you’re saying. Actually, I’m a bit overwhelmed by the many ? icons on the front page myself. And I’ve also just realized, that Firefox doesn’t even display it correctly, it’s supposed to look like this:
but in Firefox it just looks like this:
I guess this is because I was using a shitty, web-based svg editor. Damn it. Does anyone have a proper editor to help me with that? Would be appreciated immensely (-> @Foxtrotter maybe?! 
) .
Also, if you have an idea how to make that icon look less intrusive, I’m more than welcome for suggestions.
For the reason why I’m displaying it:
It’s a different info whether there is NO icon at all or whether there is this ? icon. And yes. I want to give an incentive to rate more. A story usually gets 500-2000 hits, but only 5-20 ratings per category at best. That’s a bit sad, considering that it’s really not hard or time consuming to rate. And it’s so valuable to both authors and readers to get ratings. The author gets detailed rating statistics which are not shown to anybody else, too.
Another thing worth to mention is, that I only start to even show any rating icons until the story has been published for at least a week, so that the ratings can stabilize a bit first. That causes almost all the entries on the main page to have this ? icon - which is a bit intrusive, agreed.
I’m happy for any idea how to improve this. Getting rid of that icon altogether is not my preferred idea, though
Oh, and why don’t you like the green star? Doesn’t it work properly for you? Don’t you appreciate to see what has been added since your last visit?
About “wanking” and “hot”: Yes, we’ve been discussing that, even when @Foxtrotter had created those icons in the first place.
The primary reason was that NCMC had this “this story made me cum” checkbox, and this is a bit of a reminiscent to that feature.
My arguing was, that a story can be hot but not necessarily be well suited for wanking, and the other way round. But some might disagree, and I don’t have many good arguments, granted. But since it’s already there, I don’t think I’m not gonna change it.
Another advantage is, that you now get TWO categories for those “relaxing and relieving” stories 
, which also brings the double of amount of such stories listed on the top rated stories page that starts next Saturday
Thank you again, @MstGay3000, and I hope you like the changes I’ve just uploaded. I’ll discuss them in my next posting.
Another update today, since I had the idea for that in my alcohol induced sleep this morning …
2019-01-01
- Added a golden glow for outstanding and a silver glow for exceptional high ratings
- Now all 5 rating icons are shown, if the the story’s ratings are good enough
I hope you like the glow and it’s hopefully not to much. Please give me your opinion. The reason is, that we’ve got some outstanding stories and I wanted to make them stand out a bit more.
The reason why I reduced the number of update of the top rated story selection to once a month (and therefore reducing the number of listed series from 78 to 36) is that I had the feeling that considering the total number of stories, showing 78 series published in half a year (each of which might contain many parts) was too much.
Again, feel free to comment.
Have a happy new year 2019!
I agree about the difference between “wanking” and “hot”. Personally, I don’t wank when I read any story, but if I were going to, I’d save it for the clearly sexual parts. (For the curious, I often give stories wanking ratings anyway, just based on whether they create “inspired by” fantasies in my head for later wanking.) Those aren’t always the hottest parts, though, since the hypnosis/MC/whatever might actually be hotter when something else is going on. For example, a big turn on for me is when someone purposely brings someone else to a hypnotist without letting on what they’re doing, especially if they don’t consciously realize they’re doing it. That’s hot, but I’d never actually wank to it, if I were the wanking-to-stories type.
Also, I do find the ? useful, though I agree that it gets a bit distracting when there are a lot of them.
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I really like the glow on the icons. You are right though, Martin: on Firefox, the question icon looks different. Also, perhaps the green star issue is with firefox too: i just realized every page i go to has green stars on every story, even page 290. They also don’t disappear either.
It’s not a big deal again, but i thought i’d bring it up.
Thanks for listening to feedback Martin, and for explaining your reasoning for everything. The site is still fantastic, and I’m glad for everything you do for us, including even just listening.
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Are you using your browser in “private mode” when visiting GSS? That would explain the behavior, because then there’s no way to remember which stories / comments are new since your last visit.
I understand why people are using private mode, but there’s little need for that on GSS, since I don’t have any advertisement (and that wont change), so it’s already quite private as it is. And it really hampers many useful functions.
Thank you for your kinds words, @MstGay3000!
Yep I’m in private mode. Thanks for clearing that up Martin. I use private mode all the time out of habit. Whoops!
2019-01-02
- Removed the delay of 6 days before a story gets any rating icons
- Instead, a story needs now at least 10 ratings in each of the categories before any rating icon will be shown
- Slightly raised the required average for ratings for their icons to be shown at all and also for the silver and golden glow. Gold is really reserved for stories with outstanding ratings.
- Improved the (still broken) layout on the Internet Explorer slightly. Please switch to a modern browser if you can!
I think it’s a bid sad that there are stories with so few ratings. That’s really frustrating for the authors! Too many stories don’t meet the “10 ratings” requirement.
While I agree that it’s a bit frustrating not to have more ratings, I don’t really think it’s unexpected. A lot of us have very small niches that appeal to some but not to a lot of others, and I expect a lot of the unique views we all get are just people checking out the story, deciding it’s not for them, and moving on.
Based on the number of comments (as the low end of the range) vs. the number of unique views I get (as the high end), I wouldn’t be surprised if only about 20 or so people actually finish any given chapter that I post. If half of them actually vote on it, I’d say I’m doing pretty good.
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