"To favourite" and "to friend" seem to be the two prime examples (is it possible to have "two prime" examples or should that be "the prime and the secondary" examples ?) of internet verbing .

If you click on an author's name, you then get an option to "add author to favourites". If you click on a story, you get an option (underneath the summary) to "add author to favourites" and or "add story to favourites".

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

If you click on the "Series" link at the top of the page you get the lists of Series (is that the plural ?) then you get the option to "add a favourite series"

(To avoid using the "favouriting" word )

Does anyone know what Adding a series to favourites actually does though ?

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

Hmm, I'm now left with the question of what precisely defines a series

Because it seems to me that some of them aren't on the Series link but they are there as Stories.....

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Cestina's dolls houses - Where has the week gone?

As an Author you have the choice to put various of your stories together as a Series. Some of them on there are at present only 2 stories long, but quite a few of them have a few stories in them.

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

Authors create a series to link up stories that are all about one character, or follow chronologically, or are linked in some other way. It's just a way of helping people to find stories that are linked. So, for example, I've created a series for the Augusta stories, where all the stories about Augusta are listed in chronological order.

But I don't know how making them a favourite works - whether you get an email when any story is updated, or whether you'd just get one when a story is added...

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"And I'm sure there was blood in the gutter from somebody's head, or else it was the sunset in a puddle."

So This is School! - Review: JP of the Fifth by Margaret Griffiths

I have the Augusta series on my favourites but as yet haven't individually added the stories to favourites, since I at the time thought that I just had to add you as an author Abi.

If you wouldn't mind put a "test" page up on one at the end, which you could then delete, it might be useful just to see what it does so we could get our answer? Or I'm happy to do that the other way around, for a story someone else hasn't favourited in the All Change series.

ETA - Thanks for doing that Abi, but it looks as though something doesn't quite work, nothing has shown up as yet on my notifications Looks like will have to individually add the stories.

I'm guessing that the series favourite option works a bit like the Author option, it will only notify if a new story is added to the series.

At least we have our answer !

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

*nods* Not sure what you get notifications for series for - maybe the same as with a favourite author - but not an update with each new chapter... Of course, if you have a favourite series and already have the author in your list, is that therefore a duplication... I'm just not sure!!!

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'Joey, what do you think you are?’
‘A genius,’ replied Joey promptly. ‘Idiot! I didn’t mean that,’ laughed her sister. ‘No! Listen – and don’t burst with excitement – you are an – aunt!’

Thanks, Beecharmer, this seems a good idea for those of us who don't have specific problem questions but haven't really got to grips with using the SDL either! Useful to know that adding an author as favourite doesn't automatically give you all their updates. Has anyone found there is a limit to how many stories you can fit into your favourites?

I have 46 favourite stories and nothing so far telling me to stop adding anything, so if there is a limit it must be pretty high.

* Is a little scared by that number, since that isn't even all the drabbles I read / have read / am reading. ... Am also rather scared by my review total

*Vaguely thinking I may need to start going to meetings and saying the words :

"Hi, My name is Kathryn Beecharmer, and I have a Drabble problem with associated Yibblish tendancies..." *

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

Not quite a reading hint, but one for the authors ...

I was just messing around with the "View your statistics" bit, went into my stories and was looking at the table, when I saw the "View Chapters" link.

Clicking on it shows your stories chapter by chapter, with the reviews / who has favoured the story - but more interesting, it shows the read count per chapter.

Mostly that won't really tell you much, but I would guess that it could used as a form of feedback. If you change your style / character focus, you might want to see whether you are losing or gaining readers by doing so.

I know that if I like a particular update from an author a lot I might go and read it more than once, so if the number is higher it might show whether your readers are enjoying your different style or not.

Also - a lot of people don't tend to give much negative feedback / constructive criticism, I would say, they just probably stop reading.

Not necessarily a reason to change anything, after all it is your story, enjoying writing it is most of the reason for doing it after all !

But for people using this as practice in creative writing it could be interesting to see those statistics. Or people like me who just like knowing random statistics like this !

ETA - Apologies, just realised the post before was me too - it was a couple of days ago, so perhaps it doesn't matter. But sorry, wasn't an intentional spree !

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

That's interesting Beecharmer, though I wouldn't worry about that kind of spree - that's mostly to keep one person from posting every two minutes and not letting anyone else have the turn to speak I think!!! One longer post does, then have patience!!!

I struggled to find the 'view chapters' link for a little while - cause it's off to the far right, and at the top, and all of the other text is list form on the left, but once I'd found it...

Not that I know much about what to do with it, but I do tend to find stats interesting in general to look at!

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'Joey, what do you think you are?’
‘A genius,’ replied Joey promptly. ‘Idiot! I didn’t mean that,’ laughed her sister. ‘No! Listen – and don’t burst with excitement – you are an – aunt!’

OK, hope this is the right place for this - I have finally bitten the bullet (!) and started to use the SDL. My problem is that I can't favourite anything. I keep clicking on the links but nothing works and when I go to my account no favourites have registered. Is this me not doing something right, or could it be a technical issue? And if it's the latter, who/where shall I post about it?

Thank you

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Hope is the bird that sings for the dawn whilst still in darkness.

I had a lot of trouble adding favourites - I click the "add as favourite" button, but it wouldn't show up as a favourite. I finally worked out that, after you hit the button, you are taken to a new page and must hit "submit" (to me, it appeared that the "submit" button was to submit a comment, since it is located under a comment box).

From earlier in the thread (I'm too lazy to re-type it, so I cut and pasted it).

After you've clicked on 'add to favourites', you then need to click 'submit' on the next page that comes up - the 'submit' button is beneath the comments box. Once you've done that you should get a message saying that the action was successful, and it should register on your favourites page. Hope that helps ('cos if it's not that that's the problem, I haven't a clue ).

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"And I'm sure there was blood in the gutter from somebody's head, or else it was the sunset in a puddle."

So This is School! - Review: JP of the Fifth by Margaret Griffiths

Thank you Spoot & Abi
*skips off to favourite dozens of new stories*

ETA sorry that I didn't notice this earlier in the thread I was proud of myself for seeking out all the instructions for the SDL after I had been putting it off for so long but I missed that!

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Hope is the bird that sings for the dawn whilst still in darkness.

Don't worry about not noticing the earlier comments Lisa - you weren't to know the answer had been given earlier on, and it's a lot of stuff to sift through on the off chance!

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'Joey, what do you think you are?’
‘A genius,’ replied Joey promptly. ‘Idiot! I didn’t mean that,’ laughed her sister. ‘No! Listen – and don’t burst with excitement – you are an – aunt!’

Sorry, I didn't mean it as a criticism. I was actually apologizing for just cutting and pasting without adapting the text to make more sense as an answer to your direct quesiton. And, pointing out that you were not the only one to find it problematic.

I found it useful to look at the 'Problems' thread in SDL

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Don't cry, eat a cake
Chalet School Big Bang - writers, artists, mixers
"Women who pay their own rent don't have to be nice" - Katherine Dunn

So people don't end up asking questions on both threads, I have edited the beginning of this thread so it is a bit clearer to go to Ask the Librarian with questions, to keep this thread more along the "Ooh look I found out how to do this, hope it helps" lines rather than specific questians asking for help.

Not critising you though at all Lisa, glad you felt able to ask the question here and found it helpful and people were able to answer. I would have looked in Stacie Benson for instructions too, so can see how you ended up here, and my original post maybe wasn't clear enough.

Its just so that it doesn't cause confusion having two threads overlap. This thread was more of a "oh look I have found out how this or that works, here is my hint" thread than a help thread. As Mia said, the problems thread is very helpful if you have a specific query.

But as you get more used to things and find out how to do things, I hope you will post them here, it is very helpful to find out about things people have worked out to make life easier on the SDL. Often people don't even realise there is a problem till people post, as the favoriting discussion earlier showed.

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"Go on, you old Beecharmer, tell me a good tall tale" Ruth to Idgie, Fried Green Tomatoes

Obviously I have acronym-fail this weekend; of course I meant the Problems thread in AaL.

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Don't cry, eat a cake
Chalet School Big Bang - writers, artists, mixers
"Women who pay their own rent don't have to be nice" - Katherine Dunn