Project Web Novel

Goals

• Transparent, Ethical
• Author-focused features and controls
• Free-to-use first
• Monetization geared exclusively towards artist support
• Feedback encouraged and facilitated by application
• Reader discoverability for new, trending, and popular works
• Personal reading lists

Non-goals

• In-site currency
• Non-site-member advertisements/monetization
• Paywalled books
• Machine translation
• Hosting unofficial works

Hard Problems

• How to upload from Google Docs, Word, etc.

Monetization

• Author Sponsorships, by readers
  • Access all of the advanced chapters for all of their works
  • Authors determine their own subscription price (should be a minimum (probably $2-5/mo))
  • WebNovel takes 50% of subscription (yikes)
• Author advertisements for their own works
  • cover art, tags, promotional banners, hook lines
  • Can target their own subgenres

Features

Minimum Viable (1.0)

• Users create profiles
  • Gain access to Author Dashboard if work is created
  • Get Reading List for free
• Authors upload works
  • Subject to admin review (at first)
  • 500-word minimum
• Genres and tags
  • Can be added to works
  • Most popular genres appear on homepage
  • Users can search, filter, blacklist tags
• Readers can leave private/public ratings and private/public reviews on works
• Authors can collaborate on works
• 18+ content guards
• Chapter page hits (with registered users and anonymous)

As a Guest, I can…

• Read any non-early-access chapter of any work
• View followers of any work
• Read public reviews and ratings of works
• Visit genre pages
• Search works based on genres, tags, and keywords
• Create a User account
• View registered users’ Reading Lists
• View author profiles
• View sponsorship tiers for authors
• Explicitly choose to view 18+ works, which are hidden by default
• View comments

As a Reader, I can…

• Access all features of Guest
• CRUD on your own personal Reading List
• Automatically track progress on works in Reading List
• Follow authors and/or books to get updates
• Receive notifications about updated works
• Create ratings scored from 1-10
• Submit private ratings and reviews on your own List
• Submit public ratings and reviews on any Work’s page
• Purchase sponshorships for any author at any tier
• Submit a work to become an Author
• Comment on works
• Receive notifications on replies to comments
• Manage notification settings
• Submit a bug report or feature request
• Flag or report works and comments that violate Community Guidelines

As an Author, I can…

• Access all features of Reader
• Moderate (read/delete) my own comment section
• Block users from commenting on my work
• Access Author Analytics, where I can…
  • Show how many people have read each chapter
  • See where registered users have stopped reading
  • View distribution of work rankings (bar chart)
• Manipulate on my own works, where I can…
  • Submit a work for approval, upon which it will be made public
  • Schedule an arbitrary amount of chapters for release
  • Apply multiple genres and more tags to my work
  • Distinguish my work between an original or fanfiction
  • Submit a request to an Administrator to remove a work
  • Tag a work as “In-Progress”, “On Hiatus”, or “Complete”
  • Disable public reviews/ratings on a given work
    • Be notified that this will disable popularity ranking features
  • Set schedule for early access of chapters
  • Add collaborators to a work
  • Remove or archive a chapter from a work
• Create and update a Sponsorship plan, where I can…
  • Set recurring minimum monthly price for sponsorship (>$5)
• Create and pay for on-site advertisements of my on-site work
  • Provide book cover, promo copy
  • Select target genre or home page for advertisements
  • See a price up-front for each of these
• Receive a notification for all comments on my work

As an Administrator, I can…

• Access all features of Author
• Set prices for on-site advertisements
• Approve works for public viewing
• All CRUD (delete OR archive) operations on all Works
• Ban users and archive accounts
• Send arbitrary notifications to users
• Manage and queue advertisements
• Spotlight works and reviews on front/genre pages

Feature Bump (1.1)

• Poetry support
• Achievement system
• Username/profile profanity filter
• Status table generator
• Scores for individual chapters
• Consult an Intellectual Property Lawyer for ToS

Version Bump (2.0)

• Forums
• Contests (like Zines)
• Blog as book reviewers
• Review spotlight/featured
• Official translation support structure

Architecture

Data Design

• Guest
• Account
  • Reading List
    • Reading List Item
• Work
  • Analytics
• Chapter
  • Comment
• Genre
• Tag
• Warning
• Advertisable Space
• Advertisement
• Sponsorship
• Notification
• Report (of a comment or work)

Pseudocode ed.

;; Account
{:privilege [:reader :author? :admin?]
 :reading-list {}
 :follows []
 :sponsors []
 :username ""
 :reader-preferences {}}

;; Item in Reading List (1-1 with Account)
{:completion-status [:planned :in-progress :on-hold :complete :dropped]
 :progress? (range chapter-count)
 :work-id id
 :note ""
 :clout [:user-ids]
 :start-date #inst ""
 :last-read #inst ""
 :visibility [:private? :public?]
 :body? ""
 :score? (range 1 10)
 :detailed-scores? {}}

;; Work
;; Limit private works to 3 per acct id to prevent abuse
{:title ""
 :owner account-id
 :visibility [:public :private :restricted]
 :contributors? [account-id*] ;; can edit or add chapters, but not delete
 :blurb? ""
 :warnings? []
 :genres? []
 :tags? []
 :chapters? {chapter-id index} ;; will practically have at least one chapter
 :cover? ""
 ;; :original? true
 :hits? num}

;; Chapter
{:title ""
 :content ""
 :authors [account-id*]
 :pre-content? "" ;; or maps with polls?
 :post-content? "" ;; or maps with polls?
 :comments? comment-map
 :hits? num
 :early-access? false}

;; Comment (belongs to a Chapter)
{:author account-id ;; also can be deleted, but keeps nested comments
 :content ""
 :posted #inst ""
 :updated? #inst ""
 :replies? [comment-map*]
 :locked? false}

;; Genre
{:name}

;; Tag
{:name}

;; Warning
{:name
 :content}

;; Advertisable Space
{:price-per-day num
 :target [genre-id :home]
 :queued [advertisement-id*]}

;; Advertisement
;; You don't pay to create the advertisement obj,
;; you pay to add it to the Advertisable Space queue.
{:work
 :advertisable-space [adv-space-id?]
 :banner? img ;; if nil, display cover
 :copy? "" ;; if nil, display work blurb}
 :days-duration}

;; Sponsorship
{:author-id account-id
 :minimum dollar-amt
 :sponsors {user-id amount-sponsoring
            user-id amount-sponsoring}}

;; Notification
{:account account-id
 :body body
 :timestamp #inst ""
 :link link}

;; Report
{:reported-content-type [:comment :work]
 :id reported-id
 :user account-id
 :body ""
 :timestamp #inst ""}

System Architecture

Frontend

• what the “user sees”
• Gets a copy of s from the backend.
  • Must monitor changes to s from the backend,
  • As well as submit changes to s to the backend.
• Performs v = f(s), which is a pseudo-mathematical description of how the MVC pattern works.
  • Model AKA s: the entirely unique source of truth from which all mutable forms of the application are derived.
  • Controller AKA f: instructions how to translate the contents of the Model, combine it with immutable data, in order to prepare for user display and interaction.
  • View AKA v: a variable that depends on f and s to determine its own value. A “View”, however, is a set of constants (typically describing a GUI) that can be fed prepared data in order to create the current state of the GUI.
• All data fetching and derivation is a sub.
• All data submission and manipulation is an evt.

Basically, you want to isolate each of the pieces of MVC. In a perfect world, the Model has 100% of your state, but in practice, the Model will have 90-95% and the View will contain the remaining 5-10% in order to remain performant with user input. However, all state must flow /through/ the Controller, no skipping steps!

Tools for the frontend:

• [X] React
• [X] Shadow
• [X] Reagent
• [X] Material UI
• [ ] Storybook

Backend

Views

Controllers

Models

Notes

Review System

If you leave a review that will impact the author’s work’s score, you must make it public. However, you can also have private reviews and rating on your personal Reading List.

Roadmap

Aim to ship MVP before 07 December 2022.

So, 15 weeks, give or take for midterms and finals.

Week 0

Davis: Lipsum generator Kyle & Logan: Mockups for web client

Week 1

Davis: Stories for User Account Kyle & Logan: XTDB and Routes for User Account

Week 2

Davis: Stories for User Account / Frontend Controller logic for User Account Kyle & Logan: Routes and Frontend Controller logic for User Account

Week 3

Davis: Stories for Works / Frontend Controller logic for Works Kyle & Logan: XTDB and Routes for Works / Frontend Controller Logic for Works

Week 4

Davis: Stories for Chapters / Frontend Controller logic for Works Kyle & Logan: XTDB and Routes for Chapters / Frontend Controller logic for Chapters

Week 5

Davis: Stories for Sponsorships / Frontend Controller logic for Sponsorships Kyle & Logan: XTDB and Routes for Sponsorships / Frontend Controller logic for Sponsorships

Week 6

Spare days / cleanup / User Authentication if still needed / Comments if we have time

Routes

:get ;; fetch a resource
:post ;; create a new resource
:put ;; replace an existing resource
:delete ;; intuitive

#{["/login" :post]
  ["/logout" :post]

  ["/users" :post] ;; create a new user
  ["/users/:user-id" :get] ;; view user at user id
  ["/users/:user-id" :post] ;; create some resource for the given user-id
  ["/users/:user-id" :put] ;; replace user at user id

  ["/works" :get]
  ["/works" :post]
  ["/works/:work-id" :get]
  ["/works/:work-id" :put]
  ["/works/:work-id" :delete]

  ["/users/:user-id/works" :get]
  ["/users/:user-id/works/:work-id/chapters" :get]

  ["/chapters" :post]
  ["/chapters/:chapter-id" :get]
  ["/chapters/:chapter-id" :put]
  ["/chapters/:chapter-id" :delete]

  ["/sponsorships" :post]
  ["/sponsorships/:sponsorship-id" :get]
  ["/sponsorships/:sponsorship-id" :put]
  ["/sponsorships/:sponsorship-id" :delete]}