This was said about things I have seen on this thread and others where users don’t realize how much work the Episode team actually does because they can’t see it, and getting angry at how slow they are to communicate / respond with a FAQ / reply to the thread. My point was to simply say they are busy and responding on the forums is probably on their list, but not #1 importance. Have patience with them.
I don’t disagree with this. I think 100% this process could have been executed a lot better than it has been. I think they way underestimated the amount of work/time/backlash that would come from this and they were vastly under-prepared.
It is book writing, just not in the traditional sense. It is a book, but with less words, more pictures/animations, and choices. Nobody gives you a leg up when you write on any platform that I know of (unless Wattpad has changed in the last few years. I haven’t been on it in a while, when I used it you search for tags that are about what you want to read), and you start with 0 reads or exposure to get your story out there.
I know that people work hard on their stories. We all do. The point I was trying to make was that the top 100 / trending should be a reward for your hard work, not an easy way to promote your story to get more reads or exposure as a small author if your story doesn’t deserve it.
Because a small author’s story is not in the top 100 doesn’t mean it’s undiscoverable. As of today, there is still a “New User Stories” section that showcases “brand new stories from the community!” in which it says “Episode has not reviewed the content or quality of these stories.” I would like to see, going forward, them keeping this and perhaps also add it to each genre (as of now it’s only in the user stories under Stories We 
)
Aside from that, I also wonder if anyone has thought of an alternate solution? What is Episode supposed to do here? Let’s think about it.
- They have to monitor to make sure stories follow guidelines, no matter how new or old they are (to stay in line with the app store guidelines / their PG-13 rating)
- They can’t review every single story published due to the sheer amount, but also because they’d have to keep re-reviewing every single story every time a new ep. is released
- They can’t have inappropriate stories in the top 100
- If someone sends a request, they have to spend their time reviewing that story
What stories would they know to review, if not basing it on how popular they are or having someone send a request? But if someone were to send a request and the story was approved, then the story never made it to the top 100 (where most readers will find a story to read) or gained popularity, they just wasted their time when they could have been reviewing stories that were already in the top 100.
Not sure if this makes sense the way I wrote it, but yeah. I get that it’s frustrating that the rules keep changing, but I would assume it’s so they can use this new system more efficiently. It’s a trial and error anytime a change is made to an app.
