Presently, stories in the gallery and public vote form are numbered in the order they are presented. This numbering is not persistent since there are reasons for which the order may change.[0]

It was not my intention that these should be persistent, since stories already have a unique and persistent integer ID. Instead, I intended them to indicate the number of entries (e.g., the bottom entry being #35 indicates that there are 35 entries, and indicates that entry #17 is the middle entry). However, people have been using these numbers as if they are persistent, so I ask if making them persistent is desired.

Pros:

- Allows stories to be referenced by an integer ID in the range 1–N, where N is the number of entries in the event
- Indicates that the list has been ordered in some way

Cons:

- Makes determining N harder
- Makes determining how many stories made the prelim cutoff harder

[0]: Notably: when the prelim round ends; and when the change is implemented to phase the listings by a persistent amount for each user.

4193770
It would be easy to give the stories a unique ID in the range 1–N. (Once entries are closed, order by the random seed and assign the IDs iteratively.)

Proposal: Story titles and numbers should all be abolished and replaced with a link that randomly fetches a story from the current gallery whenever it is accessed. Individual stories would no longer reside at their own links, but instead exist in a database that is accessed whenever the link generates a call for a random story.

Pros:

- Hilarious.

Cons:

- Would make reading, judging and reviewing stories impossible.

4193758
Is there any reason to number the stories at all outside of their internal IDs? I don't really remember "story #17"; I can only barely even associate the titles with the stories in the minific competitions.

4193758
Eh. The only reason I used numbers this round was to make the story a bit easier to find during the preliminaries, but the Find function takes care of that. I'm fine with the system as is.

I'm apparently the only person who doesn't use the numbers to identify stories, so whatever is fine, I guess. :B

4193797
They are there to say, "this is the nth item in the listing presented". It makes counting easier.

4193758 What does "phase the listings" mean?

- Makes determining N harder
- Makes determining how many stories made the prelim cutoff harder

I don't understand how it makes either of these things harder. You can determine both at a glance.

I don't think I understand this post.

I do know I'd like a hyperlink link from the story title in the final ballot to the story. That would make it significantly easier for me to read the stories on the final ballot.

EDIT: I see the final ballot was rearranged to put them in the first half, so it's not so important. Still would be nice.

4193795 Addendum: Random story selection may be subjected to additional randomization.

Selected stories may have no bearing on the current Writeoff event, being pulled from entirely random fiction sources:

1) Fan Fiction from other, non-pony-related sites
2) Penguin Classics
3) Finnegan's Wake
4) The U.S. Library of Congress
5) Press statements from the North Korean government

An extra 30 minutes of voting time will be allotted to anyone receiving War and Peace, Ulysses, and Gravity’s Rainbow

I vote yes, make them persistent. I like the numbers.
Clarification that the stories in the gallery are not sorted according to the results of the prelims would be nice.

About the cons:
Why not just write N out in plain text? Same goes for the amount of stories which made the prelim cutoff.

4194192

a hyperlink link from the story title in the final ballot

I second that.

The numbering of stories consistently would be helpful in correlating reviews and the spreadsheet entries for them (which will likely continue), but they aren't really necessary. It's (obviously) the change in numbering that becomes a hindrance when people become used to them as an indicator.

Aesthetically, I don't like them. Simply randomizing the story order and giving a story count at the bottom of the page would be sufficient.

As for the review spreadsheet, the stories could simply be sorted alphabetically to make searching (without Ctrl+F) more intuitive.

EDIT: YES -> I do know I'd like a hyperlink link from the story title in the final ballot to the story.

4193795 What you don't realize is that there's already something like that at play. Ever notice now Pav Feira and Present Perfect alternately appear as Pav Fiera and Present Prefect at seemingly random intervals?

You mean when people refer to the story number in their reviews? I've never really paid attention to that, since if I haven't read the particular fic I skip the review, and if I have read it, the fact it's number 38 doesn't make any difference to me.

But I'm not unopposed to it being changed. Whatever keeps things most practical and least-complicated.

4194192

What does "phase the listings" mean?

Assume the stories have a persistent ID from 1–N.

The listing currently orders them and starts at 1. The phased listing will start at a random story and continue in descending order until story N is reached, at which point it goes back to 1, e.g., instead of seeing,

1. Foo
2. Bar
3. Baz
4. Quux

you might see,

3. Baz
4. Quux
1. Foo
2. Bar

This is to avoid the problem of the stories first in the listing being read more than others.

4196134 I think my answer to all your questions is, "Either way is fine with me."

Persistent numbering throughout a round is a positive feature for the reasons you cite. For my own purposes, I use the numbers to help me track which stories I've read and reviewed, which means that the change between the preliminary-numbering and the finalist-numbering screwed me up pretty hard and I ended up having to cross-reference everything from the gallery list to the spreadsheet.

The "harder to tell how many finalists" thing is trivially solved by simply specifying the number of finalists up in the section header, or in the rules, depending on whether that number is static or evolving.