thoughtcafe

Yeah, Chant, there's some pretty dire stuff on there. But it's very nice site technically. You get to see the new work up as soon as you arrive, stories and authors are easy to find, your own work is in one place and readily available for editing at any time and there's waiting to get new edits up. I think ABC should cop some of the ideas, I really do. Good to see the pictures as well.

I like the site too. They have some good ideas on offer such as no cherries, no stars and no one can see how many times your work has been read except you. So no one sits at their computer banging on their own work. There's no charts to top either, so they seem to have circumvented all the bits that the sad element on abc seem hell-bent on turning to their advantage! So I don't expect to see the expatriot on there! Having said that, I think abc is more sophisticated and the forums are far superior in operation and organisation. (If you can get into them!)

Didnt realise they had any forums missi..but I must agree, the site is a gem... the way that you can get in and edit your work so simply is fanbloodytastic...

I just wish you'd choose me as one your friends, Liana. I mean, you could just pretend, I'll never know.

*is one of liana's chosen friends* heheheheeeeee ......

It's an honour of course. Now I understand. It was only a thought.

EEK!!!!! Do they have a section for the thoughtLESS there? :o)

i like the pictures too ... i never realised sarah looked like that ... it was a delight to see ... i am Quite Astonished at some of the comments on work ... it makes me want to run screaming into the street ... so perhaps its better that ABC doesnt have a comments section .... but yes it is easy to upload and to edit ...

Yes, the pictures are great. Fish looks like the headmistress in a naughty spanking movie (although that's probably all in my mind), Liana sophisticated and rather scary (there's a them emerging here, doctor), Andrea looks great apart from the fact that she's sitting in a canal and Sarah is - I know because she told me - studiously studying the cake menu.

That should be "theme", of course. Them was an SF movie about ants.

Like the site a lot - really friendly and easy to navigate. Check out Tom's piccy, folks! *also deeply hurt at not being Liana's 'friend'*

Have just been on to see not only am I one of Liana's friends, but fish's and Tom's too!!! Am honoured beyond belief, although the funny looks I'm receiving for my now near-permanent smile is a downfall. The one advantage thoughtcafe has over Abc is the pictures, although the set-up is really good too. I love seeing what everyone looks like after having read their stuff and imagining a totally different person.

Well I am not quite sure how to take the controversy over my photo and thank you very much blowing my cover Tom. I wanted everyone to believe I was reading something far more intellectual than a cake menu! :0) Thoughtcafe is a good site to navigate though and I also enjoyed looking at everyone else's photos. I imagined Andrea to be like what she is in her photo but Tom's image was a complete shock - I will say no more on that! :0) I think both abctales and thoughtcafe have their merits and it is quite nice to belong to both.

*strides past smugly wearing long poacher's coat*

Bin fishing again, eh?

... the more i see of thoughtcafe the more i like it ... they have a new method of listing authors which shows which ones have pics and i agree with chant ... some of them are hysterical ... i wondered too about the seemingly american habit of posing with an evil looking dog ... (was hoping to poach michael cho to ABC tom ... what do you think????)

Bloody good writer. Nice idea.

While I wholeheartedly support the idea of writers getting their work up wherever possible and recommending good websites to others; this is starting to feel like being a waiter in a restaurant listening to the whole table talk loudly about how great the restaurant across the road is... (Is there a web equivalent of spitting in your soup?)

.... no soup for me thanks andrew ...

Just checked it out. Quite nice - the browns are quite soothing. It weirded me out trying to find people by their surname. Very formal. I hope nobody here thinks of me by my surname instead of Andrew (with the exception of Spaghetti Si). There was a lot to like about it; the cross-pollination is nice in that if you like one of Tom's stories (and who wouldn't?), you then have an idea of what he likes and who likes him. I like that a lot. (anyone I didn't proclaim as a friend, it wasn't a slight, it was because I was just browsing.) But some of the comments ! I had to leave before I fell out with some of the morons putting up comments on work like "Bourbon" and "A room of my own" telling the authors to 'put some meat into it' and 'this needs a hook'. Constructive criticism is wonderful, but if you're completely clueless, maybe you shouldn't try to knock down very talented writers. *seethes* And at least it only crashed my computer once during log-in, unlike fictionette which does it four or five times before working.

Just joined and it's seems amiable enough. I dare say my little rhymes will offend someone soon though :) The only thing that bugged me was that I couldn't figure out how to appear in the authors list as 'primate'. It just uses my real name. It must be possible 'cos Mississippi did it... Still not a patch on ABCtales though! (Do I get a free t-shirt for that Em?)

it takes me for ever to get into fictionette; it's a really odd site. there's all this fancy stuff on the index page so quite a lot of work seems to have gone into it. but the viewing times are terrible. definitely a 'make yourself a cup of tea between pages' site.

Spent a good few hours round at thoughtcafe now and it's most decidedly great. It's easy to navigate and very friendly with it. I haven't been to Fictionette yet - I'll get my kettle ready.

No disrespect to you or ABC, Andrew. Great site, nice people. Just want as many people as possible to read my stuff. Simple as that.

Using a single name flummoxed me for a bit. What you have to do is fill in all the mandatory fields, BUT, use a space for the first name and enter your single user name in the surname field. Voila!

Genius! Cheers Missi :)

I bet Ladywriter thought of it first. Guinness! Cheers Missi :)

Agree wholeheartedly with that Tom, hence the preface to my crabby remarks (which were tongue in cheek).

I've just stumbled into this dicussion and have to say I'm somewhat shocked, stunned and amazed. While I regularly keep an eye on the number of people charging into the site (the "hit counter"), I usually only worry that things in the site are working as designed. I had no idea people actually *liked* the site as much as they do. Thankyou everybody - you make the site what it is :-)

It is a very good site Jonathan. I do think that it is worth people taking a look and making their own mind up. I like the site and think that it does some things very well and is very user-friendly. Abc don't ask anyone to give exclusive electronic rights, provided they have the right to put the work up here that suffices. I think there's ample room for several good writing websites and for them to complement each other. Thoughtcafe seems like a good place to put up a story or poem that you want some comments on fairly quickly, and the way that the comment system works means that you soon roll up your sleeves and start giving feedback to other writers. Are you regular users not telling Jonathan how much you like the site ? (I only signed up on Monday, I've an excuse).

you do get comments quickly, i put up 2 pieces yesterday. And choose a friend thingy is nice, you get an e-mail when one of your friends posts something, and you get e-mailed when someone comments too.... but the forums suck.....

There's room for both.. being on thoughtcafe doesn't prevent me from being on ABC literally every day - though maybe it doesn't leave so much time for the threads. Can't have everything. I reckon that the sites are more complimentary than competitive, and it's a two-way street: I've plugged ABC to writers I like on thoughcafe, and an influx of ABC people seems to have livened thoughtcafe up. Doesn't mean we're not still here..

If abcers presence at Thoughtcafe is going to bring people in like Michael Cho, whose piece "Tales from the Morgue" at www.abctales.com/abcplex/viewstory.cgi?s=14626 absolutely blew me away today (but please Michael, email address, so I can tell you why exactly), then it is no bad thing. Roy is right, all of these sites are complementary rather than competitive; any writer wants their work read as much as possible and all of the sites have different strengths.