It's easy to just come up with ideas, so I'll throw some out there, although I totally acknowledge these ideas are hard to implement. I'm all for a stronger search like other people have mentioned, as well as having more categories to search from--being able to say "do you want a page-format comic, or a scroll format comic? Color or no color?" just give us way more tags, please, and let people search for multiple things at a time. It'll also help with categories that have just so many people, like the romance categories, which tend to have a strong growth to start and then quickly get buried. Allowing for more tags like "Gothic" and "Romance" and "Steampunk" to be combined will create more genres on their own.
Also...when it comes to categories...can we not use acronyms? Like at all? I won't dive into it but we gotta just say what categories are in terms that everyone can understand, even if they are new to webcomics and webfiction. No invented languages should be in our categories.
That and the algorithm for things like trending don't make a whole lot of sense sometimes. Like the other day the #2 comic was 4 pages long..nothing had happened in that comic yet, nothing could have happened in that space of time. It only had 200-some followers, it wasn't by a famous artist pulling in views from other sites so like...why was it in trending? That doesn't make sense. Like clearly you get a bump in the algorithm if you have a new comic, but that bump shouldn't be that dramatic as to put you on the front page when you haven't really gotten to your hook yet. It discourages organic, slower story growth, and it makes longer running comics feel like they missed their chance and that they're just...stagnant.
Another problem I think is you aren't encouraged to finish reading what you subscribe to. So I got stuff in my library I forget about because they're finished. I am never given notification updates so--I have to remember "ah, that's right, I'm reading XYZ story" and physically open my library, click "unread" and then hunt for the story I was reading (which at this point isn't on the top of the list.)
Instead, we are given a new front page every day of shiny new comics, and it's very distracting. Instead of finishing what we start, I tend to sub to new stuff, expanding my library and saying "I'll read that one day" and then I just never do. So what I would like to see is some sort of reading incentive--maybe little cheevos that readers can earn like you do in a video game, where you get a badge for every comic or novel you finish. Nothing physical--just a digital badge, but a little bragging rights between readers. Sure some people might just click through the book and not read, but that's fine. I still get clicks for that.
That and like...this is just an idea, but I think the front page isn't enough real estate and that our front page should show our own library. It would encourage people to add more to their library, especially if we had ways to organize it so we can put certain books on top that we are reading right now. Less clicks to get to what I want to see and read.
Another passing idea, is that I would also really like the ability to share reading lists that people can search, kind of like Pinterest (Etsy did this for a while, as well), or youtube playlists, so I can say "Fall books for 30+ to make you feel warm and cozy" and fill it with stories that match my taste as a 30 yo who doesn't want to read baby stuff. People love making lists and people like looking at those lists. I can of course make these on Pinterest, but if lists could show up as well as comics, then that could encourage readers who are like "I dunno what I want to read--fall stuff?"
