EDIT: i've lengthened this post, adding an example for clarity and a couple paragraphs at the end. nothing major, just pointing it out in case yvonne decides she doesn't agree with some of what i've retroactively added or something.
most of what i want to say has already been said. i think the important thing is to make as many people happy as possible. imo, that means putting warnings to the side for those who don't want to see them, but making them available for those who do. so it's a bit of work. i don't see the problem.
you have it at the top of the fic section. one click, glance down, and you're done. yes, it means you actually have to click something before you can read the story parts, and you have to look/skim through the post. but wait a second. isn't that what you have to do when you open the fanfic folder in the first place? you click, you skim down to see what's new, maybe sort out which stories you're reading and which ones you're not, and decide what to open next. so, one more step. takes 5 seconds.
so, just to be absolutely clear, let's take two hypothetical readers (and to be gender neutral, i'll randomly make one male and one female) and look at their usual routine when looking through the boards.
reader A likes to be surprised by TEs. she opens the boards, and glances through the sections she regularly vists to see which ones have new posts. at some point- first, last, middle, whatever- she opens up the fic section. at the top of the fic section is a post created by the moderators that always remains at the top, just like the picture posting FAQ and the how to make TOCs FAQ. she ignores it. instead, she glances through the new posts to see which ones interest her- which are new parts to stories she reads, which are new replies to comments folders she's interested in, etc. she picks what she wants to read (and what she doesn't) and gets to reading.
reader B does not like being surprised by TEs (enjoys reading with advanced warning or wants to avoid them entirely). he opens up the boards and looks around to see where there are new posts. at some point- first, middle, last, whatever- he gets to the fic section. at the top of the fic section is a post made by the moderators. he opens it, skims through, and learns that the newest part of one of the stories he's reading, "all's wells that ends wells," is actually a TE. he hits his browser's back button, thus returning to the fanfic topic list. he skims through the posts there, picking out the ones he wants to read and the ones he doesn't, and then gets to reading.
to be really clear, i've the difference in their respective routines in bold (my dad's a pediatrician. over the past few decades, he's become used to talking to distraught mothers of sick kids. he now always speaks in triple redundancy. this has, to some degree, rubbed off on me).
now, it doesn't look like a huge inconvenience to me. it certainly doesn't look like reader B has to go "a mile further" than reader A.
am i missing something here? is this actually a big deal for the readers who want to be warned about TEs?
now, it is a bit more effort for the author, who has to drop an email to the admins and then wait for them to edit the post and add the line "part 8 of 'alls wells that ends wells' is a TE" before posting. then again, the author has also gone through all the trouble of writing a seperate TE, not to mention the rest of the story. i think it's fair to say that just as chefs can put hours of work into a meal that's eaten in 20 minutes, authors put a lot more time and effort into creating stories than readers do in reading them. with that in mind, i wouldn't think one extra email, sent 12-24 hours in advance, would be a huge deal.
nor would i particularly consider it a huge deal for one of the mods to get an email, go over to the boards, edit the post, and add in one line.
seems to me this is a pretty good solution, assuming enough people want to be warned and that enough people understand the system.
Paul
