I’m a bit late to this discussion, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head when you said that the features are “annoying and un-useful to me personally” (emphasis added). I hate to tell you this, but web designers don’t design things for you personally. Martin generally discusses features that he wants to implement or has implemented on our Discord server and here in our forums. If you’re not here for the “social aspect” and don’t want to get involved in those discussions, that’s perfectly fine, but you don’t have the right to then turn around and complain when things aren’t to your liking. If you want things done differently, you have to be involved in the process.
Many people do use these features. I have a few bookmarked stories myself, and I’ve heard from people who use bookmarks all the time. If you don’t like the overly large banners, guess what? It’s a continuous scrolling form…use that nice little scroll wheel they built into your mouse and you’re past it in no time.
Finally, if you’re having difficulty being constructive just because a site owner doesn’t take the time to pander to your personal preferences, then I suggest you go outside, take a nice deep breath and relax, maybe take a walk. Then, sit down and type things when you’re in a better frame of mind.
I’m not saying that. I just think that you’re responding from a place of frustration (perhaps rightly so, I’m only starting to go through the thread in detail). It was your tone and your expectation that everything would be changed to suit you that jumped out at me the most when I was skimming. I think you and Martin are aggravating one another. From what I’ve seen in a quick skim of the last few messages, I think maybe both of you should take a beat and come back at this tomorrow or whenever.
Something I think we all need to keep in mind is that the experience of the site can be different not only from device to device and depending on how each user sets things up, but what someone reads will also affect the experience, especially when it comes to things like the bookmarking system. I strongly suspect that most of my readers use the bookmarking system often because I write chapters that are 20k+ words long, never mind how long the entire story is. So, for readers of my stuff, the bookmark system will be a lot more useful than someone whose stories average a couple of thousand words.
Then there are the device-specific issues. Are you reading in a full-fledged computer? On a phone? Are you in portrait or landscape mode? Are you using software that blocks unwanted images like the banner? These things all make a difference to a user’s experience on the site.
The other thing to keep in mind is maintenance costs, including Martin’s time. He’s a sole-developer who’s maintaining a very large website all on this own. and even then, I believe he’s covering some of the costs himself. The infinite scrolling apparently led to a reduction in costs, so that was an important part of the consideration for why that was put in.
I appreciate not being here to socialize, but I do like to socialize on the forum so in light of my personal interests, everyone is now required to post more frequently.