The Social Update

Nexsolium has grown far beyond a place to upload and read books. This release completes the platform’s first major social and author-safety rollout. Readers can now review stories, join chapter discussions, follow authors, receive notifications, and build a public reading identity. Authors can publish updates, share news about their books, interact with readers, and control what appears on their profiles. The full Nexsolium loop is now: Discover → Read → Collect → Review → Discuss → Follow → Return ORIGINAL AUTHOR CONTENT PROTECTION Original works now support author-controlled chapter protection. Protected chapters discourage casual copying by preventing ordinary text selection, copying, cutting, right-click extraction, image dragging, and mobile long-press copy menus inside the chapter body. Public-domain classics remain selectable and copyable. Chapter content is no longer included in the ordinary public chapter API response. The reader now loads one chapter at a time through a dedicated reader endpoint with visibility checks, request throttling, private cache controls, and crawler restrictions. The chapter editor uses a separate owner-only source endpoint, ensuring that authors can continue editing their complete work without exposing that source through the public reader API. AI crawler rules have also been added for protected chapter routes. This protection is designed to discourage casual theft and bulk extraction. As with any publicly readable content, it cannot make copying technically impossible, but it meaningfully raises the barrier without damaging the reading experience. PLATFORM UPDATES AND DEVELOPER LOGS Nexsolium now has an official public development log. The new Platform Updates area can be used for: • Feature releases • Announcements • Maintenance notices • Roadmap updates • Versioned patch notes Administrators can create drafts, edit updates, publish them, unpublish them, assign categories, and add version labels. Published updates receive their own public pages and can appear on the homepage. Platform updates are also included in the sitemap and use dedicated article metadata for search engines and social sharing. Every administrator publishing action is recorded in the platform audit log. COMMENTS AND DISCUSSIONS Nexsolium now has one shared discussion system used across the platform. Comments currently support: • Platform updates • Books • Chapters • Profile guestbooks • Profile updates Readers can: • Post comments • Reply one level deep • Like and unlike comments • Mark comments as spoilers • Reveal hidden spoilers • Edit their own comments • Soft-delete their own comments • Report abusive content Deleted parent comments preserve their replies, so conversations do not disappear completely. Comments hidden by moderation display a clear placeholder while preserving the surrounding discussion. Anonymous visitors can read public conversations, while an account is required to participate. Rate limits and duplicate-submission protection have been added to reduce spam. BOOK LIKES Books now have public likes. A book like is separate from adding the book to a personal bookshelf or marking it as a favourite. Each reader can like a book once, and the public book page displays the total number of likes. Authors cannot like their own books, keeping engagement reader-driven. RATINGS AND WRITTEN REVIEWS Readers can now rate books from one to five stars. A written review is optional, meaning readers can submit: • A star rating only • A rating with a headline • A rating with a written review • A complete rating, headline, and review Each account may have one active rating or review per book. Readers can later edit or remove their rating and review. Authors cannot rate or review their own books. Book pages now display: • Average reader rating • Total number of ratings • Total written-review count • Five-to-one-star distribution • Percentage breakdown for every star level • Public book-like total Rating-only submissions contribute to the score without creating empty review cards. Written reviews support spoiler protection, editing, removal, reporting, pagination, and moderation. Reviews may also display “Reader activity recorded” when the reviewer has the book in their Nexsolium library. Structured book metadata now includes aggregate ratings when available. REVIEW HISTORY AND MODERATION INTEGRITY Review history now remains safe even when a user deletes and later recreates a review. A deleted review remains archived under its original identity, while a newly submitted review receives a completely new record. This ensures that: • Old reports never attach themselves to new review content • Moderation evidence remains historically accurate • A new review cannot inherit previous report counts • Readers can report a newly created review independently The database still enforces only one active review per reader and book while allowing deleted review history to remain preserved. BOOK DISCUSSIONS Book reviews and book discussions are now separate. Reviews answer: “What did you think of this book?” Book discussions allow broader conversation, questions, theories, reactions, and community interaction. Book discussions use the complete shared comment system, including replies, spoilers, reactions, editing, deletion, reporting, pagination, and moderation. CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS Every eligible published chapter now has its own discussion. On desktop, the chapter discussion appears beneath the reading and chapter-navigation area. On mobile, discussions open in a dedicated full-screen sheet so comments do not interfere with the paginated reader. Mobile readers can open chapter discussions from: • The final page of a chapter • The chapter drawer The final-page discussion button displays the current comment count. While the mobile discussion sheet is open, page swipes, tap navigation, arrow-key page turning, and reader controls are temporarily disabled to prevent accidental chapter movement. Closing the discussion restores normal reader interaction and returns focus appropriately. Deep links and login return links automatically reopen the correct discussion: • Direct chapter discussion links • Comment pagination links • Login redirects back to a chapter discussion PROFILE UPDATES Profiles now have their own public updates and activity timeline. Users can publish: • General updates • Announcements • Book updates • Reading notes A profile update may attach one eligible book. Book updates must attach one of the author’s own publicly accessible books. Reading notes must attach a book currently present in the user’s library. Private, draft, inaccessible, or moderation-hidden books cannot be publicly attached. If an attached book later becomes private or inaccessible, its metadata automatically disappears from the public post. Users can: • Publish updates • Edit updates • Delete updates • Pin one update • Enable or disable comments per update • Attach an authored or shelved book Only one update can remain pinned at a time. Deleted updates are removed publicly, while any existing moderation report retains a preserved snapshot of the original content. PROFILE REVIEW ACTIVITY Profiles can now show the written reviews a user has published. The public review activity feed respects both profile and book privacy. Reviews automatically disappear from public profile activity if the related book later becomes: • Private • Draft • Moderation-hidden • Owned by a private profile • Otherwise inaccessible Profile owners retain access to their own activity. Users can independently choose whether their written reviews are visible on their profile. AUTHOR BOOK RATING SUMMARY Author profiles can now display a combined public rating summary calculated from their accessible published books. This measures reader feedback on the author’s work rather than assigning a direct personality rating to the author. Private, draft, hidden, and inaccessible books do not contribute to the public author summary. PROFILE GUESTBOOKS Public profiles now support guestbook comments. Visitors can leave messages, reply to other comments, like entries, mark spoilers, edit or remove their own messages, and report abuse. Profile owners can disable their guestbook through profile settings. When a guestbook is closed: • New entries are rejected • Reply controls are removed • Visitors see a clear closed state • The profile owner can still review existing entries NEW PROFILE PRIVACY CONTROLS Profile settings now include controls for: • Showing profile updates • Showing written-review activity • Allowing profile guestbook comments • Showing the public bookshelf • Allowing messages • Making the entire profile public or private These visibility rules are enforced through both the frontend and backend APIs. Hidden profile content cannot be retrieved simply by calling its discussion or activity endpoints directly. FOLLOWING PROFILES Readers can now follow and unfollow public profiles. Profiles display: • Follower count • Following count • Current follow state Users cannot follow themselves. Private profiles cannot receive new follows. The database enforces one follow relationship per profile pair and safely handles rapid or concurrent follow requests. FOLLOWING FEED Nexsolium now has a private Following Feed. The feed contains eligible public activity from profiles the user follows, including: • Profile updates • Announcements • Book updates • Reading notes • Written reviews The feed automatically excludes: • Private profiles • Hidden profile timelines • Profiles hiding their review activity • Deleted or moderation-hidden posts • Deleted or moderation-hidden reviews • Rating-only submissions • Reviews for private or inaccessible books Eligible posts and reviews created before this feature were backfilled so the feed could begin with meaningful existing activity. NOTIFICATION INBOX Nexsolium now includes a private notification inbox. Users may receive notifications when: • Someone follows them • Someone replies to their comment • Someone comments on their book • Someone comments on their chapter • Someone signs their guestbook • Someone comments on their profile update • Someone rates or reviews their book • A followed profile publishes a new update Nexsolium deliberately does not create notifications for ordinary likes, avoiding unnecessary noise. Users never receive notifications for their own actions. Notifications are deduplicated so the same logical event cannot repeatedly fill the inbox. NOTIFICATION CONTROLS The notification inbox supports: • All notifications • Unread-only filtering • Open and mark as read • Mark as unread • Mark all as read • Pagination • Empty and all-caught-up states Unread totals appear in both the desktop header and mobile navigation. Large counts are displayed as 99+. NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES Users can independently control future in-app notifications for: • New followers • Replies to their comments • Comments on their spaces • Ratings and reviews on their books • Updates from profiles they follow These preferences affect future delivery and do not remove previously received notifications. This release provides in-app notifications only. Notification emails are not sent. REPORTING AND MODERATION Nexsolium’s moderation system now supports: • Comments • Book reviews • Profile updates • Platform-update discussions • Book discussions • Chapter discussions • Guestbook entries • Profile-update comments Report reasons include: • Spam • Harassment • Hate • Spoilers • Impersonation • Copyright concerns • Other Reports preserve a snapshot of the original content, even if the author later edits or deletes it. Profile-update report snapshots preserve: • Update type • Attached-book context • Original post body Administrators can: • Search reported content • Filter by status, reason, and target • Hide and restore comments • Hide and restore reviews • Hide and restore profile updates • Resolve reports • Dismiss reports • Add moderation reasons and resolution notes Resolving a report and hiding content remain separate actions, allowing administrators to make deliberate moderation decisions. Every moderation action is recorded in the administrator audit log. CONTENT VISIBILITY AND PRIVACY Social content now consistently respects the existing visibility rules for: • Profiles • Books • Chapters • Reviews • Updates • Attached books • Series • Moderated content Private or hidden content does not leak through: • Public feeds • Notifications • Attached-book cards • Review activity • Comment APIs • Profile APIs • Search metadata READER AND HYDRATION RELIABILITY The reader’s initial mobile or desktop mode is now detected after hydration. This fixes the recoverable hydration error caused by the server initially rendering the loading shell while the browser immediately rendered the desktop reader. The server and browser now begin with identical reader markup before applying stored preferences and viewport detection. Saved reader settings still load normally after hydration. DISCUSSION LINK IMPROVEMENTS Direct discussion links now automatically open the correct discussion area. This includes: • Book discussions • Chapter discussions • Login return links • Comment pagination links Users no longer return to a closed discussion panel after signing in. HOMEPAGE AND CRAWLER IMPROVEMENTS The homepage now displays the latest platform update using the expanded update block. If no public update exists, the previous bookshelf call-to-action automatically returns instead of leaving the homepage without a strong closing section. Crawler policies were also corrected so protected AI crawler groups inherit both private-route restrictions and protected-reader restrictions. FINAL INTERFACE POLISH Several smaller interface improvements were completed during the rollout. Follow button stability The follow control now keeps a stable width and position while changing between: • Follow • Updating… • Following The unnecessary success message underneath the button was removed so the profile action area no longer jumps vertically. Notification colours The notification filters no longer use a heavy solid-black active state. Active filters now use Nexsolium’s softer amber and paper palette. Unread notification cards were also softened while remaining clearly distinct from read notifications. Review call to action The “Rate or review this book” area is now presented as a clearer highlighted action. It includes: • A visible star icon • A “Your feedback” label • Clear instructions to select one to five stars • A more obvious open and close control This makes the review entry point much easier to find without adding unnecessary visual weight. WHAT THIS RELEASE MEANS Readers can now discover a story, read it, collect it, rate it, discuss it, follow its author, receive replies, and return when something new happens. Authors can now publish books, protect original chapters, post updates, attach their work, talk with readers, receive reviews, build followers, and control how their public profile behaves. Administrators now have a unified system for platform updates, reports, moderation, audit history, and social-content oversight. Nexsolium is no longer only a website that hosts books. It is now a connected social home for stories, authors, readers, shelves, and the conversations that form around them.