www.textnovel.com already have this feature. Their FAQ describes their system as follows:

"• The subject line must have the following format: Story Code:chapter number
If the story code is 12 and the chapter number is 2, then the subject line should read 12:2. If you want to add a new chapter, then make sure to use the next number in order (so if you already have 10 chapters, to add a new chapter you would use 11 as the chapter number in the subject line)."

But perhaps a more friendly system could be created

Someone proposed a couple of edits to Love Freak, Death Freak, Porn Freak that were intended to move a quotation mark up a space. But I'm not able to determine where these supposedly misplaced quotation marks. Unlike the person proposing the edit, the project owner is not able to see the preceding and following sentence. So in cases like this, the project owner doesn't know where the edit will happen.

I've noticed at least 1 user that appears to be a commercial enterprise using BSE, ok, well, i'm very happy to help out other writers, and I do comprehend the link between writers and publishers, but I'd rather not do paid editors work for them, or i'd at least like to have a choice.

In the same vein, you are bound to be hit by spammers adding content which will be fed to BSE participants, this would allow us to block content from those users.

I've occasionally been offered a blank snippet by BSE.

I guess this is because people are entering blank lines between paragraphs or at the start/end of the uploaded piece? These should be stripped, it's annoying for the editor but also means that a piece is broken up into more snippets and therefore takes longer to go through an edit cycle.

From Doug Kaye:
"One that that isn't clear: When I'm proofreading, there's nothing that explains *why* I'm doing it and to what purpose my edits will be put. Maybe it's there and I just didn't see it. I jumped right into editing. No RTFM for me! For example, why am I proofing War & Peace? Hasn't that been translated into English many times? Is this a new translation? I'm missing the context."

Your have contributors who tend to "hog" the snippets because they have submitted massive quantities of text - so their work comes up too frequently in the random selections. Furthermore, the people who've made these submissions are frequently people whose writing is so weak. . . .well, 'nuff said on that point. Another way to deal with this is to allow a particular user's work to be "blocked" from the random snippets. If you don't control submissions, this site will end up like a flea market where 95% of the stuff is just garbage you have to wade through to find something worth working on.