AwkwardMD AI Rejection Help Desk

[Djinn68]

German author here. My latest entry in my latest series - with 38k words the largest yet - has been rejected.

While I understand the 'wish' of LIT, to keep it's content 'AI-free', I don't think it's feasible - not without a shadow of a doubt.

A machine can prove that i was driving too fast. But can it actually prove that I didn't write something personally? I doubt it.

I have resubmitted my story, without changing a word, with the following note to moderation:

Dear Laurel and Manu, Dear Moderator

I have not changed a single word. Because every single one of these words has been written by me, a human being. Not by a computer-program. Not by AI. After 3 years, 16 works and over half a million words (657.4 k) you either trust me - or you don't. You either publish my work as it is - or you don't. I will draw the appropriate conclusions and act accordingly. I will not be disrespected by letting a machine judge, if my work was written by another machine.

I had written a much longer note, but due to the limit of 510 characters, I had to boil it down to the essential parts. Here my full note:

Dear Laurel and Manu, Dear Moderator

Thank you for sending my story back - as a few of my paragraph separators (***) were not centered. This way, I was able to correct that.

But, besides that, I have not changed a single paragraph, a single sentence or a single word.

Why? - You may ask.

Well, it's pretty simple: Because every single one of these words has been written by me, a human being. Not by a computer-program. Not by AI.

By me, a human.

Now, some of us consider ourselves merely biological machines. Complex yes, but machines nonetheless. To me, there is one major difference to, say, the artificial machine that must have decided that another artificial machine had written at least substantial parts of my story, instead of me, the biological machine. We humans have an inevitable expiration date. Every moment that passes by is more precious than the one before, because there are fewer moments left to live. I am 57 years old now. I do not know how much time I have left, or how long my brain and my body will be fit enough, to be creative in this way.

In the last 3 years I have contributed 16 works. Way over half a million words (657.4 k), gathered 126 follower. All that may not seem much to you, but to me it has meant the world. I may be a niche-writer - german erotic sci-fi does not have that many readers, but by now I can confidently say, that I am good at what I am doing.

I have surrendered to the fact, that you do not intend to do anything substantial against the downvoter - who has finally managed to drag two of my works below the hot-threshhold. In my opinion you could fight it easily - by giving the authors the option, that only registered users can vote - but that's another story, maybe for another time.

But I will not be disrespected. I am a human being. My time in this universe is limited and precious. My words and phantasies will not be judged by a machine, to decide if they were written by another machine.

If you have trusted me for more than 600'000 words, continue to do so - or don't. Publish my work in its current form - or don't.

I will draw the appropriate conclusions and act accordingly.

Kind regards

Djinn68

While I appreciate your effort @AwkwardMD to me it feels like kowtowing to a machine, kissing human dignity goodbye.

 

[AwkwardMD]

German author here. My latest entry in my latest series - with 38k words the largest yet - has been rejected.

While I understand the 'wish' of LIT, to keep it's content 'AI-free', I don't think it's feasible - not without a shadow of a doubt.

A machine can prove that i was driving too fast. But can it actually prove that I didn't write something personally? I doubt it.

I have resubmitted my story, without changing a word, with the following note to moderation:

Dear Laurel and Manu, Dear Moderator

I have not changed a single word. Because every single one of these words has been written by me, a human being. Not by a computer-program. Not by AI. After 3 years, 16 works and over half a million words (657.4 k) you either trust me - or you don't. You either publish my work as it is - or you don't. I will draw the appropriate conclusions and act accordingly. I will not be disrespected by letting a machine judge, if my work was written by another machine.

I had written a much longer note, but due to the limit of 510 characters, I had to boil it down to the essential parts. Here my full note:

Dear Laurel and Manu, Dear Moderator

Thank you for sending my story back - as a few of my paragraph separators (***) were not centered. This way, I was able to correct that.

But, besides that, I have not changed a single paragraph, a single sentence or a single word.

Why? - You may ask.

Well, it's pretty simple: Because every single one of these words has been written by me, a human being. Not by a computer-program. Not by AI.

By me, a human.

Now, some of us consider ourselves merely biological machines. Complex yes, but machines nonetheless. To me, there is one major difference to, say, the artificial machine that must have decided that another artificial machine had written at least substantial parts of my story, instead of me, the biological machine. We humans have an inevitable expiration date. Every moment that passes by is more precious than the one before, because there are fewer moments left to live. I am 57 years old now. I do not know how much time I have left, or how long my brain and my body will be fit enough, to be creative in this way.

In the last 3 years I have contributed 16 works. Way over half a million words (657.4 k), gathered 126 follower. All that may not seem much to you, but to me it has meant the world. I may be a niche-writer - german erotic sci-fi does not have that many readers, but by now I can confidently say, that I am good at what I am doing.

I have surrendered to the fact, that you do not intend to do anything substantial against the downvoter - who has finally managed to drag two of my works below the hot-threshhold. In my opinion you could fight it easily - by giving the authors the option, that only registered users can vote - but that's another story, maybe for another time.

But I will not be disrespected. I am a human being. My time in this universe is limited and precious. My words and phantasies will not be judged by a machine, to decide if they were written by another machine.

If you have trusted me for more than 600'000 words, continue to do so - or don't. Publish my work in its current form - or don't.

I will draw the appropriate conclusions and act accordingly.

Kind regards

Djinn68

While I appreciate your effort @AwkwardMD to me it feels like kowtowing to a machine, kissing human dignity goodbye.

My thread is not the appropriate platform for you to pontificate on perceived injustices. If you got a rejection and you know why, and wish to get help correcting your mistake, I can help.

I'm not going to dissect your manifesto. You said your piece to Laurel. Putting this here, though, is just blustering.

I'm sorry your work was rejected. That's always hard, and it sounds like you put a lot of work into it, but I know what the AI detector is looking for and I know what it means when it found it. Write your own story, edit your own story, and you'll be fine.

 

[Djinn68]

My thread is not the appropriate platform for you to pontificate on perceived injustices. If you got a rejection and you know why, and wish to get help correcting your mistake, I can help.

I'm not going to dissect your manifesto. You said your piece to Laurel. Putting this here, though, is just blustering.

I'm sorry your work was rejected. That's always hard, and it sounds like you put a lot of work into it, but I know what the AI detector is looking for and I know what it means when it found it. Write your own story, edit your own story, and you'll be fine.

You are probably right about at least one thing. I am feeling the urge to vent, as the frustration I feel right now pains me physically. Sharing my stories here on LIT has brought me a form of satisfaction I didn't think possible. And that is why it hurts.
I apologize for disrupting your thread. But even though I received an automated (it has been posted verbatim a few times in these forums ...) message telling me why my story was rejected, I still have no clue.

I made no mistake that I am aware of - or could be aware of. I wrote every single word of my story myself. I had 4 (!) human editors go over it, before I submitted it - as I have done for every other single entry in this series and many of the previous series. I WRITE my own story, I EDIT my own story, but I am FAR FROM FINE.

Of course you can decide not to believe me. And I can see no way how I could convince anyone about my sincerity.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I made no mistake that I am aware of - or could be aware of. I wrote every single word of my story myself. I had 4 (!) human editors go over it, before I submitted it - as I have done for every other single entry in this series and many of the previous series. I WRITE my own story, I EDIT my own story, but I am FAR FROM FINE..

You didn’t edit it yourself, though, you had help, and You don’t know how those editors arrived at the changes they made. You only know what the document looks like when they're done with it. All it takes is one of them getting a little too comfortable with suggested changes from a program like MS Word (now enhanced with Co-Pilot!) to taint the document in the eyes of Lit's AI Detector.

I'm not saying this to cast aspersions on anyone. I am just pointing out that you didn't have the control over your own story that you thought you did.

 

[Djinn68]

You didn’t edit it yourself, though, you had help, and You don’t know how those editors arrived at the changes they made. You only know what the document looks like when they're done with it. All it takes is one of them getting a little too comfortable with suggested changes from a program like MS Word (now enhanced with Co-Pilot!) to taint the document in the eyes of Lit's AI Detector.

I'm not saying this to cast aspersions on anyone. I am just pointing out that you didn't have the control over your own story that you thought you did.

I know exactly, what changes were made:

• I write my storys with MS Word and correct interpunctuation, grammar, etc. manually - according to the suggestions made by word (no Co-Pilot involved). Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't - I decide.
• The first 3 of my "gang of helpers" do not make any changes to the document itself. They comment, if they find errors, plotholes or other things that might need editing. If I judge their findings as reasonable, I edit the original document accordingly, myself - I decide.
• My last editor does the last round of grammar- and spellchecking and sends me a corrected copy of the original.
• Afterwards, I export both versions, my original one and the one sent to me by my "last line of defence" as XML and use a little batch-programm (yes, written by AI ...) to make a txt-file out of it, with all the necessary tags for bold, italic and centered.
• I compare both versions (with notepad+) and take what I deem reasonable from the version sent to me and insert it manually into my txt-version - I decide.
• I copy the whole text and paste it into the submission field. That's it.

Now, according to your words I could only see one potential source for some "AI-Detector-shenanigans", with the corrections sent in by my last editor. In german, since the so-called "spelling reform" some words can be written as one (the new, correct way) or two (the old, antiquated way). For example. "To be sorry (for someone)" can be written "leidtun" or "Leid tun". These are the few main corrections my last editor made, which I copied into my "To-submit-txt-file".

Well, if you tell me that this is precisely the reason why this... AI detector is showing an allergic reaction, then the question arises as to whether the injustices are really only “perceived.”

Other than that ... I can see no other point in the whole process where some sort of automated alteration could happen. And no, the XML-To-Text-Program does no such thing.

Thank you for your time, @AwkwardMD, it is appreciated.

 

[AwkwardMD]

@Djinn68 You've got 6 itemized steps. Submit the version from after step 3.

 

[PennyThompson]

Afterwards, I export both versions, my original one and the one sent to me by my "last line of defence" as XML and use a little batch-programm (yes, written by AI ...) to make a txt-file out of it, with all the necessary tags for bold, italic and centered.

So... you are using a simple custom-built AI tool that modifies your text and injects machine-generated content into it?

 

[Djinn68]

So... you are using a simple custom-built AI tool that modifies your text and injects machine-generated content into it?

Yes, nefarious I know, how dare I save my word-document as an XML-Document, entrusting it to this artificial beast, to wrap some <center> around my ***, some <i> around my italic text and some <b> around the bold one, stripping the rest of the XML-nonsense...

Strangely enough, I have done it 4 times already - never having any problems with my submissions. Blind luck?

@AwkwardMD I'm not going to upload a word-document.

 

[PennyThompson]

Yes, nefarious I know, how dare I save my word-document as an XML-Document, entrusting it to this artificial beast, to wrap some <center> around my ***, some <i> around my italic text and some <b> around the bold one, stripping the rest of the XML-nonsense...

Strangely enough, I have done it 4 times already - never having any problems with my submissions. Blind luck?

@AwkwardMD I'm not going to upload a word-document.

I never said it was nefarious, I'm not assuming ill intent

But if Lit uses tools that look for machine-generated content, could you see how this might somehow be triggering it? Philosophically it might be in a different category from LLM-generated text, but mechanically the end result might be similar?

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yes, nefarious I know, how dare I save my word-document as an XML-Document, entrusting it to this artificial beast, to wrap some <center> around my ***, some <i> around my italic text and some <b> around the bold one, stripping the rest of the XML-nonsense...

Strangely enough, I have done it 4 times already - never having any problems with my submissions. Blind luck?

@AwkwardMD I'm not going to upload a word-document.

Okay

 

[Djinn68]

I never said it was nefarious, I'm not assuming ill intent

But if Lit uses tools that look for machine-generated content, could you see how this might somehow be triggering it? Philosophically it might be in a different category from LLM-generated text, but mechanically the end result might be similar?

No - I can't see how a decently programmed tool could misinterpret <i>this</i> and <b>this></b> and <center>this</center> as machine generated content - as I wrote my complete first series with notepad+ and did these things manually at that time.

 

[AwkwardMD]

No - I can't see how a decently programmed tool could misinterpret <i>this</i> and <b>this></b> and <center>this</center> as machine generated content - as I wrote my complete first series with notepad+ and did these things manually at that time.

Keep it simple. You don’t need to run your story through a Rube Goldberg clockwork. The formatting is less important than the story.

 

[Djinn68]

Okay

Meaning - this is all the help I can get here, because ... Okay, let's try it this way:

The version of MS Word I use at home is the same as the one at work—thanks to the office license, I don't need to install my own MS Office at home. However, this also has the disadvantage that the document contains personal information about me. My first and last name, for example. Is it conceivable that I might not necessarily want to upload this information?

 

[Djinn68]

Keep it simple. You don’t need to run your story through a Rube Goldberg clockwork. The formatting is less important than the story.

I agree to disagree. It has not been a problem for the last 600'000+ words. I cannot see any reason (apart of kowtowing, of course) why that should suddenly change.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I agree to disagree. It has not been a problem for the last 600'000+ words. I cannot see any reason (apart of kowtowing, of course) why that should suddenly change.

There are free alternatives. Google Docs is the one I use, but I've seen others in the AH (Recent thread link goes here)

 

[Djinn68]

@AwkwardMD:

I might have found the damning reason (although, only time will tell): Whenever you write 3 dots in word -> ... this nice little MS-program makes one character out of it: …

On my last submission I forgot to manually replace the word-character in my textfile with ordinary 3 dots.

That might have triggered Cerberus at the gates - if so, I'd feel very, very stupid for a while ...

 

[SkyBubble]

All due respect, but I don’t believe you. I've seen you paste entire ChatGPT replies into these forums as if they were your own thoughts and words. I have tried to engage you on the subject numerous times over the past few months, and your responses have been wildly inconsistent.

Not true.

 

[Minato_99]

@AwkwardMD
Would it be a good idea to turn off Text Prediction? I did just in case, but still wondered about it.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yes. Yes, it would be a good idea to turn off text prediction.

 

[SkyBubble]

@AwkwardMD
Would it be a good idea to turn off Text Prediction? I did just in case, but still wondered about it.

Yes, a very good idea.

 

[SkyBubble]

Write your own story, edit your own story, and you'll be fine.

Not necessarily.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yes, a very good idea.

I am asking you nicely, please, stop contributing to this thread.