If you are having a lengthy delay in publishing, please add the name of your story and when submitted here.

[iwatchus]

Yes. Many times.

 

[SkyBubble]

Laurel probably overrides a lot of the detections — particularly for tenured and well-known authors. I still say that the overwhelming majority of long publishing delays are because they've been flagged for AI, and Laurel is leaving that flagged section of the queue as lower priority. The moderator notes probably override that, and appear on the dashboard screen, so tenured authors who resubmit with a note get processed quickly. Everybody else sits in the dungeon again or gets rejected for AI.

I don't think that's correct.

 

[SkyBubble]

I am fairly confident that the final say for AI here is not an automated checker. They probably do use an automated checker to raise suspicions, but that is pure speculation on my part.

There is no way Laurel can possibly review all the stories submitted.

 

[SkyBubble]

These fucking things think the Constitution and Harry Potter were written by AI because they're unreliable, hallucinating garbage.

They think Shakespeare is AI because they were trained on all the classics. AI has a better classical education than a lot of college graduates.

 

[Es_Orik_]

Yes. Many times.

Oh, I guess I should wait then

But it worries me because of prior experience

 

[iwatchus]

There is no way Laurel can possibly review all the stories submitted.

Carefully, no.There is plenty of evidence that she at least glances at every story. (Or some human does, but the general assumption is she is the lone one doing this.)

I have graded over a hundred papers in a day, and that is a careful read. My suspicion is that she scan reads the first 1K words or so, looking for anything that triggers a need to check more carefully. I suspect she has some automated reports as well to help her notice potential issues. Could I do this for 200 stories a day for a quarter century, even scan reading just the starts? No f-ing way. My brain is mush after one day grading 100 papers. But I would get better at it over time, as I'm sure she has. And they didn't start with 200 stories a day. I think her direct personal control over all the content is their basic model and I would bet she is unwilling to give it up.

 

[MuscularNudity]

Been waiting

 

[DEFCOM5]

Has anyone’s story ever been published after noticing the change of submission date?

Whenever that happens to me, my story just sits in pending hell.

Nope.

Every single of my submissions which had a change in the submission date have stuck in Pending Hell.

 

[FrancesScott]

If you use the text box, you have to manually insert the html tags, but that's pretty straightforward. @FrancesScott how to on formatting (here) explains it nicely.

Thank you for your ongoing support of my little essay.

 

[Es_Orik_]

Ar

Nope.

Every single of my submissions which had a change in the submission date have stuck in Pending Hell.

Are any of your stories still in pending?

 

[SmilingLez]

Are any of your stories still in pending?

Mine still is. It's interesting how @Manu has addressed technical issues that don't involve being stuck in the purgatory of the pending queue.

 

[iwatchus]

Mine still is. It's interesting how @Manu has addressed technical issues that don't involve being stuck in the purgatory of the pending queue.

I really think it's a process and human issue, not a technical one. So not something he can fix on his own.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I really think it's a process and human issue, not a technical one.

That's probably true. The thing that worries me is that even before these huge problems we are witnessing, Laurel could just barely keep up with the huge influx of stories that got submitted every day. The daily average of published stories back in, say, April, has likely been 250+ stories. It has dropped sharply starting from some point during the summer, and it hasn't really picked up since.

There's no reason to assume that authors are submitting fewer stories these days. So it stands to reason that a huge queue has built up in the meantime, and that even if Laurel goes back to the same levels of output as in April, it will take a long time before that long queue goes down to reasonable lengths.
And Laurel hasn't even gone back to an output remotely comparable to the one before the summer.

Tough times to be an author of smut.

 

[SmilingLez]

That's probably true. The thing that worries me is that even before these huge problems we are witnessing, Laurel could just barely keep up with the huge influx of stories that got submitted every day. The daily average of published stories back in, say, April, has likely been 250+ stories. It has dropped sharply starting from some point during the summer, and it hasn't really picked up since.

There's no reason to assume that authors are submitting fewer stories these days. So it stands to reason that a huge queue has built up in the meantime, and that even if Laurel goes back to the same levels of output as in April, it will take a long time before that long queue goes down to reasonable lengths.
And Laurel hasn't even gone back to an output remotely comparable to the one before the summer.

Tough times to be an author of smut.

I really think it's a process and human issue, not a technical one. So not something he can fix on his own.

The issue with your explanation is that people who have submitted stories after I submitted mine have gotten approved way before mine. I think one person reading every single story is a bit of an exaggeration because no one has that much free time on their hands.

 

[iwatchus]

The issue with your explanation is that people who have submitted stories after I submitted mine have gotten approved way before mine. I think one person reading every single story is a bit of an exaggeration because no one has that much free time on their hands.

Not all stories get more than trivial scrutiny. It was always a minority of stories that got caught. Those that get approved immediately continue to go through. And I think Laurel is getting most of the new extra scrutiny ones handled. But there is a substantial backlog is probably not getting touched.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The issue with your explanation is that people who have submitted stories after I submitted mine have gotten approved way before mine. I think one person reading every single story is a bit of an exaggeration because no one has that much free time on their hands.

I never said that the queue was fair. I just compared some numbers.

 

[cw5523729]

Hey, I have been waiting for over 7 days to get a story published. I thought it would be a fun little exercise to scratch an itch I have had for years, but for a 2 to 3 week wait seems a bit ridiculous. Are there other websites that are publishing erotica similar to this one?

Yes but:

A) I don't think it's acceptable to post them
B) the other ones I post on have a fraction of the readership

 

[iwatchus]

Hey, I have been waiting for over 7 days to get a story published. I thought it would be a fun little exercise to scratch an itch I have had for years, but for a 2 to 3 week wait seems a bit ridiculous. Are there other websites that are publishing erotica similar to this one?

Yes but:

A) I don't think it's acceptable to post them
B) the other ones I post on have a fraction of the readership

And C) most stories do not take more than a few days. We do not completely understand which stories take longer. Even at the worst a month ago, the pending issues were only impacting a fraction of all story submissions.

Before you think I am downplaying the problem for those caught, I'm in the boat as well. It sucks. It really does. But it is not universal. The general suggestion is to delete are resubmit if it last 15 days -- which must feel like an eternity.

 

[SmilingLez]

Not all stories get more than trivial scrutiny. It was always a minority of stories that got caught. Those that get approved immediately continue to go through. And I think Laurel is getting most of the new extra scrutiny ones handled. But there is a substantial backlog is probably not getting touched.

Most systems work on the principal of first in first out. So your logic is flawed. I'm on 10 days in the pending queue. Again I do not believe only one person is responsible for approving and posting all of the stories on a daily basis. Several dozen or more get approved every day no one person is capable of reading that much, especially on a computer

 

[cw5523729]

Most systems work on the principal of first in first out. So your logic is flawed. I'm on 10 days in the pending queue. Again I do not believe only one person is responsible for approving and posting all of the stories on a daily basis. Several dozen or more get approved every day no one person is capable of reading that much, especially on a computer

I posted today in one of the complaint threads that I had nearly 30k words approved today in 3 different submissions in one fell swoop

Eta: wait, it was this thread. I get lost easily. My wife can confirm.

 

[iwatchus]

Most systems work on the principal of first in first out. So your logic is flawed. I'm on 10 days in the pending queue. Again I do not believe only one person is responsible for approving and posting all of the stories on a daily basis. Several dozen or more get approved every day no one person is capable of reading that much, especially on a computer

I am very familiar with queues and their usage in modern computer systems.

I assume the first pass is FIFO. Evidence has always pointed to some stories taking longer, so they are not always being processed in that order. It's always been the case that slow ones come out in some unpredictable order, so my guess is that Laurel just grabs ones that look like what she feels up to reviewing when she has time. This also explains why notes to Laurel would release ones that had been stuck for an extended period. She just never picked it for some reason. Why she picks the ones she does at any time we will probably never even have a clue.

But it is evident that not all processing is done in a queue and has been so since well before I ever got here.

 

[Britva415]

they should be rejected, but they’re not. It’s why I think there’s a bug in the system.

No one’s being blackballed, just stories being flagged for suspected AI.

I have yet to see someone offer an example of one of these “permanently pending” stories which got rejected for suspected AI usage, with or without a delete-resubmit workaround.

AI flagging doesn’t seem to be related at all, as far as anything we know about.

If it were, then, all these stories wouldn’t just breeze through to approval after getting unstuck. Wouldn’t some significant portion of them get AI rejections, if they really tripped the flag?

 

[Es_Orik_]

I have yet to see someone offer an example of one of these “permanently pending” stories which got rejected for suspected AI usage, with or without a delete-resubmit workaround.

AI flagging doesn’t seem to be related at all, as far as anything we know about.

If it were, then, all these stories wouldn’t just breeze through to approval after getting unstuck. Wouldn’t some significant portion of them get AI rejections, if they really tripped the flag?

I don’t even know anymore.

I thought I was finally free of the black hole, but my new stories seems to fallen into it as well.

What are the chances?

 

[iwatchus]

I have yet to see someone offer an example of one of these “permanently pending” stories which got rejected for suspected AI usage, with or without a delete-resubmit workaround.

AI flagging doesn’t seem to be related at all, as far as anything we know about.

If it were, then, all these stories wouldn’t just breeze through to approval after getting unstuck. Wouldn’t some significant portion of them get AI rejections, if they really tripped the flag?

I think people conflate problems, but also, many if not most of the pre-crisis pending ended up getting rejected for AI. Many of the "My story got accused of AI" posts over the summer included a long wait before rejection. I still think a need for a more detailed manual review is the most likely trigger for pending hell (including mine). There are a number of reasons for a longer review, only one of which is AI. And many of which may not end up with a rejection, even if the queue was moving smoothly.

 

[SmilingLez]

I think people conflate problems, but also, many if not most of the pre-crisis pending ended up getting rejected for AI. Many of the "My story got accused of AI" posts over the summer included a long wait before rejection. I still think a need for a more detailed manual review is the most likely trigger for pending hell (including mine). There are a number of reasons for a longer review, only one of which is AI. And many of which may not end up with a rejection, even if the queue was moving smoothly.

Actually the pending queue has no subsets. There is no way to know for sure that your submission has actually seen human eyes or is lost in pending purgatory. The only 2 constants - the story is sent back for whatever reason and the story is posted live on the site. It would be nice if Laurel or Manu gave us a definitive answer