Why???

[AZMajician]

Why can an author not get a question answered from the powers that be, when the question is not in the FAQ?

I have messaged a couple of them, have sent a message to the feedback contact.. and still I get no PM, no email, and no reply or answer to my question.

I will ask it here..

Lets see if I can get an answer or even some help.


Question:

Is there a way to REMOVE one or two stories that an Author posted to LIT?.. and if so.. where and how do you do it?

Majic.

 

[sr71plt]

Some say Laurel is easily accessible (she's the sole editor, as far as I know), but my experience after years and years and lots of stories is just about the same as yours. Eventually she'll answer a PM. Never an e-mail, as far as I know--and certainly not be following the instructions the Web site gives.

And the only time I deleted a story, all forms were ignored except (eventually) a repeated direct PM to her. And then I had to provide a reason for deleting and it was a matter of refiling the story with "Delete" added to the title and an explanation put in the "Notes" box. (But trying this a few times before actually getting a PM response from here did nothing but add glop to my submissions page.)

At the time I suggested that the FAQ needed instructions for deleting a story. But, of course, none has been added.

Good luck.

 

[AZMajician]

Some say Laurel is easily accessible (she's the sole editor, as far as I know), but my experience after years and years and lots of stories is just about the same as yours. Eventually she'll answer a PM. Never an e-mail, as far as I know--and certainly not be following the instructions the Web site gives.

And the only time I deleted a story, all forms were ignored except (eventually) a repeated direct PM to her. And then I had to provide a reason for deleting and it was a matter of refiling the story with "Delete" added to the title and an explanation put in the "Notes" box. (But trying this a few times before actually getting a PM response from here did nothing but add glop to my submissions page.)

At the time I suggested that the FAQ needed instructions for deleting a story. But, of course, none has been added.

Good luck.

Thanks.. I did PM Laurel.. a few days ago...

 

[Darkniciad]

SR's got it. Just start a new submission, use the same title ( or as much as will fit ) plus something such as *DELETE*

Then just fill in all the other sections with placeholders, and use both the "story text" and "notes" ( copy paste whichever one you type into the other ) sections to say that you want to delete the story.

You might want to take note of the Lit ID# of your story ( the number at the end of the URL when you view the first page of the story/chapter ) and add that to you deletion request, just to make sure there aren't any mistakes.

Yeah, the faq's hard to navigate, and unclear in many places. The editing/deleting process is one of the most irritating ( and cumbersome ) parts of it to figure out. It's there... Somewhere... I know I found it long, long ago. I still had to come here and ask questions, though.

Using the email listed for contact is a waste of time. I think it has a spam filter so draconian that virtually nothing gets through. As to PMs, since the question actually is answered in the labyrinth of the faq -- somewhere -- those sorts of questions do often get ignored. I'd imagine that it's a necessity in order to wade through all of that + getting upwards of 70 stories posted per day.

 

[AZMajician]

SR's got it. Just start a new submission, use the same title ( or as much as will fit ) plus something such as *DELETE*

Then just fill in all the other sections with placeholders, and use both the "story text" and "notes" ( copy paste whichever one you type into the other ) sections to say that you want to delete the story.

You might want to take note of the Lit ID# of your story ( the number at the end of the URL when you view the first page of the story/chapter ) and add that to you deletion request, just to make sure there aren't any mistakes.

Thanks.. I try that..

 

[sr71plt]

SR's got it. Just start a new submission, use the same title ( or as much as will fit ) plus something such as *DELETE*

That's not what I got. That's how I thought it worked. But it didn't work for me--not until I had goosed a direct response first out of Laurel via PM.

 

[Darkniciad]

That's not what I got. That's how I thought it worked. But it didn't work for me--not until I had goosed a direct response first out of Laurel via PM.

I must be lucky as hell, or you're unlucky as hell. This is another one that I've never had the slightest problem with.

That begin said, the biggest change we need from the author side is a simple point and click editing interface. The work would be well worth it just to eliminate threads like this and the mountains of PMs, I should think.

 

[Pure]

darkniciad has the drill.

make it like a submission or more exactly, an edited submission of what's already there. put 'delete' after the title and in the body.

it has worked for me, probably since story submissions, unlike emails are always dealt with, every one.

 

[sr71plt]

Presumably AZM will post what eventually worked.

I was surprised as hell that the line I'd been repeating for a couple of years did absolutely nothing for me when I tried it.

 

[Darkniciad]

Presumably AZM will post what eventually worked.

I was surprised as hell that the line I'd been repeating for a couple of years did absolutely nothing for me when I tried it.

I actually have a theory about that...

Every once in a while, you get someone who comes in saying that their story has sat in "pending" forever. As best as I can guess, the story queue is sorted by the julian date, in order for the newest stories to be at the top.

What may be happening is that the system glitches sometimes ( perhaps during those heavy traffic points that slow the site down to a crawl ) and either doesn't fill in the date, or loads it with some sort of nonsense. If that's the sortation criteria for displaying submissions to be reviewed, then it could very well always sit dead last in the queue, until someone either PMs "what the hell?" or Laurel digs down into the queue for some housekeeping.

 

[jomar]

Title - DELETE

Worked for me as quickly as a new story submission.

 

[cloudy]

Title - DELETE

Worked for me as quickly as a new story submission.

Me, too, except in the title box, I put "DELETE - Title of Story I want deleted"

Has worked every single time.

 

[AZMajician]

Me, too, except I in the title box, I put "DELETE - Title of Story I want deleted"

Has worked every single time.

Thanks.. I will try this...

I will let you all know what happens.

 

[AZMajician]

Me, too, except in the title box, I put "DELETE - Title of Story I want deleted"

Has worked every single time.

I created a new submission.

I put DELETE after the title (title spelled exactly the same as the original)

I chose the same category, and put PLEASE DELETE in the box for the TEXT.

They removed it today.


Thank you all.

Majic.

 

[sr71plt]

I created a new submission.

I put DELETE after the title (title spelled exactly the same as the original)

I chose the same category, and put PLEASE DELETE in the box for the TEXT.

They removed it today.


Thank you all.

Majic.

Great. Thanks for checking back in. I'll go back to recommending that as a process. And maybe if there's a next time for me, it will work for me too.

 

[Darkniciad]

Edits and deletes will often jump the queue in my experience. I suspect that Laurel does it as a way to take a break from the more taxing experience of approving stories, while still being productive.

Or maybe it just makes the whole thing look less daunting when you clear a bunch of easy stuff out of the queue *laugh*