Advice appreciated on how to deal with editor's allegation of AI use

[StillStunned]

It becomes a Christmas cracker joke.

What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? Time to buy a new fence.

 

[DrPope]

It has nothing to do with correct grammar and punctuation. Grammar and punctuation have been my livelihood for 25 years, and I've not had any issues with my stories here.

Yeah but you write basically strokers… and left field sci-fi and fairytales type strokers at that… you’re probably quirky enough to avoid it.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Thing is for the OP their first port of call was to run Ai checker?

If I've spent months writing a story and it gets rejected for AI my first port of call is Laurel and asking for a double check.

I still believe that all these complaints are coming from people using Grammerly or some other form of software to help them. Then getting tripped up?

I use Microsoft editor function and set it to informal and see what I have done wrong.

It doesn't pick up sentence runs or useful things like that, but it finds commas and full stops and other such things.

Everyone has their own style and by trying to use a software to make everything the same is defeating.

It makes the art of storytelling no longer an art. It becomes a Christmas cracker joke. Predictable?

I have improved my writing by listening to Anonymous and their suggestions. Not by running to software?

Not even gonna try to dispute the possibility of all the rejected people actually lying about how much they let Grammarly change their stories. But the first two questions?

Keep in mind that OP has all of two posts in the forum. The amount of people I see come in here, with no idea how to even try and contact an admin, makes OPs actions pretty believable for me. YOUR first action would be to try and contact Laurel, but if you didn't know that you had to contact a user called "Laurel", I'm sure you would also try to understand where the accusation comes from. Especially if you spend more than five minutes looking through the forum and seeing all the threads complaining about the issue before going on about AI checkers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

They frequently have extremely poor sentence and paragraph structure amongst other issues like spelling etc

The utter trash getting put out in so many categories lately is frankly astounding.

Which means nothing has changed in that regard.

Basically those who can read and write with correct grammar and punctuation are getting penalized.

There are plenty of highly literate writers getting their stories published, who aren't getting bounced back.

 

[StillStunned]

Yeah but you write basically strokers… and left field sci-fi and fairytales type strokers at that… you’re probably quirky enough to avoid it.

Quirky my stories might be, but I really doubt content has anything to do with the issue. My stories cover a wide range of subjects, from the fairly generic to the slightly imaginitive.

But even so, plenty of other writers manage perfectly well, with excellent spelling, grammar and punctuation. And without writing anything "quirky".

 

[DrPope]

Quirky my stories might be, but I really doubt content has anything to do with the issue. .

I read a few ...I don't agree

 

[DrPope]

There are plenty of highly literate writers getting their stories published, who aren't getting bounced back.

Cite some ....

 

[StillStunned]

I read a few ...I don't agree

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to take away from this comment.

 

[DrPope]

I am sick to death of people who haven't gone through this telling us that we should be doing certain things or acting certain ways as if the thought hasn't already crossed our minds or if we haven't already done it. I've been fighting for over a month to get this one story part up and I don't need someone like you, who doesn't know the half of what this feels like, telling me that I'm doing it wrong or that I'm lying.

I have just become aware in the past day that one of the best if not THE best new writer of the past 5 years in E&V actually left the site along with all his stories because of constant rejections for AI when he never used anything other then word spell check.

I would point out he has been writing in the same style for a few years long before the availability of AI writing tools.

The fact that this sites admin cannot see the Tree's for the Forrest with the damage they are doing with this AI witch hunt is obvious.

It's a no brainer to suggest that any existing authors should be allowed to publish their works unimpeded in the interests of fairness and the quality of the sites content as all of us are knowing AI detection tools are fatally flawed.

Again the complete lack of communication and transparency from the sites admins shows their lack of giving a fuck for their own authors.

 

[DrPope]

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to take away from this comment.

That I disagree that you are not quirky enough to avoid a AI filter .... your sentence and paragraph style is VERY quirky and unconventional ....refreshingly so in fact.

Not at all unappealing in my considered opinion.

 

[StillStunned]

That I disagree that you are not quirky enough to avoid a AI filter .... your sentence and paragraph style is VERY quirky and unconventional ....refreshingly so in fact.

Not at all unappealing in my considered opinion.

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment.

 

[DrPope]

If I've spent months writing a story and it gets rejected for AI my first port of call is Laurel and asking for a double check.

Are you not reading these threads? Laurel is not engaging and sending canned generic responses back to authors and that's only when a response is received.

 

[Bazzle]

Are you not reading these threads? Laurel is not engaging and sending canned generic responses back to authors and that's only when a response is received.

Yup I am reading. But I am apparently doing exactly the same as some - using just Word as my grammar editor and not having an AI issue. I'm guess I'm so bad a writing, I'm lucky.

Whereas some are respectively falling into a trap.

She clearly doesn't believe that AI hasn't been used? If she is sending a generic response?

 

[Britva415]

Cite some ....

You're saying that none, zero, of the many, many people who are getting published every day are "highly literate?"

Maybe you just have a different definition, in which case citations would be unconvincing.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Are you not reading these threads? Laurel is not engaging and sending canned generic responses back to authors and that's only when a response is received.

Don't get me wrong, I understand where the frustration comes from. But I still have to say that I fully understand the canned responses.

I mean, there's only so many ways one can say "What can I tell you? It reads like AI".

What else do you want to hear from her? Do you expect the woman to send you a step-by-step guide on which lines have to be changed?

 

[DrPope]

ou're saying that none, zero, of the many, many people who are getting published every day are "highly literate?"

Maybe you just have a different definition, in which case citations would be unconvincing.

Nope never said that at all ....

But you can't cite any so ....

 

[DrPope]

What else do you want to hear from her? Do you expect the woman to send you a step-by-step guide on which lines have to be changed?

I expect a publicly posted AI guide with transparent information about how each submission is checked for AI, how established authors are going to be treated, what tools are being used and how are the parameters set, what separate process for appeals is available for rejections and a acknowledgement that a massive number of submissions are being falsely flagged under the current system and what the plans are to fix this.

What I and most other authors want is public direct engagement on this issue instead of being utterly ignored.

BTW any AI system that requires individual lines to be arbitrarily changed due to some fatally flawed AI checker when part of a wider work is totally unacceptable and off the reservation.
Either its AI written or it isn't ...splitting it up into lines if highly offensive to authors works.

AI tools that assist spelling ,grammar and punctuation should be used at the sole discretion of the author alone

 

[Bazzle]

I expect a publicly posted AI guide with transparent information about how each submission is checked for AI, how established authors are going to be treated, what tools are being used and how are the parameters set, what separate process for appeals is available for rejections and a acknowledgement that a massive number of submissions are being falsely flagged under the current system and what the plans are to fix this.

What I and most other authors want is public direct engagement on this issue instead of being utterly ignored.

Don't use Ai...or anything that might constitute Ai and life is okay?
64 stories in, I've been rejected for several reasons over the years, but I've worked out how to solve it-
AI so far not one of them... because I'm not using anything. My writing is me.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

I expect a publicly posted AI guide with transparent information about how each submission is checked for AI, how established authors are going to be treated, what tools are being used and how are the parameters set, what separate process for appeals is available for rejections and a acknowledgement that a massive number of submissions are being falsely flagged under the current system and what the plans are to fix this.

What I and most other authors want is public direct engagement on this issue instead of being utterly ignored.

And why would she do any of that?

And before you claim that the authors then just pack their stuff and leave... When was the last time she engaged in "public direct engagement" on any issue? And how dead is the site today?

There's no need for her to do any of that. She doesn't have to publish someone's stories if she doesn't want them on her site. Just like we don't have to publish our stories on her site.

 

[Bazzle]

Except it's not. Again, I haven't used AI and I'm still being knocked back. There is nothing else I can do at this point - at least from what I can see - that will help.

Stop with that story.
Leave it alone.
Write something else, different characters different setting.
See if that gets published, then go back?

 

[StillStunned]

Sell our soul to Satan?

That's what I did. Best deal I ever made.

 

[DrPope]

Don't use Ai...or anything that might constitute Ai and life is okay?

Nope ...the threads are full of people that used nothing but Word spell check and are still getting rejected multiple times for the same story. It has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with how badly AI detection tools work .... they target certain word combos that have zero to do with AI.

And why would she do any of that?

Because frankly this is the biggest deal Lit has ever faced in its history .... don't believe me ? Keep going and wait and see ....


This issue is something that can destroy and is actively destroying the site .... the lack of public engagement shows frankly that she doesn't care.

This is a really really big deal ...AI won't kill Lit but the overreaction and undocumented AI witch hunt will .... it is already driving away established authors and frankly the submission quality over the past 12 months can't afford to go down further. If new authors get rejected they simply leave .... the internet has changed it's not 2001 anymore they simply go elsewhere.

 

[MillieDynamite]

@DrPope, you can take your toys and go home at anytime. This site was here before you, it'll get through this just fine.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Quirky my stories might be, but I really doubt content has anything to do with the issue. My stories cover a wide range of subjects, from the fairly generic to the slightly imaginitive.

But even so, plenty of other writers manage perfectly well, with excellent spelling, grammar and punctuation. And without writing anything "quirky".

To be fair, I know one writer who has quirky as her super power. The day AI comes up with the shit I do, that’s the singularity .

Emily

 

[EmilyMiller]

Nope ...the threads are full of people that used nothing but Word spell check and are still getting rejected multiple times for the same story. It has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with how badly AI detection tools work .... they target certain word combos that have zero to do with AI.





Because frankly this is the biggest deal Lit has ever faced in its history .... don't believe me ? Keep going and wait and see ....


This issue is something that can destroy and is actively destroying the site .... the lack of public engagement shows frankly that she doesn't care.

This is a really really big deal ...AI won't kill Lit but the overreaction and undocumented AI witch hunt will .... it is already driving away established authors and frankly the submission quality over the past 12 months can't afford to go down further. If new authors get rejected they simply leave .... the internet has changed it's not 2001 anymore they simply go elsewhere.

Have you seen how many stories ARE getting approved each day?

I don’t think this is gonna kill Lit, no matter how painful it is for those caught up in the mess.

If it was an existential threat to be doing what Laurel is doing, I bet she’d stop.

Emily