Comments on Stories

[luedon]

On Sunday Qantas Dreamliner QF7879 flew non-stop from New York to Sydney in less than 20 hours. Today’s world is a very connected place.

One of the best things about Literotica is the ability it provides for readers to comment on stories and converse with authors and other commenters. It is a benefit for authors and readers not provided on other sites. It encourages involvement and community.

In days gone by comments were posted in real time as is appropriate in a connected world. But most days now there is a period longer than it took QF7879 to go half way around the world when no comments are posted. In a connected world, Literotica now disconnects itself.

All comments are posted in the remaining four hours in one or more batches. I wouldn’t know how many batches; I’m asleep at the time.

The problem is ‘moderation’. It was introduced because spammers were using the comments to advertise sexual services. Unfortunately, the solution has only replaced one problem with another.

The spammers aren’t registered members. So would it be possible to permit comments from those who have registered a name to be posted unmoderated?

A comment from a member is taken more seriously than one from an anonymouse anyhow, and it may provide an incentive for the anonymice to register a name.

I do hope it can be fixed.

 

[RejectReality]

Most of the spam was coming from registered members. Lord knows I reported and deleted enough of it to know.

Disengaging it in any way right now would put us right back where we were. My website is a backwater, damn near a notepad for me to keep track of my thoughts with timestamps that I can reference. I'm blocking dozens of spammers per day, and still have to nuke 4-5 a week that get through the multiple layers of anti-spam databases, region blocks, keyword blocks, email domain blocks, etc.

Lit is surely dealing with thousands.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Most of the spam was coming from registered members. Lord knows I reported and deleted enough of it to know.

Agree this. Better a delayed comment than the junk we saw before.

Besides, comments rarely generate dialogue, so for writers, I can't see how the delay impacts anything at all. Different time zones, different log in habits - a commenter has no way of knowing what those might be from one writer to the next. So there's a delay - so what?

 

[luedon]

It is not my recollection that the spam came from registered members, RejectReality, but if I am wrong then surely the answer is to de-register them and to make it a condition of membership.

And if that isn't possible, then what we currently have is a cure that is worse than the original disease. At least we saw all the real comments and had the opportunity to respond before everybody had moved on from that story and was making their comments on tomorrow's stories.

If we have to again avoid the spam comments from various 'ladies who will delight you' if you phone them, ant to delete those comments from the comment lists on our own stories, so be it.

Lue

 

[luedon]

I disagree with your statement about comments rarely generating dialogue, ElectricBlue. Fewer are generated now because of the delay, but that is the problem. Back when the comments were in real time, there were some excellent debates, often more interesting than the story that elicited the comments.

And I don't recall seeing either RejectReality or ElectricBlue all that often on the commentaries. I'll have to look at the list of the prolific commenters again to see if either name is there. But there are some of us who do become quite involved in the comment community.

Lue

 

[ElectricBlue]

I disagree with your statement about comments rarely generating dialogue, ElectricBlue. Fewer are generated now because of the delay, but that is the problem. Back when the comments were in real time, there were some excellent debates, often more interesting than the story that elicited the comments.

And I don't recall seeing either RejectReality or ElectricBlue all that often on the commentaries. I'll have to look at the list of the prolific commenters again to see if either name is there. But there are some of us who do become quite involved in the comment community.

Lue

Fair comment. I speak from a dataset of one, as a writer.

In five years, I've had two or three exchanges with commenters - and those were with Category Police with personal preferences being stated, not meaningful comments about my writing. Neither their comments nor mine remain - the "debates" (and I use the term generously) were ultimately pointless, so I got rid of them. That was in my novice year as a writer.

I suspect we inhabit different categories, with different commentary practices. All good.

 

[luedon]

Fair comment. I speak from a dataset of one, as a writer.

In five years, I've had two or three exchanges with commenters - and those were with Category Police with personal preferences being stated, not meaningful comments about my writing. Neither their comments nor mine remain - the "debates" (and I use the term generously) were ultimately pointless, so I got rid of them. That was in my novice year as a writer.

I suspect we inhabit different categories, with different commentary practices. All good.

True, ElectricBlue, we probably do inhabit different categories. In Loving Wives the commentariat is very involved. The Category Police that you despise and the Grammar Nazis are all part of the entertainment.

Do you see what I mean by the advantage of real time posting? We couldn't have an exchange like this on the commentary boards.

Lue

 

[RejectReality]

I more or less expected you were coming out of Loving Wives. That's the only place any complaints have arisen about the delay in posted comments.

The moderation queue can probably be tweaked to release comments more quickly, but it's never going to be real time again until the upgraded story pages are released — and possibly not even then.

This was an emergency measure put in place, which is taking away time from completing the mission of rolling out the new site. Every bit of time spent tweaking it is taking away time from a stronger platform that will be able to better handle spam filtering.

For the rest of the site, the delay is a small price to pay for the firewall against comment spam. Loving Wives is the only place that has the kind of extensive conversational commentary that you're interested in, and the only place where some of the authors really want it or encourage it.

 

[luedon]

I more or less expected you were coming out of Loving Wives. That's the only place any complaints have arisen about the delay in posted comments.

The moderation queue can probably be tweaked to release comments more quickly, but it's never going to be real time again until the upgraded story pages are released — and possibly not even then.

This was an emergency measure put in place, which is taking away time from completing the mission of rolling out the new site. Every bit of time spent tweaking it is taking away time from a stronger platform that will be able to better handle spam filtering.

For the rest of the site, the delay is a small price to pay for the firewall against comment spam. Loving Wives is the only place that has the kind of extensive conversational commentary that you're interested in, and the only place where some of the authors really want it or encourage it.

The question is, RejectReality, how much does the site value an involved membership rather than just people who come and browse? The LW membership does become more engaged and it was obvious to you that I was "coming out of Loving Wives" as you say.

An involved membership visits more often and stays longer. Isn't that what the site needs? All the techo stuff is fine, but irrelevant to the site's customer unless it goes bad. Maybe the aim should be to get members in other categories to be as involved as the LW commentariat
is.

Lue

 

[RejectReality]

There's engagement, and then there's what happens in Loving Wives. I realize some find it entertaining, but when I click on the very first LW story on today's new list, jump to the comments, and find a threat to expose the author's identity unless the author writes to the commenter's tastes, or ceases to post altogether...

Blackmail isn't a positive anywhere.

The techno stuff is exactly what the whole basis of your complaint is about. It has broken, and had to be patched up with spit and baling wire while a stronger solution is developed. Like it or not, you're part of a very small minority who find the temporary solution is a bigger problem than what it's fixing. To anyone outside of the LW commenter camps, it's nothing more than a minor, occasional irritant. It's far and away preferable to spending time each and every day reporting and deleting links to malware-infested scam sites in our comment sections.

The question is, RejectReality, how much does the site value an involved membership rather than just people who come and browse? The LW membership does become more engaged and it was obvious to you that I was "coming out of Loving Wives" as you say.

An involved membership visits more often and stays longer. Isn't that what the site needs? All the techo stuff is fine, but irrelevant to the site's customer unless it goes bad. Maybe the aim should be to get members in other categories to be as involved as the LW commentariat
is.

Lue