Do the moderators read the stories?

[GillByrd]

I have just had a story rejected, The suggestion was that a protagonist was under 18 years of age.

The story simply places the person, (a male) as being in his teens and a student at college.

Does this place it in the category of "paedo porn"?

When I find that there are lots of stories about students and teachers on this site, I feel a bit cross about this rejection.

 

[TxRad]

I think this will explain a lot for you. Laurel is one of the site owners and she reads everything.

Message from Laurel

 

[rot_teufel]

She reads every story personally? Wow that's a lot of sex stories.

 

[TxRad]

She reads every story personally? Wow that's a lot of sex stories.

From what she said, I think it is more like skim or speed read.

Yeah, it is a lot of sex.

But then again, why start an erotic story site if ya don't like to read erotica?

 

[rot_teufel]

Good point, but I'd be in bathroom masturbating as much as reading stories.

An aside can you tell me how I get my avatar to appear on my posts?

 

[damppanties]

Good point, but I'd be in bathroom masturbating as much as reading stories.

An aside can you tell me how I get my avatar to appear on my posts?

Happens after you reach 100 posts.

 

[TxRad]

Good point, but I'd be in bathroom masturbating as much as reading stories.

An aside can you tell me how I get my avatar to appear on my posts?

Maybe Laurel reads in her bedroom.

You need 100 posts to get the AV to actuate. You're half way there.

 

[rot_teufel]

Thanks, hard when new.

 

[Brunne]

An aside can you tell me how I get my avatar to appear on my posts?

Happens after you reach 100 posts.

You might also have to dig through you user profile and switch your avatar on (I had to) once you reach the golden 100 posts

 

[TxRad]

You might also have to dig through you user profile and switch your avatar on (I had to) once you reach the golden 100 posts

Switch it on, load it up, and sometimes you need to log out and then log back in. Not sure about the last part now as I've had my AV for a number of years.

 

[mynameisben]

Originally Posted by Laurel
Hi writers!

For clarification and future reference: we do allow characters under the age of 18 in stories. What we don't allow are stories in which characters under the age of 18 are involved in sexual situations. This includes as voyeurs, as the object of a voyeur, masturbation, having sexual thoughts, and so on.

We do allow references to past activity in stories so long as it is not explicit. For example, an adult character referencing his or her history - "I lost my virginity when I was 15" - is fine. Explicit and/or salacious details are not.

These are not new rules nor have our content rules changed in many years.

As far as things slipping through: one thing to realize is that the stories are not approved by a robot or script. They are approved by human eyes, which tire easily as I age. Every story must be formatted; tags, title, and description checked; and skimmed for content issues. The daily update takes hours. If I could find a way to do all this properly with a script, I would. But in the last 12+ years, the only way to do things right is to do it by hand, so to speak.

Mistakes happen. The site has been on a huge growth streak in the past year, with readership & unique visitors up nearly 20%. This means a corresponding growth in submissions. We want to post stories to the site as quickly as possible for you authors. We also want to make sure that the updates are as top-quality as they can be - with a minimum of formatting errors and no forbidden content inadvertently posted. Thorough checking of stories and timely posting is a balance we will continue to work to get right.

I'd like to be able to read every story through, but I can't. Reading 100+ stories/novels a night - much less formatting, tagging, etc. - is just not possible. So, if while skimming I see something that sends up a red flag and further reading doesn't clarify things, I often send it back to the author. If I stopped and read through each novel we receive to check on whether an underage character is sexually active at any point, I would be even further behind than I already am.

When a story is sent back to you for any reason, this is not a final rejection and it is not meant to be taken personally. This just means we have issues or questions. You are free to resubmit either with corrections - or, if you think we're wrong, an explanation of why we're wrong in the NOTES field.

If you believe your story was rejected in error, please open the submission, respond to the rejection in the NOTES field of the submission, and hit SUBMIT. Please do not add the word EDITED to the title, as that denotes someone editing an already approved story. Since we process all edits after the new stories are posted, adding the word EDITED to a title will cause a delay in the posting of your new story. If you are submitting an edit of a rejected story, simply open the rejected form, make the changes in that form, and hit SUBMIT. Do not start a new submission.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me anytime. PMs are faster than emails.

Thanks everybody, especially those who let me know about this thread - and have a great weekend!

Laurel is very clever. The "official" version above craftily conceals many of the more interesting details of her behind-the-scenes website operations. Some of her claims are outright lies aimed at protecting her privacy The truth of the matter: Laurel is a bonafide genius. Allow me to explain.

Early on, Laurel realized she was a gifted reader. In first grade, while the rest of her classmates were reading Dr. Seuss, Laurel was reading Anais Nin and Henry Miller. She further astounded her teachers when she submitted critiques on the novels she read in class in both French and English. In the second grade, she was granted special permission by the school district to take a speed reading course at the local community college. She passed with flying colors, of course. By the time she was in fourth grade (having skipped grades 2 and 3), she had read every single book in her elementary school library.

News of Laurel's early accomplishments spread like wildfire. Professors, psychologists and news journalists flew in from around the country to meet the young prodigy. IQ tests were given, and she blew the lid off them. Partway through the last IQ test she was given, she got bored from checking one multiple-choice box after the other like a machine. She raised her hand and asked the proctor for another pencil. When it was given to her, she continued with the exam with a pencil in each hand, checking answer boxes with both hands and effectively doubling her throughput. "Can I go read now?" Laurel asked when she handed her three-hour IQ exam in, eight minutes after it was given to her. The President of the United States was notified ten minutes later, as soon as it was determined she had logged yet another perfect score in record time.

Laurel triple-majored in Literature, Bio-engineering and Computer Science, graduating Magnum Cum Laude from M.I.T. at the age of 15. Her tuition fees had all been waived by presidential executive order on condition that, after graduation, she would spend the next six years working as an R & D expert at the Sadia National Laboratory in New Mexico. It was within this Top Secret facility that Laurel developed the world's very first AUR (Autonomous Universal Reader), a specialized computer that could scan, read, comprehend and evaluate 100 full pages of English text in one hour. By the time her four-year obligation had been served, she had fine-tuned her invention, improving it's speed and comprehension more than a hundredfold.

Now 21 and free at last from government servitude, Laurel returned to her first love, reading every damn thing in sight. She had a special love for erotic literature, but there never seemed to be enough of it to be found. So with the help of Manu, she founded Literotica! By encouraging the masses to read, write, and share their smutty stories, Laurel would finally have enough erotica streaming in to her to satisfy her ravenous reading desires.

It was a perfect marriage. At least, it was at the start. Laurel had no trouble at all keeping up with reading and evaluating every story that was submitted to the site. But the world, so she discovered, is crawling with smut-writing pervs and wannabe's in every quarter of the planet. As the years went by, the deluge of incoming smut surpassed even the talents of the world's fastest speed reader. Laurel was in over her head, but she was as much loathe to limit the growth of the website as she was to miss a single, erotic story. She knew what she had to do, and she knew she had the technological expertise it would require.

During the so-called Maintenance Shutdowns, Laurel went to work on developing a next-generation AUR. Though an automated reader would easily keep up with the growing story influx for years to come, she also realized she would miss out on the experience of personally reading the stories herself. What she needed, she knew, was a lesser AUR, a machine that would give up a portion of the comprehension sub-proess and somehow allow her to participate in the reading experience.

And so, LAUREL (Limited Autonomous Universal Reader of Erotic Literature) was born. The limitation on LAUREL is the bottleneck imposed by the human interface. A network of cables feed signals generated by LAUREL's Comprehension Unit (CU) to transducers connected to various erogenous points on Laurel's body. The strength of the signals transmitted to Laurel's body correspond to the erotic merit of the story as determined by the CU (which is ultimately determined by Laurel, since she's the one who programs LAUREL). Sensors record Laurel's sexual response to the stimulation signals, which further tunes LAUREL's Evaluation Unit (EU).

LAUREL records Laurel's excitation as a histogram of intensities that are sampled 20,000 times per second. A story that has grammar and spelling mistakes occasionally slips through the cracks and gets posted to the website whenever it is erotic enough to make Laurel come with sufficient intensity or frequency. If the CU determines a character is underage and engaging in sexual activity, the story is immediately rejected, and no signals are sent to Laurel whatsoever. Or, if the stories are just too damn ridiculous to be believed (Like most of mine) the CU rejects those stories too.

That's the real story. Now you know.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

Good story. 5*

 

[TxRad]

Good story. 5*

You should try some of his real stuff. Uh, stories that is.

 

[rot_teufel]

I applaud Laurel for keeping this going this long. I for one am impressed.

<Loud ruckus applause>
Thank You
Laruel

 

[TxRad]

I applaud Laurel for keeping this going this long. I for one am impressed.

<Loud ruckus applause>
Thank You
Laruel

I've been impressed for a while now myself.

 

[damppanties]

You should try some of his real stuff. Uh, stories that is.

Echo.

 

[TxRad]

Echo.

 

[estragon]

Laurel is the best. Three cheers!

 

[Laurel]

Laurel is very clever. The "official" version above craftily conceals many of the more interesting details of her behind-the-scenes website operations. Some of her claims are outright lies aimed at protecting her privacy The truth of the matter: Laurel is a bonafide genius. Allow me to explain.

Early on, Laurel realized she was a gifted reader. In first grade, while the rest of her classmates were reading Dr. Seuss, Laurel was reading Anais Nin and Henry Miller. She further astounded her teachers when she submitted critiques on the novels she read in class in both French and English. In the second grade, she was granted special permission by the school district to take a speed reading course at the local community college. She passed with flying colors, of course. By the time she was in fourth grade (having skipped grades 2 and 3), she had read every single book in her elementary school library.

News of Laurel's early accomplishments spread like wildfire. Professors, psychologists and news journalists flew in from around the country to meet the young prodigy. IQ tests were given, and she blew the lid off them. Partway through the last IQ test she was given, she got bored from checking one multiple-choice box after the other like a machine. She raised her hand and asked the proctor for another pencil. When it was given to her, she continued with the exam with a pencil in each hand, checking answer boxes with both hands and effectively doubling her throughput. "Can I go read now?" Laurel asked when she handed her three-hour IQ exam in, eight minutes after it was given to her. The President of the United States was notified ten minutes later, as soon as it was determined she had logged yet another perfect score in record time.

Laurel triple-majored in Literature, Bio-engineering and Computer Science, graduating Magnum Cum Laude from M.I.T. at the age of 15. Her tuition fees had all been waived by presidential executive order on condition that, after graduation, she would spend the next six years working as an R & D expert at the Sadia National Laboratory in New Mexico. It was within this Top Secret facility that Laurel developed the world's very first AUR (Autonomous Universal Reader), a specialized computer that could scan, read, comprehend and evaluate 100 full pages of English text in one hour. By the time her four-year obligation had been served, she had fine-tuned her invention, improving it's speed and comprehension more than a hundredfold.

Now 21 and free at last from government servitude, Laurel returned to her first love, reading every damn thing in sight. She had a special love for erotic literature, but there never seemed to be enough of it to be found. So with the help of Manu, she founded Literotica! By encouraging the masses to read, write, and share their smutty stories, Laurel would finally have enough erotica streaming in to her to satisfy her ravenous reading desires.

It was a perfect marriage. At least, it was at the start. Laurel had no trouble at all keeping up with reading and evaluating every story that was submitted to the site. But the world, so she discovered, is crawling with smut-writing pervs and wannabe's in every quarter of the planet. As the years went by, the deluge of incoming smut surpassed even the talents of the world's fastest speed reader. Laurel was in over her head, but she was as much loathe to limit the growth of the website as she was to miss a single, erotic story. She knew what she had to do, and she knew she had the technological expertise it would require.

During the so-called Maintenance Shutdowns, Laurel went to work on developing a next-generation AUR. Though an automated reader would easily keep up with the growing story influx for years to come, she also realized she would miss out on the experience of personally reading the stories herself. What she needed, she knew, was a lesser AUR, a machine that would give up a portion of the comprehension sub-proess and somehow allow her to participate in the reading experience.

And so, LAUREL (Limited Autonomous Universal Reader of Erotic Literature) was born. The limitation on LAUREL is the bottleneck imposed by the human interface. A network of cables feed signals generated by LAUREL's Comprehension Unit (CU) to transducers connected to various erogenous points on Laurel's body. The strength of the signals transmitted to Laurel's body correspond to the erotic merit of the story as determined by the CU (which is ultimately determined by Laurel, since she's the one who programs LAUREL). Sensors record Laurel's sexual response to the stimulation signals, which further tunes LAUREL's Evaluation Unit (EU).

LAUREL records Laurel's excitation as a histogram of intensities that are sampled 20,000 times per second. A story that has grammar and spelling mistakes occasionally slips through the cracks and gets posted to the website whenever it is erotic enough to make Laurel come with sufficient intensity or frequency. If the CU determines a character is underage and engaging in sexual activity, the story is immediately rejected, and no signals are sent to Laurel whatsoever. Or, if the stories are just too damn ridiculous to be believed (Like most of mine) the CU rejects those stories too.

That's the real story. Now you know.

*guffaw*

 

[TxRad]

*guffaw*

I think that's another *5* vote for Ben

 

[RodenAddison]

I had one rejected where the couple were of age (stated 28 and 22) and they role played her as under age. It was rejected. It was easy enough to take it out, but I felt a little slighted. Bottom line? I don't own the site.

However, in your case, I'd drop her a note.

 

[Feotakahari]

If you're on the borderline, it helps if you include a submission note explaining the situation. That's what I did when I submitted a story that had a flashback in which two children discuss love. (The story involves them meeting again as adults, and all sex they're involved in is as adults, so it passed.)

 

[dicky911]

You should feel cross. It is stupid. You might either complain, or simply write something like this into the story and resubmit: 'the age of the youth in question cannot be revealed' - or, 'for precise age-related details, the author may be contacted'.

what would they do with THAT??

 

[dicky911]

the other option - the story is given a 'retrospective' frame - as another commentator helpfully pointed out -

We do allow references to past activity in stories so long as it is not explicit. For example, an adult character referencing his or her history - "I lost my virginity when I was 15" - is fine

so once within the backwards looking frame, whoever is telling it (within the story!) can say exactly what you say

 

[TxRad]

You should feel cross. It is stupid. You might either complain, or simply write something like this into the story and resubmit: 'the age of the youth in question cannot be revealed' - or, 'for precise age-related details, the author may be contacted'.

what would they do with THAT??

the other option - the story is given a 'retrospective' frame - as another commentator helpfully pointed out -

We do allow references to past activity in stories so long as it is not explicit. For example, an adult character referencing his or her history - "I lost my virginity when I was 15" - is fine

so once within the backwards looking frame, whoever is telling it (within the story!) can say exactly what you say

The Lady up above petting the fish reads or at least skims every story that is posted to this site. That is a hell of a lot of stories so she has to be quick and doesn't have the time to read the whole thing. The rule is no under 18 but you would be surprised at the number of people who try to slip shit through.

So if Laurel misses a few things or tosses something back occasionally that might be in error, I can understand it. Nothing against the writer. It was just not clear enough for her at the time.