Has something(s) changed on the site?

[LitEroCat]

Has anyone else noticed changes since June? What I've seen:

1. My last 2 stories, since June, took 13 - 20 days to pub instead of the usual 3-4 days.
2. The number of VIEWS and VOTES is much MUCH lower than norm on both. I know friends have voted, but I don't see them in the totals.
3. I've been using simple ASCII art at the end of my stories for a few YEARS, but now they get rejected for use of HTML char >*< They seem to be OK here.
4. I noticed the number of VIEWS BEFORE publishing has vanished and now when the story is changed to 'approved', the approved link is changed to text AND the approval date is 2 days away. WHY the added delay. e.g. my Timegasms 4 story was submitted 8/2, approved 8/11, but not available to read until late 8/13.

Has the mystery counter changed? Are votes filtered out differently? Why the long delay to pub- something beyond workload? Can I use a BBoard icon from here in my stories?

 

[sr71plt]

No, haven't noticed any of that. (But haven't done half of it either). I submit every week, and it's been a constant two days for many months.

 

[Weird Harold]

Has anyone else noticed changes since June? What I've seen:

1. ...
2. ...
3. ...
4. ... the approval date is 2 days away. WHY the added delay. e.g. my Timegasms 4 story was submitted 8/2, approved 8/11, but not available to read until late 8/15.

The delayed posting is probably the result of a flood of stories submitted in that category. Laurel tries to maintain a mix of categories for each day's postings and will delay some postings to spread the abundant category(s) instead of flooding one or two days postings.

 

[sr71plt]

The delayed posting is probably the result of a flood of stories submitted in that category. Laurel tries to maintain a mix of categories for each day's postings and will delay some postings to spread the abundant category(s) instead of flooding one or two days postings.

Oh? I've never heard this is the case. Is this really true?

 

[RejectReality]

I doubt "flooding" has anything to do with the stories in question, as the category has been light enough on submissions to go back nine days on the hub new story list.

As to the ascii, if you're using any html special character codes, that's one potential stumbling block. I had one of mine rejected for HTML because of that, and it was a fast-skim mistake. As soon as I pointed out that it was only special characters, it went through on the next try.

That has been quite a while ago, though. I stopped using specialized scene breaks years ago in favor of simple asterisks.

Have no idea why it's taking so long for your stuff to be published. My last one caught me off guard by going up the day after I put it in the queue, because I was expecting the standard 2 days. I had to scramble to submit to other sites in order to synchronize the release and update my website/social media pages.

Are you perhaps submitting via Word doc files? Maybe whatever version you're using isn't playing nicely with something behind the scenes, creating a longer turnaround.

The "pre-approval" where the you get a date and the word "approved" without a link has become fairly standard. My last several submissions have all gone that way. Laurel seems to be trying to stay ahead of the game by having each day's queue loaded in advance, instead of every new story being processed the day of release.

Lower view and vote totals could be anything, but my first guess is that the numbers in the title make people think it's a chaptered story, ( I don't know that it is, but I do know that's how people tend to perceive it ) and they're either skipping it or starting at the beginning, delaying the rise of the newest release.

I've also noticed that the initial "honeymoon" period of stories seems to have stretched out since the hub new lists were expanded. Where once, almost all of your activity happened in two days, it's been more like four for me on the last several stories. They end up where I expect them to land, but it takes a couple of days longer to get there.

 

[Weird Harold]

Oh? I've never heard this is the case. Is this really true?

It used to be. There's several reasons why postings might be delayed, but that used to be the most common after vacations.

 

[LitEroCat]

As to the ascii, if you're using any html special character codes, that's one potential stumbling block. I had one of mine rejected for HTML because of that, and it was a fast-skim mistake. As soon as I pointed out that it was only special characters, it went through on the next try.
..........
Are you perhaps submitting via Word doc files? Maybe whatever version you're using isn't playing nicely with something behind the scenes, creating a longer turnaround.
.............
Lower view and vote totals could be anything, but my first guess is that the numbers in the title make people think it's a chaptered story, ( I don't know that it is, but I do know that's how people tend to perceive it ) and they're either skipping it or starting at the beginning, delaying the rise of the newest release.

I've also noticed that the initial "honeymoon" period of stories seems to have stretched out since the hub new lists were expanded. Where once, almost all of your activity happened in two days, it's been more like four for me on the last several stories. They end up where I expect them to land, but it takes a couple of days longer to get there.

Thanks for your thoughts. No 'special' codes, the 'special' chars are what I posted here - >*< - and these worked w/o problem for years.

I usually submit as simple RTF files. I've asked if DOC are easier to process, but never got an answer. In Timegasms 4 I used a public clipart embedded in the file. As I thought, it didn't process.

I've watched the patterns on the chaptered vs simple stories for some time. These two don't follow either pattern. T4 (8/13) has > double the views of T3 (7/15) and 6 vs 9 votes. OOPS, I used that darn > again! When I started putting links to the 1st chapter of stories, I noticed a bump in that and the rest of the chapters - until now.

The other oddity is the page for T3 - it ends in '-upd' I don't think it matters, but it is unique.

 

[RejectReality]

< and > can prove problematic. You might actually consider using the special character codes for those. I use the code for — on everything I post, because Lit doesn't process the em dashes generated by Wordperfect correctly. It replaces them with two dashes.

> <

The one time I had problems was a long string of special characters used as a scene separator.

I'd also suggest moving to copy-paste. That has always been the quickest and most reliable means of submission. It does require the extra step of adding the html tags for italics, but it's a small price to pay for reliable submission and the ability to preview everything before you hit the submit button.

I personally save a copy in plain .txt format with all the necessary special character codes and html tags inserted and upload that. It's treated the same as a cut-n-paste operation. Then, if I do need to edit, I have a copy already formatted for Lit that I can tweak rather than having to tweak the original text and go back through the formatting process again.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Thanks for your thoughts. No 'special' codes, the 'special' chars are what I posted here - >*< - and these worked w/o problem for years.

I usually submit as simple RTF files. I've asked if DOC are easier to process, but never got an answer. In Timegasms 4 I used a public clipart embedded in the file. As I thought, it didn't process.

I've watched the patterns on the chaptered vs simple stories for some time. These two don't follow either pattern. T4 (8/13) has > double the views of T3 (7/15) and 6 vs 9 votes. OOPS, I used that darn > again! When I started putting links to the 1st chapter of stories, I noticed a bump in that and the rest of the chapters - until now.

The other oddity is the page for T3 - it ends in '-upd' I don't think it matters, but it is unique.

Actually, the easiest way to submit stories is via the text box on the submission form. Unless you are using some special formatting and even those can be entered on the text form, it's quicker for Laurel to move the story to the database and get it approved.

If you need bold, italics, underlines you can embed html ... and only the following are accepted.

Bold <b> text </b>
Italics <i> text </i>
Underline <u> text </u>

There is some contention about Blockquote I have used, so have others, then again others have used it and had it rejected. So use it at your own risk.

I always submit my stories at plain text in the text box. I cut and paste from word into the box without a problem. I even embed the html for formatting in the word document.

 

[LitEroCat]

< and > can prove problematic. You might actually consider using the special character codes for those. I use the code for — on everything I post, because Lit doesn't process the em dashes generated by Wordperfect correctly. It replaces them with two dashes.

> <
....
I'd also suggest moving to copy-paste. That has always been the quickest and most reliable means of submission. It does require the extra step of adding the html tags for italics, but it's a small price to pay for reliable submission and the ability to preview everything before you hit the submit button.

I personally save a copy in plain .txt format with all the necessary special character codes and html tags inserted and upload that. It's treated the same as a cut-n-paste operation. Then, if I do need to edit, I have a copy already formatted for Lit that I can tweak rather than having to tweak the original text and go back through the formatting process again.

But why did the >< work for years and just start failing if the boilerplate hasn't changed?

I tried the &gt and &lt codes too - and THAT's how they appeared in the story, literally. Besides those simple ascii codes, I often use a bar separator and Header 1, rarely use BOLD anymore. When I tried to center a paragraph to offset it, I went with simple tabs or spaces, yet it came out with extra linespaces and not offset. I let that be.

I use WordPerfect also (v14) and have it save the file to RFT since that's acceptable, but WPD isn't. I have also tried saving it as HTML, but the format is still badly screwed. Last I checked, the file is inserted into a boilerplate HTML frame and all but the simplest HTML is blocked. I'll experiment with pasting simple HTML.

 

[LitEroCat]

I always submit my stories at plain text in the text box. I cut and paste from word into the box without a problem. I even embed the html for formatting in the word document.

So you convert WORD to TXT first THEN paste that with simple HTML tags? The SUBMIT page says they accept DOC (from WORD or WORDPAD, not WPD) format, has that worked for you unconverted?

update: I tried letting WordPerfect output HTML and the pretty WYSIWYG form doesn't format well. It's a nightmare of HTML with extra <p> and <br> screwing with the spacing. Editing raw HTML is a drag! It's like going back 30 years to WP 5.5 and forgetting WHAT I just changed - looking for 1 or 2 changes at a time. If I paste, I'll convert it to TXT and add simple HTML - still a drag.

 

[maedhros21]

same here....

I'm glad I read this thread because I was wondering about the delay in approval also. almost all my stories I have submitted either got approved or rejected(with directions how to address issues) within two days. Some of my stories have been 10 pages in length too. I submitted a short story last week and now almost a week later I haven't heard anything. I even sent pm's to both Laurel and Manu and got no answer, odd because they have always been fast and polite in their replies. So i'm assuming maybe it's vacation time for them.

 

[LitEroCat]

Has the mystery counter changed? Are votes filtered out differently?

Maybe it's time for a quick test? Not many are on right now, so if 1 or 2 are willing to visit my t3 and t4 stories and vote 5 stars, I'll watch the views page for an hour for the view/vote totals. To keep the scales somewhat even, I'll go vote for 2 of your stories. Post here before you vote so I know when you voted.
As of 1:10 am t3 is 6 votes/1051 views; t4 is 9 votes/2581.

 

[LitEroCat]

Just FYI- I tried pasting WordPerfect's HTML output and it's a complicated mess.

Then I saved it as text and spent far too long adding the p, br and an hr. It looks OK. Then I tested pasting my >*< 'problem' chars - and they displayed fine! So why did they cause the recent stories to get rejected when included in an RTF file?

I also tested doubling up - >>*<< - and that displayed fine too. There's an ascii char that looks like a shrunken doubled, like this » * « and it didn't work out.

I noticed that the © char was dropped when pasted. I pasted it back and it displayed fine.
It seems the boiler plate code has problems.

BTW, T3 and T4 are now at 1069 & 2796 views, 9 & 7 votes! Extremely and oddly low.

 

[PervOtaku]

Other WordPerfect users! Huzzah!

I actually write my stuff out with what I would consider normal formatting, and then when it's time to post I copy/paste it into wordpad to save as an RTF, along with swapping special characters for more mundane ASCII versions (em dashes to hyphens, ellipsis to three periods, etc.) and swapping paragraph indents for a full blank line between paragraphs. I also make a note at the top of any italics or bold so that I know if and where I will need to put them back in. I make PDF version off the original file and prefer those most of all, but allowances have to be made to make sure stuff shows up correctly in any given site's low-key html. I possibly go further than I need to, but better safe than trying to fix something later.

Way back around WP 5.2 and 6, it had decent html conversion without putting in a lot of extra garbage. After that, I gave up on it. I code all my web pages in a text editor now.

 

[TxRad]

Other WordPerfect users! Huzzah!

I actually write my stuff out with what I would consider normal formatting, and then when it's time to post I copy/paste it into wordpad to save as an RTF, along with swapping special characters for more mundane ASCII versions (em dashes to hyphens, ellipsis to three periods, etc.) and swapping paragraph indents for a full blank line between paragraphs. I also make a note at the top of any italics or bold so that I know if and where I will need to put them back in. I make PDF version off the original file and prefer those most of all, but allowances have to be made to make sure stuff shows up correctly in any given site's low-key html. I possibly go further than I need to, but better safe than trying to fix something later.

Way back around WP 5.2 and 6, it had decent html conversion without putting in a lot of extra garbage. After that, I gave up on it. I code all my web pages in a text editor now.

I've always used a Word .doc file (Not a .docx, they cause problems here at Lit) and I've never had a problem other than the common typos and my bad editing.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

So you convert WORD to TXT first THEN paste that with simple HTML tags? The SUBMIT page says they accept DOC (from WORD or WORDPAD, not WPD) format, has that worked for you unconverted?

update: I tried letting WordPerfect output HTML and the pretty WYSIWYG form doesn't format well. It's a nightmare of HTML with extra <p> and <br> screwing with the spacing. Editing raw HTML is a drag! It's like going back 30 years to WP 5.5 and forgetting WHAT I just changed - looking for 1 or 2 changes at a time. If I paste, I'll convert it to TXT and add simple HTML - still a drag.

No, I copy the text out of the word document and paste it in the text box. No conversion required, if you set word up properly to begin with. I add the html tags as I write in word. Word ignores them.

I have only submitted a few word documents when I needed to include an illustration and it was a long time ago. It worked fine, but the approval is a little slower than if you copy and paste.

I don't understand why you would complicate things by converting the document to another...and I hesitate to call it this...format. I open the word document. Select the text, copy it, then paste it into the text box. Easy peasy.

 

[49greg]

Sweeps happening?

Don't know about long delays in posting, but the story I submitted recently, the first since last fall, showed approved quickly, but with a date two days in the future. Sure enough it didn't show up until that date.

Off subject a bit, but this week a story of mine got "swept" twice, in just the last five days. It's a story that has been sitting on 4.49 for a few months. In the last year or so it's bounced from 4.5 to 4.9 and back eight or nine times, so I've been keeping an eye on it.

It's been on 4.49 longer than ever before since the vote count went to 415. Early this week the count dropped to 414, and this morning it is at 413. The score is still at 4.49

 

[LitEroCat]

Other WordPerfect users! Huzzah!

I actually write my stuff out with what I would consider normal formatting, and then when it's time to post I copy/paste it into wordpad to save as an RTF, along with swapping special characters for more mundane ASCII versions (em dashes to hyphens, ellipsis to three periods, etc.) and swapping paragraph indents for a full blank line between paragraphs. I also make a note at the top of any italics or bold so that I know if and where I will need to put them back in. I make PDF version off the original file and prefer those most of all, but allowances have to be made to make sure stuff shows up correctly in any given site's low-key html. I possibly go further than I need to, but better safe than trying to fix something later.

Way back around WP 5.2 and 6, it had decent html conversion without putting in a lot of extra garbage. After that, I gave up on it. I code all my web pages in a text editor now.

My new story was rejected again for the '><' problem I still don't understand since it displays properly in the PREVIEW step. I pasted it in the box and PREVIEWed it. If PREVIEW doesn't match whatever the next steps are, the process is broken.

WORDPAD has had problems changing some chars to a 'similar' char. Maybe that's the cause of your 'em-' problem? Have you tried saving from WP in TXT? It's clean and simpler.

I usually wait til I grammar check the file, then save in RTF and upload that. This time I saved to TXT and read it and added simple HTML in TED. It looks fine except for the '><' problem.