New site feature?

[oggbashan]

I've just checked my list of submissions.

Apart from numbered chapters, only 10 of the list required a number in the url, and a couple of those were 1.

It seems that I choose original titles, but who else would write about 'Hedgehog Feud' and 'Getting Nude With Chairman Mao'?

Og

 

[Darkniciad]

I had one title that needed a number appended as Dark ( 87 subs ), 5 as Les ( 49 Subs ), and 8 in my third name ( 20 Subs ).

One of them as Les is a different take on the same story I wrote as Dark, so I only stole my own title there, but it was the same title as the song it's based on.

My third name isn't surprising, because I lean toward very simple titles there ( over half are one or two words ) and the odds are better that someone has used them before.

Still wondering why there are so many unanswered questions floating around about this new feature

 

[Liar]

No it is not.

This is a point I'm sure of, because I helped test the linkage when it was first installed. The main site uses the database created by vBulletin and expands each user record with site specific information. That's why you can log in throught forums and go directly to your author page without having to log in again -- or log in through the site login link and then come to the forums and be logged in.

Huh. Tought vBulletin was a proprieraty system, not that easu yo muck about with. I get that you can use the user record for one set of tables for id in another, or for custom web scripts, like the story submission pages. But do they actually attach to each other more than that?

I have often experienced a continuously slow or non-responsive forum, while the story pages run smoothly. That would indicate to me that they don't fetch data at the same place.

 

[Weird Harold]

Huh. Tought vBulletin was a proprieraty system, not that easu yo muck about with. I get that you can use the user record for one set of tables for id in another, or for custom web scripts, like the story submission pages. But do they actually attach to each other more than that?

I have often experienced a continuously slow or non-responsive forum, while the story pages run smoothly. That would indicate to me that they don't fetch data at the same place.

Part of vBulltin is a plain text database of users and a cookie when a user is logged in. The custom written story database was written to use the same plain text database of users and the same cookie when logged in.

As a result, your author ID, password, and logged in status on the main site and in the forums is the same.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I would assume the databases for the stories and the forums are completely separate entities and might even run on completely different physical machines. I would design it so my money maker...the story side of the business was on the fastest, newest machine I could afford.

The forum being what it is, I could/would put on a less expensive piece of equipment.

Then, my PHP server would also contain my LDAP directory for logins to either and it would direct you to the proper server based on the link you clicked.

With the right database I could build my self some business objects and have everything I need in one place. (on the story side of things)

As for the forums, I'm kinda stuck with the structure of vBulletin's database.

 

[Liar]

Ayway... just sumbitted a poem. World like a charm and I didn't have to do anything that I didn't do before.

Only weird thing is the Sumbissions/View page which looks a teeeensy bit silly.

Seems like those links where I can change the url (if I want to, I choose to just ignore them) are supposed to be listed after the sumbissions, but for some reason some of them end up in the wrong place.

If they freak anyone out, I can safely say that you can just ignore them.

 

[Weird Harold]

I would assume the databases for the stories and the forums are completely separate entities and might even run on completely different physical machines.

What is the same is the user database. The user information is contained in the same file, which began life as the vBulletin user-database.

The forum posts and other forum databases are separate from the story side's files.

VBulletin creates -- and recognises -- a limited set of data elements and ignores any data elements it doesn't recognise. The story side PHP scripts ignore the forum specific data elements, but use the same labels as vBulletin assigned for the data held in common -- like user_name, password, cookie_name, Bio, birthdate, etc. The story side then adds story-side specific labels for storyside information that vBulletin doesn't collect -- gender, Ht, Wt, etc -- to expand the basic vBulletin record.

vBulletin is indeed proprietary, but allows after-market add-ins that, of necessity, manipulate vBulletin data files. In that respect, the story side of Lit is just a third-party vBulletin utility.

 

[lloyd_5]

The few of mine that share a title with something else ( and didn't win the lottery draw as the first encountered by the script ) have a hyphen and a number, so that's probably the way to go if you get hit with an unavailable url.

my-unlucky-title-1

For example.

Unfortunately it means that I have to change my copy-pasta "how do I edit something on Lit" instructions

Actually, for whoever mentioned this cutting down the amount of text for links on the forum: It's longer than the most efficient method.

[story=LitID#]Story Title[/story]

All you need to type is the Lit ID# when using that Lit-specific bbcode, which is way shorter than the new URLs.

But if all the story ID ## are masked by a story alias name, how can your nifty link still work?

 

[lloyd_5]

I had one title that needed a number appended as Dark ( 87 subs ), 5 as Les ( 49 Subs ), and 8 in my third name ( 20 Subs ).

One of them as Les is a different take on the same story I wrote as Dark, so I only stole my own title there, but it was the same title as the song it's based on.

My third name isn't surprising, because I lean toward very simple titles there ( over half are one or two words ) and the odds are better that someone has used them before.

Still wondering why there are so many unanswered questions floating around about this new feature

Simple thought - nothing techy. If you used '-drk', '-les' or something, wouldn't that get round the need for numbers and help the 'I'm looking for a story types' who could just search for '-drk'.

 

[Manu]

Ayway... just sumbitted a poem. World like a charm and I didn't have to do anything that I didn't do before.

Only weird thing is the Sumbissions/View page which looks a teeeensy bit silly.

How's your 2011 going, everyone?

We did start to roll out some changes to the backend of the site on Friday. As expected, everything didn't go smoothly, but in the end it mostly seems to be working. This is a small part of some major changes we're making to the way everything runs. Even though the road might be a little bumpy here and there, the site should be much faster and easier to use in the long run.

As far as the URL issue specifically, we are still working on an automated system to make them simple and flexible for everyone. One thing that will happen is that once a URL is set and reviewed, it won't be changeable. If URLs started getting changed every week, all of the links to your story would be broken from other sites. So, we are allowing authors the chance to fix any errors in their URLs (spelling, automation bugs, etc.), but in general, we want to keep things consistent and stable as far as the URL system.

Please report any bugs/problems you are having to us via the Bug Report form here:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/quest/bugs.php?id=3&url=http://www.literotica.com/s/another-test
Or, you can let me know here on the forum, of course.

Thanks for all of the feedback and sorry for springing this one on your without notice. I'm still lagging from the holidays, I guess.