Rejecting for... spelling?

[lovecraft68]

Think this is relevant, I mean about Lit making changes on its own. In my most recent story, the three "introductory" paragraphs are in italics, although I didn't specify the HTML for that. I know because I kept a file of the document that I submitted. The rest of the italics I did specify are there. The three top paragraphs are separated from the rest of the text by a row of asterisks.

Not a big deal, really, but it does seem like a new "feature." Can anyone comment on that?

Getting any information on the site is like watching todays 'news outlets' your options are
1-Nothing wrong its you, so stop being an asshole
2-If something is wrong, you're an asshole for complaining.
3-Okay something is wrong, not that we want you to know it, but there's too much smoke to say no fire, so um, yeah there is an issue, but if you don't like it leave cause...well just leave.

 

[RejectReality]

Think this is relevant, I mean about Lit making changes on its own. In my most recent story, the three "introductory" paragraphs are in italics, although I didn't specify the HTML for that. I know because I kept a file of the document that I submitted. The rest of the italics I did specify are there. The three top paragraphs are separated from the rest of the text by a row of asterisks.

Not a big deal, really, but it does seem like a new "feature." Can anyone comment on that?

Laurel will sometimes make minor changes. In this case, what you have at the top is an author's note. Most of those are italicized, and then terminated by a break of some kind, which is usually asterisks. My guess is that she was adding some formatting to make it conform more with the norm. I can't see any cost/benefit ratio of creating an automated system to do this. Feels like human intervention.

What this is an example of is a change in the system that takes some getting used to. Italic tags used to be processed as normal with HTML. Italics between the tags regardless of what was going on between. The change is that now an italic tag is automatically closed when a new paragraph starts. There used to be a lot of stories that got through where an end tag was missed, and huge sections of text would all be in italics. This bit of error trap prevents that. ( and Laurel obviously forgot about it when editing your author's note )

No more multi-paragraph italics, y'all. Start and stop them with every paragraph. It was good practice anyway, in case you messed up an end tag. I did it in my actual text, but never got into the habit with my end notes, since those were supposed to be completely italicized, and nothing else would be affected if I messed up there anyway. Should have been consistent, because now all my recent end notes have most of the italics missing.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Laurel will sometimes make minor changes. In this case, what you have at the top is an author's note. Most of those are italicized, and then terminated by a break of some kind, which is usually asterisks. My guess is that she was adding some formatting to make it conform more with the norm. I can't see any cost/benefit ratio of creating an automated system to do this. Feels like human intervention.

What this is an example of is a change in the system that takes some getting used to. Italic tags used to be processed as normal with HTML. Italics between the tags regardless of what was going on between. The change is that now an italic tag is automatically closed when a new paragraph starts. There used to be a lot of stories that got through where an end tag was missed, and huge sections of text would all be in italics. This bit of error trap prevents that. ( and Laurel obviously forgot about it when editing your author's note )

No more multi-paragraph italics, y'all. Start and stop them with every paragraph. It was good practice anyway, in case you messed up an end tag. I did it in my actual text, but never got into the habit with my end notes, since those were supposed to be completely italicized, and nothing else would be affected if I messed up there anyway. Should have been consistent, because now all my recent end notes have most of the italics missing.

I'll take your word for it, but there were about twenty-six postings in Erotic Couplings so far today. Laurel must be quite diligent to keep up with that much stuff. But then, there's been some disputes here about what has been automated and what is human intervention. I'll just say that I don't know.

I've never had a problem with multi-paragraph italics. Except for that one example I just mentioned, whatever is in the preview mode shows up in the published version - at least for me. If an end tag is missing, the error always shows up in the preview.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Getting any information on the site is like watching todays 'news outlets' your options are
1-Nothing wrong its you, so stop being an asshole
2-If something is wrong, you're an asshole for complaining.
3-Okay something is wrong, not that we want you to know it, but there's too much smoke to say no fire, so um, yeah there is an issue, but if you don't like it leave cause...well just leave.

The site is acceptable to me; I'll never really know what is going on behind the scenes, but that's okay. Even the glitch with the forums can be annoying, but it's not a dealbreaker.

 

[RejectReality]

*shrug* I'm just going by what makes sense. The amount of conditionals that would be necessary to catch something like an author's note and reformat it without wreaking havoc on the beginning of many a first person story is mind boggling. And what is the benefit that would be derived from the umpteen hours of coding it? It doesn't jive with cost/benefit analysis.

It's obvious there's no automated spell/grammar checker rejecting anything. The evidence of that is in the story file. The only way you can believe that something like that exists is to assume that Laurel has this program in place, and then goes back through the rejected stuff and approves it anyway. There's no point to wasting the time/money on something you're going to override. Such programs are notoriously poor at handling prose, and even worse at handling erotica. It fails the test.

Code that highlights grammar/spelling in much the same way as the programs everyone writes in to assist Laurel with speedy review? Makes sense. Readily available, useful, and cheap.

Automated rejections for strings such as "teen", "high school", "16", "17", etc. make no sense for the same reason. Those strings are all over the story file. Again, you're looking at an incredibly sophisticated program in order to filter out problematic uses of those strings verses perfectly acceptable ones. It fails the test.

We even have an in-house example of such automation failure you can see for yourself. Try to use "babysitter" as a tag. You can't do it. Try "babymaker". Try "Baby Daddy". Try "Babylon". They'll all fail, because the string "baby" anywhere in a tag is prohibited by automation. None of them ( by default ) have anything to do with what I assume the tag prohibition is about, which is underage content. Imagine that kind of automation being applied to story text and rejecting every story that says Apartment 16, or Sixteenth Street, or May 16, or... You get the picture.

Code that highlights those strings in the document to assist Laurel with speedy review is readily available, useful, customizable, and cheap.

When you look at the examples of rejections and resolutions of same on offer, what's in the story file, the capability/cost of automated solutions, and Laurel's own statements, what you come up with is one person skimming each submission with the probable assistance of some highlighting tools. It's just what makes sense.

 

[ElectricBlue]

When you look at the examples of rejections and resolutions of same on offer, what's in the story file, the capability/cost of automated solutions, and Laurel's own statements, what you come up with is one person skimming each submission with the probable assistance of some highlighting tools. It's just what makes sense.

I agree. Based on all of these threads over the years, my conclusion is that the site uses a basic text string word combination finder that puts up a "look at me" flag, and Laurel looks a little closer for context. And sometimes misses stuff.

I don't think it would be too hard to program a word bot with a bunch of typical phrases to watch out for - in that most writers skating the thin line are pretty much writing the same thing, with not much earth shattering originality. You could come up with a hundred words or so without too much thought, and have yourself the start of a fairly good search list.