The I’m not giving up ‘but’ thread

[Dark_Logan_]

For fear of another thread on submission purgatory

If I ordered food delivery and it never arrived with out explanation I wouldn’t order again.

If I bought something on Amazon and it didn’t arrive without reason I’d think twice or ordering again.

If my employer promised a promotion and it never materialised I’d be annoyed and consider the alternatives.

If I was ghosted and stood up on a date I wouldn’t offer a second chance

So why am I constantly checking in here everyday, resubmitting after 21 days and at this point seeking to rely on every good luck charm I can lay my hands on in the hope a story will be finally be published. (Or a reason given as to why not)

Silence isn’t golden on some subjects, the lack of recognition if the noises are being heard lacks a little integrity and borders the impudent

I’m not going to make the dramatic statement that I’m turning my back on Lit, I love the place and the opportunities it affords me as an amateur scribe.

But for the month of the November I’m stepping away (possibly for my sanity) and just sticking to writing, editing what’s waiting, and avoiding the confusion, without making any submissions in the hope something will pull itself back together in the background

It’s a one man stand that’ll largely go unnoticed I do fully appreciate, feel free to shoot me down or support me

 

[Statius]

I get it. I'd be upset as well, thankfully I haven't been writing and have nothing waiting to go. I definitely feel for those who have submitted and gotten nowhere. I'd probably leave as well.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

No one says it's OK (that I've noticed), just that there isn't much anyone reading this forum can do about it.

--Annie

 

[Statius]

In the meantime one of the most popular writers on here submitted a novel just yesterday and will be published in the next few days. Good for them, really, but at some point does it look like favoritism on the part of LitE?

 

[iwatchus]

For fear of another thread on submission purgatory

If I ordered food delivery and it never arrived with out explanation I wouldn’t order again.

I wouldn't order food in the first place from a food vendor that whose only statement on when the food comes is sometime. I'm ordering the food because I need food for the next meal.

If my employer promised a promotion and it never materialised I’d be annoyed and consider the alternatives.

My expectations are different here generally. If my boss tells me that I might be in line for a promotion, I'm an idiot if I'm upset it doesn't come that day. A month or two later I might ing her to ask if it's still possible. I'm not shocked if I just hear nothing.

If I was ghosted and stood up on a date I wouldn’t offer a second chance

For this one, you are talking about a case where you have an agreed upon time (it's why it's a date). Laurel never vaguely implies that you will hear about your story at 3:42 this afternoon.

I see this more like there is a site that says, "Vote on whose country's wine is worst and I will send you a free reward." If you get something that day, you are shocked and excited. And you'll vote on whether you like Weasels or Boobies next week. If it comes a week later. you're stlll happy. If every once in a while, you get nothing quickly and you've been treated a bunch of times, you are disappointed.

The current state of the purgatory is awful when you have something stuck in it (I do). And if this had been my first story. I would be long gone.

Back when nostalgia was about actually old things, not things I grew up with, I remember having vending machines that didn't like certain quarters (the American coins). It wouldn't be accepted by the machine. If that was the only quarter I had, it would be VERY frustrating. If I had never used that machine before, I would assume it was just broken.

It really sucks to invest a lot of time, energy, and emotions into a story, only to have some faceless website drop the ball, not even refuse it. But I'm not letting it stop me from writing. And trying to submit here. If it became the norm for stories, I'm sure it would. But certain stories seem to have picked up bad karma for this site. I still hope justice will prevail in the universe at some day, but there are always more stories.

 

[iwatchus]

In the meantime one of the most popular writers on here submitted a novel just yesterday and will be published in the next few days. Good for them, really, but at some point does it look like favoritism on the part of LitE?

Many of the apparent site favorites have been caught in purgatory. I think it's largely an equal opportunity offender. It was surprising how fast her story got approved, but the vast majority of stories are being approved within a day or two.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

In the meantime one of the most popular writers on here submitted a novel just yesterday and will be published in the next few days. Good for them, really, but at some point does it look like favoritism on the part of LitE?

I'm an unpopular author, and my novel was published just as fast. Nobody except possibly @Manu can explain why there is this difference.

I wouldn't order food in the first place from a food vendor that whose only statement on when the food comes is sometime ...

We aren't the customers. Or at least, we are a tiny minority of the customers. The readers are the ones the site can't afford to upset too badly.

 

[cw5523729]

I'm an unpopular author, and my novel was published just as fast.

Same. No one knows who I am and I've gotten 22 separate submissions published all within days within the past month. So accusing poor @EmilyMiller of getting special treatment rings hollow.

 

[crookedletter]

We aren't the customers. Or at least, we are a tiny minority of the customers. The readers are the ones the site can't afford to upset too badly.

I think this is an important point.

A perhaps more apt analogy than those in the OP would be a street fair or something, where throngs of people come to get snacks and souvenirs from various booths. The fair is being woefully mismanaged and vendors who have been told they have a spot are showing up to sell their wares and there's nowhere to set up. They're finding the management unresponsive, they're grumbling amongst themselves, they're talking about setting up somewhere else.

Unfortunately, there's no other street fair in town, the foot traffic is all at this one, and the visitors, finding plenty of other booths to visit, have no inkling that anything is amiss.

 

[cw5523729]

While stories getting lost definitely sucks, a quick scan of the "NEW" stories: https://www.literotica.com/new/stories

shows 3 pages worth of stories approved just today. I'm not sure how many stories that is because I got bored and stopped counting at 50 while I was still on page one. So, a bunch. Which means that not all stories are getting sent into the abyss, never to see the light of day.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd guess that the problem lies more in glitchiness than favoritism. It's a combination of an increase in stories being submitted and ongoing glitchiness. I experienced significant delay a year ago, and it turned out, according to them, that it was just a glitch. An error. There was nothing wrong with my story. It was annoying but everything worked out in the end.

As far as comparing Lit to other types of things, the only problem with that comparison is the absence of attractive options. I'm better off submitting a story, and waiting, than not submitting it at all, or submitting it someplace where I'll get a tiny fraction of the readers.

 

[iwatchus]

While stories getting lost definitely sucks, a quick scan of the "NEW" stories: https://www.literotica.com/new/stories

shows 3 pages worth of stories approved just today. I'm not sure how many stories that is because I got bored and stopped counting at 50 while I was still on page one. So, a bunch. Which means that not all stories are getting sent into the abyss, never to see the light of day.

It's 75 stories per page, btw. So you only have to count the new ones on page 3

 

[SimonDoom]

While stories getting lost definitely sucks, a quick scan of the "NEW" stories: https://www.literotica.com/new/stories

shows 3 pages worth of stories approved just today. I'm not sure how many stories that is because I got bored and stopped counting at 50 while I was still on page one. So, a bunch. Which means that not all stories are getting sent into the abyss, never to see the light of day.

There are 75 stories on each page. I've been counting from time to time over the last few weeks, and the list of new stories on the days I've counted has averaged around 170. So, clearly, the system has not shut down. It is operating and publishing many new stories every single day. My guess is there's a bottleneck.

 

[Statius]

For the record, I did not say there IS favoritism, I said when does it look like favoritism. Perception matters when no answers are being given.

 

[EmilyMiller]

In the meantime one of the most popular writers on here submitted a novel just yesterday and will be published in the next few days. Good for them, really, but at some point does it look like favoritism on the part of LitE?

I assume you mean me?

1. I had a previous story stuck in purgatory too, as did @ChloeTzang @MelissaBaby @Actingup @iwatchus and many other “popular” authors.
2. It has always been a percentage of works that go into the blackhole and it seems pretty random which. The same author can have one go through and another stuck.
3. I am on a whitelist as someone who has a lengthy track record of not trying to bend the site rules and never having used any AI. But that took time and effort to achieve. It’s not favoritism, is simply logical triage by the site. Post as many blameless stories as I have and you too can be white listed.
4. For this novel, I wrote to the site in advance, I put notes into the notes fields, I followed up with the site giving them the story IDs of my six submissions. Whether or not any of that helped, , but again I put effort in.

It’s not as simple as favorites, no matter how comforting a narrative that might appear to be.

 

[Statius]

I assume you mean me?

1. I had a previous story stuck in purgatory too, as did @ChloeTzang @MelissaBaby @Actingup @iwatchus and many other “popular” authors.
2. It has always been a percentage of works that go into the blackhole and it seems pretty random which. The same author can have one go through and another stuck.
3. I am on a whitelist as someone who has a lengthy track record of not trying to bend the site rules and never having used any AI. But that took time and effort to achieve. It’s not favoritism, is simply logical triage by the site. Post as many blameless stories as I have and you too can be white listed.
4. For this novel, I wrote to the site in advance, I put notes into the notes fields, I followed up with the site giving them the story IDs of my six submissions. Whether or not any of that helped, , but again I put effort in.

It’s not as simple as favorites, no matter how comforting a narrative that might appear to be.

No insult to you at all. See my above post please.

 

[EmilyMiller]

No insult to you at all.

I think maybe re-read what you wrote.

 

[CalBishForNow]

For fear of another thread on submission purgatory

If I ordered food delivery and it never arrived with out explanation I wouldn’t order again.

If I bought something on Amazon and it didn’t arrive without reason I’d think twice or ordering again.

If my employer promised a promotion and it never materialised I’d be annoyed and consider the alternatives.

Sorry if this comes across as pedantry or something, but the first two options here have things backwards. You, when writing and hitting "publish" on a story, are not Literotica's customer. You are its server, it is your customer. It pays you in experience as a writer, views and comments (at the whim of readers, subject to different norms in different categories), and the chance to get more exposure for your other works (i.e. you can put links on your About page if you want).

If your employer isn't paying you enough or as you say, not giving you a promotion they've promised (although as others have pointed out, there are no promises about publication time), you totally are free to take your time and experience elsewhere.

Personally I've published 25 stories and definitely am not in the top anything. But four of them were in the past two months and none of those took longer than three days to post, so while I'm sure there's a problem, it's not affecting everyone or based on popularity.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Cannot relate. Call me when your submission has been pending for 60+ days.

 

[SimonDoom]

For the record, I did not say there IS favoritism, I said when does it look like favoritism. Perception matters when no answers are being given.

And to be clear, I'm not sure there isn't SOME favoritism. I've been here 9 years, and I've rarely had problems with story approval, but when the subject of "how long does it take to get your story approved on average" came up, it seemed like some had faster approval rates than I did. For me, in the past 3-4 days was normal. But most of that was before AI became a problem. I suspect the application of AI filters has something to do with this because it increases the error rate.

 

[AwkwardMD]

And to be clear, I'm not sure there isn't SOME favoritism. I've been here 9 years, and I've rarely had problems with story approval, but when the subject of "how long does it take to get your story approved on average" came up, it seemed like some had faster approval rates than I did. For me, in the past 3-4 days was normal. But most of that was before AI became a problem. I suspect the application of AI filters has something to do with this because it increases the error rate.

I have long suspected there is a whitelist that affects some authors approval times and scrutiny levels. The criteria for making it onto that list is obviously unknown (I don't even know if it really exists), but I suspect that in the absence of knowledge a whitelist and "site favoritism" probably look the same.

 

[onehitwanda]

Just on logic it seems likely that an author with many works that has not previously thrown up any red flags is more likely to get lenient / quicker processing i.e. be "whitelisted".

There's a lot of stuff to get through every day; any normal, sane person would apply any pre-filters they could to reduce that workload.

After all, if you as the moderator miss something, a reader will likely report it at some stage.

 

[TheLobster]

Just on logic it seems likely that an author with many works that has not previously thrown up any red flags is more likely to get lenient / quicker processing i.e. be "whitelisted".

And as much as it looks like the site doing those authors a special favor, it is very much within Lit's interests, too. Consistent authors who don't skirt the rules mean less work for the site in return for more reader traffic.

I wonder sometimes if popularity metrics factor into an author getting whitelisted in this manner. Maybe they do?... But hopefully not; it's not like we need even more incentives to write incest

 

[AwkwardMD]

And as much as it looks like the site doing those authors a special favor, it is very much within Lit's interests, too. Consistent authors who don't skirt the rules mean less work for the site in return for more reader traffic.

This.

 

[sirhugs]

I'm an unpopular author, and my novel was published just as fast. Nobody except possibly @Manu can explain why there is this difference.


We aren't the customers. Or at least, we are a tiny minority of the customers. The readers are the ones the site can't afford to upset too badly.

the true customers are those who visit the webcams (and pay for the added "benefits") or buy through the store. The entire front end of the site is just marketing.