Missing stories and the impression it gives

[Guest Tsuzuko]

I used to be on fan fiction about five years ago. I went away from it for some time. I just re-entered the community and posted up a story I had been working on so long ago. Anyway- its changed!

Why am I posting? Well, I discovered a typo right in the title of the story as soon as I uploaded it and I want to fix it. However, when I access my author's panel, the story is not there and I can't seem to find it. No stories are appearing in that portal.

Also, in my looking for an answer to this question in hopes that it was already answered herein I noticed all the people whose stories were hidden or deleted over disclaimer issues. For one thing- it makes the admins of this website look really bad- like you spend all your time deleting people's stories over nit picking things and not really working with them even though they try to rectify the problems. I am trying not to sound too confrontational here, but things like that tend to bug the heck out of me. "If you do not comply, ve vill detete you!" is the impression I'm getting.I find that kind of admining rude and counter productive.

That said, and I did try to make my disclaimer correct -I have an idea.

Why don't you supply the fandoms with ready made disclaimers right on the opening form when they submit a new story? It could be a pull down thing, something they have to select and maybe can edit. That way they are actively placing it and you are ensured of the format you desire. It might save you a lot of discomfit with this stuff. It will make me more comfortable with using your site too.

[DemonGoddess]

I used to be on fan fiction about five years ago. I went away from it for some time. I just re-entered the community and posted up a story I had been working on so long ago. Anyway- its changed!

Why am I posting? Well, I discovered a typo right in the title of the story as soon as I uploaded it and I want to fix it. However, when I access my author's panel, the story is not there and I can't seem to find it. No stories are appearing in that portal.

Also, in my looking for an answer to this question in hopes that it was already answered herein I noticed all the people whose stories were hidden or deleted over disclaimer issues. For one thing- it makes the admins of this website look really bad- like you spend all your time deleting people's stories over nit picking things and not really working with them even though they try to rectify the problems. I am trying not to sound too confrontational here, but things like that tend to bug the heck out of me. "If you do not comply, ve vill detete you!" is the impression I'm getting.I find that kind of admining rude and counter productive.

Users are given MORE than adequate time to correct any problems before any deletion action is taken. It's averaging 40 days. 7 to 10 after initial warn, then another 30, often more before deletion. Users are EMAILED when the story is hidden. So, not only have they been given a review telling them what the issue is, they're also told when the story is hidden, and that they still need to fix it. What you, and others don't seem to want to see, is we have to have the disclaimers for legal purposes. They have to be more exact than "don't own, don't sue", which we see often, by the way. Yes, people argue with us on the protections this may or may not give you or the site all the time. It actually does help a good deal. By having this where we require proper disclaimers (which is not new and has been an ongoing RULE of the site for many years), it makes it so worst case scenario so far has been C&D and downing of stories associated with the C&D. No having to release user information, or anything of that nature. So in the end, it's the site that's affected more than any of you, by us enforcing, in that we lose stories with a C&D.

That said, and I did try to make my disclaimer correct -I have an idea.

Why don't you supply the fandoms with ready made disclaimers right on the opening form when they submit a new story? It could be a pull down thing, something they have to select and maybe can edit. That way they are actively placing it and you are ensured of the format you desire. It might save you a lot of discomfit with this stuff. It will make me more comfortable with using your site too.

That was inserted in to the code some years ago, but was too vague in the multi fandom subdomains. Not only that, the dropdowns were usually ignored ANYWAY. We do have examples throughout the forum in the fanfiction section.

Not only that, it screwed with the scripting and made for instabilities, and vulnerabilities WITHIN the script. I'd much rather have things more stable, and lessen vulnerabilities. That cuts down on hacking potential. This was also REMOVED some years ago (before I came on board, or manta2g came back), and neither of us have found something that'll work without too much in the way of vulnerabilites.

As to editing, you have to be sure you're in the correct subdomain. For example, if you story is added to bleach, and you just open up a window to the archive, it defaults to anime. So you won't see your story listed. That's what the jump menu in your user panel is for, and what the menus across the top of the archive are for. To navigate to the proper subdomain. Once you navigate to the correct subdomain, where your story actually is, then you'll see it in your author panel. At that point, you edit the story details.

Finally, everything you mentioned is in the FAQ section.

[ApolloImperium]

Time to add my two cents into this topic as owner. DG did a great job explaining, but I cannot let a topic like this go with out commenting as well.

No - It does not make my admins look bad when we hide stories. In fact, it's a positive thing for many of our users, let me explain why.

The only fan fiction site larger than us is FanFiction.Net. Their staff does nothing about anything. It takes days, weeks, months to get a plagiarized story removed and violations of their own TOS litter the site and they don't do anything about it.

Then you have us. We have rules. They are very simple rules designed to keep the writers anonymous and me out of jail. We expect these rules to be followed. We actively moderate the site through weekly sweeps, identifying any ToS violations. As DG said, for disclaimers, we leave a review (which for most users triggers an email to the user) telling them they have 7 days to correct it. They don't correct it still, we hide it instead of just deleting it. Then we e-mail them directly, letting them know they have 30 days from the date it was hidden to correct it. Each and every user we contact in regards to a ToS issue is documented and I can tell you the date we first notified, the date we hid, and the final deletion date.

When disclaimers became part of the site ToS, we did run scripts on the older stories, putting the most basic legal disclaimer that we could on each story. From that point on, it was the author's responsibility to put a disclaimer up. To make it even easier? We put a link right next to the disclaimer field "Required Disclaimer Format" on what is expected in a disclaimer. The sad fact of the matter however is that despite this being a site for authors and readers, people do not read. They are in such a rush to post that they don't take the time to click on the link to make sure they have what is needed before posting.

To take it one step further, with the exception of the entitled young adults on the site that have yet to truly understand what risks the owner and admins take every day owning and running an adult site, let alone and adult fan fiction site, users appreciate that we actively moderate the site. You have a question, you can contact us and we will get back to you on average within 24-48 hours. All of our contact information is clearly listed, including IM information. I am in our chat daily as a physical presence so that people feel comfortable approaching me. We have users email us on a regular basis about ToS violations because they know that we will actually take care of it.

The only people who end up having an issue with our policies and active moderation of the site are 95% of the time the people who feel like they are above the rules or know better than the professionals we consulted to ensure that we are legally covered.