I agree that the post had an attitude that was totally uncalled for. But, if you can overlook that, there is a suggestion or two which could be helpful and which get lost in the poster's attitude. Working on this archive can be like being married: if you want to improve and can get past really bad and hurtful choice of words, you might find a valid point or two.

lets make it a Thread dedicated to the times when we decided to Fuck Off rather than do the work we had to do... could make for some funny stories...

I'm all for constructive suggestions and ideas being shared. That particular post was insulting to both the authors and the people working to provide a place for the stories at all.

There actually is a Hit counter, but it is not working right yet.

We now have the ability to rate the stories, by selecting how many stars the story ranks. We never had that before.

Even though the email address of the authors is hidden, there is nothing stopping anyone from making a review of the stories and sharing it here on the forums, or simply sending the author a PM to show your appreciation.

Our old system may have had some nice features, but the framework wasn't functional anymore. A lot of the formats couldn't be displayed properly in modern browsing software. It wasn't compatible with the software we needed for updates.

What we have now, is not a complete system. It is still under construction. We know it has faults. However, we didn't think it was fair to the readers or the authors to keep the stories hidden until everything was completed. It is better to share the stories on a flawed system, then to not be able to share them at all.

I absolutely welcome criticisms, but there is a way to do it without insulting people's hard work and contributions.

I think the person had some valid points, but looking at this through the eyes of someone who is actively moderating and running something related to this site, I'd ask everyone to please take a seat, think about what we have to put up with, and then try to walk a mile in our shoes.

For what everyone expects to get out of a site like this, it isn't easy for two to five people to be doing it on a mostly volunteer basis. I can understand how many users would get the idea that it's easy to just flip a switch and magically make things happen on a website but it's generally not that easy. I have a lot of things I'd like to fix and users have many valid suggestions for, the site I moderate. However, there are costs associated - costs of time for the people running it and monetary costs.

When I made suggestions to the staff here about the story issues after the big crash of 2011, I did so in the spirit of trying to get them to realize that after a while if no new material was up it was going to diminish the overall effort. I think initially that is what is happening (I remember an appeal of "Authors, where are your new stories? We *are* taking them now" or similar). I think it's going to take a while for the new submissions to ramp up. People need to get accustomed to the idea new submissions are coming and being accepted. On the flip side, the users (at least this one) are grateful that new content is being uploaded.

So at this point the moderator in me wants to tell people to stuff it, at least you're getting new content and you should all back off the moderators here and let them get it all worked out. The site user in me is grateful and looking forward to seeing the changes as the moderators have time to work though everything.

Being a moderator is a huge and often thankless task. I'd ask the users here to keep that in mind before they go on a bitch-fest. Moderators always hear about what's wrong, but seldom do users chime in and say thanks.

So to all the moderators of this site - THANKS!

--LT

Nor offered to help, I am sure. So here is a shoutout to Nickolai. How about an offer to help?

I know it has been long and hard rebuilding the archive and the stories. As one who has several stories in the system under a number of names, I and others do appreciate all the time, effort and hard work all the administrators / moderators put into this community.

All I can say is don't lose hart at the few who don't appriciate the work you do as most of us love you guys.

So a big thank you to those who put in all the hard work to give us a fantastic community.

Well done!

Well, he certainly was angry and I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe that is my fault for not quite getting it. I'm dense like that.

In the past we have always been pretty sensitive to authors getting some kind of feedback and the trouble is not so much the delivery of the feedback as it was getting readers to give some - hence the star system. We figured that by having a very easy, one click method of providing instant feedback was vastly superior than relying on readers to create a forum article to voice thier critique. Of course we absolutely recommend that all readers give story feedback on the forums and to get involved in any conversations that may be going on about a particular story but for those that do not want to do this, there is that star set at the bottom of every story. Click it with your honest story rating. You can change your mind too. Your rating only counts once no matter how many times you have changed it.

As for an email link to the author (if they leave one, and it is a real one, and it still works). That can be worked out, yes. Sorry it was not included previously.

At the bottom of every story there is a hitcounter and it starts from the day a story was first looked at under the new system. Today I was informed that it is acting oddly so it is something I'm watching and also am sorry about. The crazy thing is that no where in the software is the hit count suppose to change except to increment by 1.

I'm afraid there is no feedback panacea either - no system that will please everyone. Personally I would like to see a combination of things happen but they take time. Most are impractical or take a lot of work too.

That is all, for now.

tal

p.s. Thanks everyone for all the kind words. It means more than you will every know to everyone that has any part in making the archive work!

Putting the stories HAS been a labor of love for those who are editing them and getting them in the right format. Personally, I would rather the stories be put back up and then tweak the system for those things that are missing (story feedback or other things). I enjoy the star rating system at the bottom of each story. I use it whenever I read. If I don't click on the stars, I, in my old age, forget to do that sometimes. I do have them checked on the ones I put on my personal list. I do enjoy the stories that have been put up so far. Some better than others but that is just personal taste as each reader has.