To nylon_punkie.
Thank you for being concerned enough (and brave enough) to bring this topic to the forefront. Sometime ago (long time, ago, lol) I ran across the following. I think it had something to do with Customer Service. CS is not my primary career focus. However, it should be everyone's secondary no matter what your primary is.
I have found this to be true, over and over again:
For every person who has a concern and actually makes a point of voicing that concern as you have, there are at least five others who had the very same issue and were VERY close to making it known.
For EACH of those five who almost went forward there were at least five who had the same concern but did not get close to voicing it for one reason or another.
For each of THOSE five there were at least five persons who were not happy and had the same concern.
And it goes on.
If you do the numbers (I have) and there are people out there who make a living doing this, you rapidly understand that you are not alone. Your the tip of the iceberg, the one who actually decided to say something - and you have at least one hundred fifty five plus people behind you.
Its the reason successful enterprises take these issues seriously and act on them. It isn't just one lone wolf crying out in the wilderness. Its a whole pack.
Good luck.
Thank you, fuzzyblue. This is exactly what we aim to do. As Buz says, we only try to correct any punctuation or basic grammar issues, usually outside dialogue which is left for stylistic reasons unless it's formatted incorrectly. If there are numerous mistakes, we may elect to correct them or return the story with an explanation so the author has the opportunity to learn from the experience.
If ever I move more than the odd comma, I make mention of this in the verifier comment box, asking the author if what I did was okay and leaving the door open for discussion in case I misinterpreted intentions. In four years I think I've had one person question what I did, and we worked it out via PM to their satisfaction.
According to annamarie234, does this mean there are a hundred and fifty-five plus others who are dissatisfied or unwilling to acknowledge my edits? And the same volume or higher for each of our other mods who process far more stories than I have time to?
Hope it's not that, or... back-of-a-napkin number time: for each member of the mod team, including previous moderators who have moved on, those stats imply that there are between six and twelve thousand stories in which authors are dissatisfied with our changes! Maybe far higher if each of us has had more than one person voice concerns.
On a site with close to sixty thousand published stories, having 10%+ of publications made with unhappy alterations would mean the site would have closed a long time ago or the author/reader pool shrunk significantly.
Most authors are extremely nice and drop a thank you as an appreciation of the second pair of eyes. I do. Being so close to my own stories during development, I often miss basic things that our eagle-eyed team of mods fix for me prior to publication. It's brilliant.
We're here to publish stories - as many as we can, as fast as we can while upholding long-accepted English literary conventions. We're not here to gleefully get our red pens out and strike through sections or reject stories outright or alter them so the site becomes the story equivalent of The Borg. We don't have time nor the inclination for that.
We do take things seriously. It's why we're the highest quality erotic story site on the internet. We're here to support authors and help them to get their bundles of joy into the world as fast as possible. The more stories that come through without the need to correct, the faster we can publish them. Simple as that.
Please browse my digital bookshelf. In this collection, you can find 109 full stories, 10 micro-stories, and 2 poems with the following features:
* 29 Editor's Picks, 72 Recommended Reads.
* 15 competition podium places, 9 other times in the top ten.
* 21 collaborations.
* A whole heap of often filthy, tense, hot sex.
I rarely re-read a story once I've submitted it for verification as I know the verifiers only have my best interest at heart.
Having said that, occasionally while reading other people's pieces on Lush I will spot a grammatical error so glaring that I wonder how it ever slipped through the net. The other day I spotted a comma left in place in someone's story where, even by the most generous stretch of the imagination, no comma should rightfully have been allowed to linger. So it works the other way too. But, hey! The guys who check our work over are human too.
Commas are such pesky little fuckers. I think I've finally got a good handle on M-dashes, colons and semicolons, but those curly little imps continue to cause me anguish.
I use Karen Elizabeth Gordon's The New Well-tempered Sentence as my fount of grammatical authority. For those not familair with it, this is her opening paragraph in the chapter discussing comma usage:
"A comma is a delicate kink in time, a pause within a sentence, a chance to catch your breath. A curvacious acrobat, it capers over the page. A comma keeps two words apart, or bits of thought, that would confuse if they touched. Some of the instances calling for commas are inflexible, and the only way to get around them is to find another way to state and arrange your ideas. Other uses, though, are intended to make the reader's experiences easier, and are up to the writer's discretion or whim."
And here, as I type the above in Grammarly, I am told to remove the comma after the word "easier". Oh the irony of being told by software to correct a sentence's punctuation in a book on punctuation.
I posted the bit I've pasted below in another thread. It seems germane to the present matter in hand so am re-posting it
*****
" Karen Elizabeth Gordon's book, The New Well-Tempered Sentence, she states:
. . . But the comma is often omitted after a short introductory adverbial phrase" (Such as the examples below).
At Dawn the sun began to rise.
At Vespers we usually raise our voices aloft.
At breakfast we consumed a reprehensible smorgasbord of assorted Nordic things.
In your pocket you are fumbling with the keys to a strange place.
"
In every one of the above examples, Grammarly prompts me to add a comma. When I disobey, I feel like I've have been a naughty boy.
The question I often ask myself is just how long can a short adverbial phrase be? I've seen some proper anacondas let loose in the works of contemporary literary authors, leaving me exhausted and thinking, phew! Glad that one is over.
I find using Redaloud software gives a feel for when a comma is needed so the reader can take a mental breath.
Just my tuppence-halfpenny. I hope I haven't strayed too off-topic with all this deeply rooted comma disonance. As you have probably gathered, they are a particular bug-bear of mine.
nylon_punkie, Thank you SOOOO very much for this forum topic. It sparked worthwhile discussion and provided incite to thought processes, motivations and rationale (although, a bit defensive in nature, I noticed). It may or may not solve your initial concerns and issues. That is, of course, for you only to decide. As for my opinion, I think you made your point rather well and most probably and most important made audible what many were thinking.
WannabeWordsmith, I enjoyed your reference to the "Borg" in relation to the topic.
LucaByDesign, I very much enjoyed reading your post - without commitment in terms of "agreement", lol. Nicely stated and written.
Have a wonderful day.
I want to thank nylon-punkie and annamarie 234 for their input in this matter. Recently I've had two rejected for reasons I disagree with. One had to do with the COVID Virus and the punchline in my story was that a person received a kit in the mail. It didn't say who it was for just that a package arrived.
Another had to do with the 100 word Poppy writing where I presented coincidences about the Poppy painting and Poppy classical piece. Apparently Stieglitz, O'Keeffe, and Gliere. are strange names to most of us. I won't print the 100-word story because I'll be banned forever because of it. I'm surprised the COVID didn't get me in trouble because it was inferred I was a criminal. In my defense, I changed the story and it was published. I am learning the rules of what not to do whether I agree or not. Keep your mouth shut and some thoughts to yourself.
In conclusion, no one reads my signature contempt prior to investigation which keeps a person in everlasting ignorance. Wrong buttons got pushed today! I only hope I'll be able to retrieve my mail as I have ongoing conversations.
SD Sioux
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer
There was quite a lot to unpack there, and I didn't quite grasp it all (apart from Georgia O'Keefe's Poppy paintings) but I hope you work it out SD.
Stieglitz is a famous American photographer and Gliere a 20th-century Russian composer. Both the poppy painting and the poppy ballet were published the same year. Coincidence? Stieglitz and O'Keeffe were married. It was inferred that I was a criminal by giving someone a disease. I said a testing kit arrived in the mail thus the conclusion contempt prior to investigation. Heh I did say I'll be a good boy and abide by the rules. Where does it say in the Lush manual that I have to like them?
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer
I know you're wrong because you draw erroneous conclusions. If you get a prescription in the mail for your household for gonorrhea treatment what makes you automatically think someone in your house has contracted it? Maybe the wife did it for a friend so their family wasn't aware. Do you know what contempt prior to investigation means? Apparently not. The package delivery merely raised the question. In a 1000 word story, you need to do your own investigating. Making love in a field of poppies isn't erotic? The 100 words raise the questions about poppies including the lovemaking of two important poppy people. I'm wasting my time talking to a white wall. Keeping your mouth shut is the safest and communist way to handle things. I'll never voice my opinion again. Just follow the rules.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer
tams_back_yay:
Actually, the word I used, "incite", is exactly the word I wanted to use. Changing the word to "insight", the more mundane and typical use of that word, changes the meaning of that sentence substantially. What you edited is a good example of inserting items into a predetermined "mold" and thereby guiding the reader in an emotional direction not intended. A stifling of the creative process. The opportunity missed was to create a "new" mold.
Words are tools. Always have been. They are part of a writers toolbox. Like an artist who creates paintings, whos uses his paints to create unique canvases with his tools. The paints are not the "story". How they are used by the artist is.
If this were a "story" and not a barb or sneer as you obviously intended, lol, as the author, I would not accept that edit from you IRT your changing the meaning or my intent. I would, however, if it were part of a "story" and you were working as my actual editor, happily have a discussion with you for the purpose of making MY intent possibly better. Which would be your primary goal, also. Here, your task is not so much as an actual editor who looks to aiding the artist as much as it is the sentry at the gate who follows a set of guidelines before letting you pass. This may be the central issue that seems to irk many of the artists who would like to see their creativity in print. As long as the sentry follows his marching orders all is ok. The issue seems to be when the sentry steps out of his role and becomes an "editor". Maybe a simple solution is to call them "gatekeepers", vice "editors".
Now, I have spent more time here than intended. I must spend a few hours with my Bonsai. I am their Editor and they depend on me. There is no double meaning here. It's just what it is. We are all editors to a great many facets of life.
The tone in this thread has turned nasty and, for unknown reasons, overly defensive.
I suggest we leave it there as it now seems to be less than helpful or friendly.
nylon_punkie:
Yes, nylon_punkie, I agree and as Sabines said, not unexpected, not at all. People are who they are and their natures will eventually prove out. I personally think you have acted just wonderfully.
Have you ever gone fishing? Many think that fishing is ONLY to catch, well, fish, lol. In reality, you can fish for all kinds of things. Even people. Sometimes it is very difficult to catch what you want and you have to design the bait carefully and purposefully. Sometimes it is almost too easy. As with all fishing, a goal is determined and patience is required.
To make this particular fishing expedition result in a positive outcome for you, I would highly recommend that, if you need guidance and if you have a choice in who your future editors will be, you should consider WSCLG, LucaByDesign, or WannabeWordsmith. They seem like individuals you could actually have meaningful and fruitful discussion with. Just my "opinion", lol, but a well considered one.
As always, Good Luck. Sincerely,
Anna Marie
I happened upon this thread and read all the messages. As I got near the end, I saw the inevitable baring of teeth and snide remarks. I was very active on this site until a few years ago. I got tired of the "drama" that seemed to be everywhere.
I published one story in 2013. I have no idea who the editor was. But, there was a lot of back and forth to fix things. I decided to submit a second but got fed up. Why? It was explained to me that OK was unacceptable. I had to write out okay. That's the one that has stuck to me like super glue. But what was infuriating, was, reading numerous stories with OK. In addition, more stories than I could count with innumerable typos and outright spelling as well as grammatical errors.
I decided that it wasn't worth the frustration and annoyance to bother trying to fix that story, nor to submit another.
This topic does seem to bring out a deeply rooted frustration with people who write stories for this site. Since writing stories is the main reason for it's existence (or maybe that has changed?), the owners/administrators are missing a wonderful opportunity to improve this area. The alternative is "samo-samo" which never went anywhere except downward.
