New feature coming: Story Versioning

[pink_silk_glove]

Bisexual category is an unnecessary idea too… everyone has their own idea of bisexual. Really, categories are an outdated idea since we now now have story tags. If I’ve got lesbian sex between sisters in a techno-sorcery world, I’d be conflicted on where to put it. It relies on an arbitrary ranking of categories.

Everyone has their own idea of BDSM ... everyone has their own idea of incest ... everyone has their own idea of infidelity and hotwifing ... etc, etc ... what's your point?

 

[pink_silk_glove]

No one is forcing you to stay here. You should just go somewhere if you hate how the site is run as much as you claim.

That's pretty heavy-handed. If everyone who criticized the site fucked off when you said so, you'd be the only one here.

 

[alohadave]

That's pretty heavy-handed. If everyone who criticized the site fucked off when you said so, you'd be the only one here.

Oh well.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Oh well.

Yea, that says a lot right there. And I'm not the least bit surprised.

 

[alohadave]

Yea, that says a lot right there. And I'm not the least bit surprised.

Oh well.

 

[Yarglenurp]

Everyone has their own idea of BDSM ... everyone has their own idea of incest ... everyone has their own idea of infidelity and hotwifing ... etc, etc ... what's your point?

My point is that tomatoes apple pie

 

[KeithD]

I mean, I’ll gently point out that all of this should be done before publishing…

Right. I've never corrected after it's published. Just like it had gone to print. Besides the fact that this is the last stop for my stories, I just swallow any "my bad" and go on to the next. Most of the reads on your stories will have happened before you could have gotten a correction substituted. This isn't the New Yorker and "your" fussy redo shoves everyone else's first publishing later.

 

[KeithD]

That's pretty heavy-handed. If everyone who criticized the site fucked off when you said so, you'd be the only one here.

Besides which I didn't see anything in LC's post that wasn't valid.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Eh. I'd like to be able to edit small imperfections in my work without having to go through a whole rigamarole. Lush has something like this (not as advanced as a whole version system, but a cleaner way of editing existing works), and it's fine.

I'm not sure I'd like to leave an older version out, but I do wish at times I could go back and revise a few of my stories where I realized I had more to say or should have said it differently. I go back and read some of my older work at times.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The situation in which I a see this as a potential benefit is when someone does like I did in my series, Mary and Alvin.

I was still pretty raw when I started it. I wrote 36 chapters over three years. I learned a lot in that time, and the quality of my writing definitely improved as I went along. It would be nice to be able to tone up those early chapters in a much easier manner than resubmitting edited versions. Not to make significant changes, but to have a more consistent quality to the whole series.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'll equally gently point out that even professionals miss things occasionally, and that sometimes tiny flaws can bother a person more than a big plot hole.

(And anyway, an egregious plot hole is just a sequel begging to happen).

This. I am fastidious enough as an editor that I get paid to do it by a major publisher who has a high reputation for quality (not just self-assessed). I apply that same level of scrutiny to my own work, as well as running it by several betas. I do my best to make sure it's polished before I post it here.

But even the best of us is fallible. Things slip through. I can't remember the last time I read a professionally-published book that didn't have some minor editing glitch along the way.

As a fussy perfectionist I'd love to be able to fix those issues in my story when I do finally notice them. Currently I don't generally do that on Lit, because the process is cumbersome and I don't want to slow down moderation for new stories. But if we had an option that was easy to use and low burden on Laurel, I'd take advantage of it to fix those little things.

A good modern versioning system should greatly reduce the workload for edits. AFAIK, under the current system, if I submit an edit to a 15k word story then Laurel has to skim the whole story to check content just like she would for a brand new submission. But modern version control should allow for viewing only the diffs between old and new versions, so she can see at a glance whether my edit is just about fixing a few typos or if I'm changing my 18-year-olds to 14-year-olds.

It seems uncharitable and unrealistic to assume the only people who'd want this feature are those who can't be arsed trying to get it right first time.

Adding: especially since publication on Literotica sometimes introduces glitches that the author cannot anticipate ahead of publication. One of my stories here includes several poems; they were formatted fine in the doc that I uploaded, but Literotica's translation to HTML screwed up the line breaks. I'd love to fix that if I could do it without wasting too much of other people's time.

But if anybody here thinks they post flawless copy first time every time, feel free to post a link to your stories page so people can check whether your editing is as perfect as you believe it to be...

 

[KeithD]

It seems uncharitable and unrealistic to assume the only people who'd want this feature are those who can't be arsed trying to get it right first time.

No, but I think it points to people being much too taken up with their beautiful babies as they stay on program for the inevitable Pulitzer Prize.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It seems uncharitable and unrealistic to assume the only people who'd want this feature are those who can't be arsed trying to get it right first time.

I don't assume that. Of course many will want to only fix typos but also equally many will revise whole stories. It is foolish to assume that a feature so powerful will not be abused by folks who want to do much more than fix a couple of grammar bumps. Like bringing nuclear technology to mankind and believing that we will only use it to generate power and will never build a bomb with it.

You know damn well that the first contest that comes up after stories are allowed to be versioned will be full of draft submissions that get edited after the voting starts. All kinds of messy crap will go on.

 

[KeithD]

You know damn well that the first contest that comes up after stories are allowed to be versioned will be full of draft submissions that get edited after the voting starts. All kinds of messy crap will go on.

For some time I objected to letting contest stories be messed with once they'd been submitted--there's no legitimate writing contest that allows this--but it's allowed here now and has been done in the past.

 

[Voboy]

You know damn well that the first contest that comes up after stories are allowed to be versioned will be full of draft submissions that get edited after the voting starts. All kinds of messy crap will go on.

Legit concern that I hadn't thought of.

Again, I'm biased, but to me this seems like a solution in search of a problem. I also think this discussion is premature: the OP acknowledged that we don't really know how any of this is going to work. So, in a sense, all of this is hypothetical.

 

[Bramblethorn]

No, but I think it points to people being much too taken up with their beautiful babies as they stay on program for the inevitable Pulitzer Prize.

FWIW, I think your 'I just swallow any "my bad" and go on to the next' attitude is a very sensible one, and I wish I were better at adopting that mindset. I'm just fussy that way; it bugs me to have typos in something I've published, even if nobody else notices or cares.

I don't assume that. Of course many will want to only fix typos but also equally many will revise whole stories. It is foolish to assume that a feature so powerful will not be abused by folks who want to do much more than fix a couple of grammar bumps.

How so?

Nothing about this prevents Lit from moderating edits. In fact, it should make it easier to moderate edits, since it will make it easier to see what's changed and what hasn't, and focus on the changes.

Like bringing nuclear technology to mankind and believing that we will only use it to generate power and will never build a bomb with it.

You know damn well that the first contest that comes up after stories are allowed to be versioned will be full of draft submissions that get edited after the voting starts. All kinds of messy crap will go on.

If this is really a problem, easy enough to set a rule that contest stories can't be edited until after the contest ends, similar to the rule that disabling voting disqualifies a story from such things.

Under the current system, authors can submit a story in January, submit an edit later in the year, and then win one of the annual story awards based on a vote conducted after the edit goes through. I'm not aware of people abusing this currently, but if it is a problem, at least a versioning system would make it easy to tell when and what an author has edited. Currently there's no way to know how or when a story has been edited since publication, unless somebody's archived the old version.

 

[Britva415]

it should make it easier to moderate edits, since it will make it easier to see what's changed and what hasn't

Was that stated somewhere or are you thinking of a "diff" feature which you've seen elsewhere and imagining it's a feature here?

 

[KeithD]

Under the current system, authors can submit a story in January, submit an edit later in the year, and then win one of the annual story awards based on a vote conducted after the edit goes through. I'm not aware of people abusing this currently, but if it is a problem, at least a versioning system would make it easy to tell when and what an author has edited. Currently there's no way to know how or when a story has been edited since publication, unless somebody's archived the old version.

In the current system, someone could have submitted a story to the Nude Day Contest that ran on day one, had a commenter point out a glaring problem with it on day three, the author could have a correction made by day eight, and the story could go on to win the contest. That happened in the past, and when it was caught by other contestants, who complained, it was allowed to stand. There is no legitimate writing contest that allows this--but Lit. does now, in existing themed contests.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

If this is really a problem, easy enough to set a rule that contest stories can't be edited until after the contest ends, similar to the rule that disabling voting disqualifies a story from such things.

Yes, I suppose but then it's another extra hairy rule for our microscopic admin to deal with, hence another thing for people to whinge about that their versioning didn't get approved because there's a contest going on.

Under the current system, authors can submit a story in January, submit an edit later in the year, and then win one of the annual story awards based on a vote conducted after the edit goes through. I'm not aware of people abusing this currently, but if it is a problem, at least a versioning system would make it easy to tell when and what an author has edited. Currently there's no way to know how or when a story has been edited since publication, unless somebody's archived the old version.

We don't really know this since we don't know how versioning will be implemented nor how it will look/work.

My biggest beef is that the vast majority of the authors here are lazy, and I suppose that they have the right to be lazy, but the site does have a few rules and guidelines to at least try to keep the quality of submissions above a certain minimal standard and versioning to allow easier edits will just make the writers even lazier and lower the standards of submissions.

 

[TheLobster]

But modern version control should allow for viewing only the diffs between old and new versions, so she can see at a glance whether my edit is just about fixing a few typos or if I'm changing my 18-year-olds to 14-year-olds.

Diffing has nothing to do with version control. (And "version control", in the technical sense of various VCS like Git or Mercurial, seems to have nothing to do with this story versioning feature regardless). You can run a diff against any arbitrary files; I did it for a story I'm writing a few days, when I got some Proton Drive issues and it synced differently between my laptop and desktop PC.

In other words, when Laurel gets a STORY EDIT "submission," she should be running a diff against the existing version already. Thus a minor edit such as fixing typos in a dozen places shouldn't take fifteen seconds to review. If it takes more, it's not something that adding more user-facing features to the site is going to solve.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Diffing has nothing to do with version control.

Really? Which modern version control system are you using that doesn't include diffing functionality?

(Yes, I'm aware that VC and diffing are not the same thing, but then I didn't say they were. I'm also aware that modern VC systems have diffing built in, because it's an extremely useful capability when doing version control. Hence my statement above.)

You can run a diff against any arbitrary files; I did it for a story I'm writing a few days, when I got some Proton Drive issues and it synced differently between my laptop and desktop PC.

In other words, when Laurel gets a STORY EDIT "submission," she should be running a diff against the existing version already.

It would certainly be nice if that's what's happening presently, but I have my doubts about whether it actually is happening presently.

 

[TheLobster]

Really? Which modern version control system are you using that doesn't include diffing functionality?

If I were really pedantic I would say Git, but my original statement was already misleading enough and I don't need to add even more confusion to the topic. Sorry for being obtuse; this is obviously not the place to discuss the internals of version control systems

From the user PoV, you are absolutely right: showing changes between revisions, i.e. the colloquial meaning of "diffing," is the essential functionality of most VCS.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Was that stated somewhere or are you thinking of a "diff" feature which you've seen elsewhere and imagining it's a feature here?

I was going on other comments in this discussion, e.g. @NoTalentHack's "I'd like to have that old version available, too, because I think it's important to be honest about changes that I do make and why I did". If L&M are planning on maintaining old versions and making them accessible (as opposed to just "this story was updated on $DATE" without the old edit being available) then most OTS systems that support that kind of thing are likely to include diffing.

But checking back to what Manu actually posted, I may have been over-interpreting that.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Whole rewrites, no interest, although I can see others might be interested. But being able to correct minor typos would be very nice. There's one of my tales with a glaring (to me at least) spelling error. (I blame it on fat thumbs and I'm sticking to that.) Up until now, every time I have thought of fixing it, my mind went over the whole formal rewrite process as it stands and I've wound up shrugging. "Nawww! Too much trouble. Maybe tomorrow." This would be a useful change.

 

[KeithD]

Any rewrites at all will have to include another review by Laurel, slowing down the process for all submitting, won't they? Otherwise, an author could initially submit a story that was mild and later make it unacceptable here by minor adding and changing in a self-editing process.