Do moderators use algorithms to reject stories?

[nexurotica]

As far as I know, the "moderators" are one person, that being Laurel. It's apparent that she's using some sort of software to sort out stories that don't conform to the ground rules, but with the number of stories submitted every day, it's hard to see how she has a choice. The number of stories published runs between 150 and 200 per day. If she spent only five minutes with each story, that's a minimum of 12 hours and I don't think it's possible for one person to read much over a thousand words in five minutes. Adding verification to every rejection would only add to the time required and stretch out the approval process and reduce the number of stories published every day.

I'm not sure when Laurel introduced the software, but the "reasons for rejection" are boilerplate generated by the software, and I'm sure there are several algorithms used and that they use key words to reject a story.

I have received a rejection notice for a few of my stories, but they've all been accurate once I reviewed what I wrote.

Things I have learned to watch for when I write:

1. Don't just imply that a character is over 18. A person will get the implication. Software won't. You need to state ages of very young characters in some way that can't be misinterpreted.
In the US, "high school" usually means an age of 17 to 18, so just saying "high school age" can get you into trouble if there's any sex involved.
2. Be careful about stories that take place in current times involving politics, even international politics.
3. Stay away from the current fad of using some brand AI software to do your checking for you. I do not use any sort of correction software except for the spelling check in Word, and I usually don't accept it's correction.

Wow thats a lot for one person to manage.

 

[StillStunned]

Wow thats a lot for one person to manage.

And overall she does a pretty wonderful job. A few hundred stories every day, plus however many she rejects - with AI flooding the submissions, that's got to be a high number.

It's just that, for the tiny percentage of stories where she gets it wrong, it can feel very personal for the author. And those are the cases that get reported, not all the thousands and thousands where she gets it right.

 

[Writer61]

My experience suggests that once it's rejected, resubmission takes longer to be approved. It's frustrating but understandable.

 

[Britva415]

The art of expression is just that, an art.

AND it's supposed to be expression!

 

[Dommemomme]

Creativity is the highest human achievement. Since Authors are creative people, we sometimes develop an exaggerated sense of our own self-worth or even a feeling of entitlement. When I was a pool writer at Warner, my editor called this feeling of entitlement “Authoritis."


Here on Literotica, "authoritiis" manifests itself as the notion that Laurel and Manu somehow “owe” us authors 24/7/365 attention. We writers know we never get that.kind if attention.

From anyone.

Anywhere.

Ever.

At Warner I seldom had screenplays actually rejected. They just weren't produced. It was left up to me to figure out why and learn to write better. During the Writers Strike, I was accused of scabbing because some of my old “rejected" screenplays surfaced and were produced, some to critical acclaim. Not all rejections are valid, but dwelling on rejection won't help you write better. it only saps you as a writer. and leads to more rejections. My editor called it “rejection cascade" where one rejection leads to the next, and so on.


Instead of dwelling on rejection (which is THE occupational hazard of ALL writers), we should be grateful that Literotica exists at all.


Let's write better!


Von



PS: The AI stuff just slays me.

When Displaywriter (an early word processor) came out in the eighties, I hated it. I still wrote everything on my old Smith Corona and then typed it all in later. I got constantly criticized for NOT using the embedded writing aids (the eighties version of A I). Here, I would get rejected for USING them.


If I ever publish anything here it will be straight from the S C. Portable now sleeping under my bed. If what I write on it gets rejected for A I. I’m afraid I just won't care. The loss will not be mine.


We think the LLMs are learning from us. But they are TEACHING us, not learning. Soon we will all write like ChatGpT and being “rejected for AI” will sound quaint.

 

[Beholders_Eye]

Literotica is free.

 

[ChuckWolf]

Just as a thought, how about just letting any long established Literotica authors with either forty+ published stories and/or 200,000 published words, just be able to publish their stories directly to the site, without going through the moderation process?

It seems that those writers have their crap together and can be trusted to publish material that is well-written, not AI and not illegal content.

I just think that'd make Laurel & Manu's jobs easier and would ease the logjam of submissions.

There of course, would be an understanding that any author who tries to put up AI or illegal content, does so at the risk of having all their works deleted from the site (my suggestion).

 

[Voboy]

While not being able to see inside Laurel's head to dispute this, I am bothered by the incorrect assumption being made.

It implies that Laurel has some prudish, self-serving objective in establishing the content guidelines for this site, when in fact, there are hundreds of stories on this site that do mention sexual activity involving minors.

I'm not responsible for what bothers you.

I wasn't trying to make some revolutionary statement. She wants certain kinds of stories on this site, yes? Those don't include stories with underage sex, yes?

I impute no motive whatsoever to Laurel. I couldn't care less why she doesn't want these stories here. I am aware that she doesn't, and that's good enough for me. For all of us, in fact.

Frankly, I find "want" to be a very odd word for you and other posters to parse. Are you implying that she in fact WANTS underage stories here? Because that's the obvious rejoinder to what I wrote, and I see no evidence of it.

"Want" implies prudery to you, perhaps, but not to me. And I did not intend it that way. Not that it matters; the point I was making is that her motivation doesn't matter. Only her rules matter, surely.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Just as a thought, how about just letting any long established Literotica authors with either forty+ published stories and/or 200,000 published words, just be able to publish their stories directly to the site, without going through the moderation process?

I'm not sure that quantity approximates to quality in any useful way. Some of the very best writers might have 30 stories, because they take care and spend a lot of time on them. Someone who has 200 stories is more likely to be churning them out to a formula. (Generalization: not applying it to any particular person.) And someone who churns it out is perhaps less concerned about the boundaries. If they know the boundaries are relaxed, they might take advantage of that.

 

[ChuckWolf]

I'm not sure that quantity approximates to quality in any useful way. Some of the very best writers might have 30 stories, because they take care and spend a lot of time on them. Someone who has 200 stories is more likely to be churning them out to a formula. (Generalization: not applying it to any particular person.) And someone who churns it out is perhaps less concerned about the boundaries. If they know the boundaries are relaxed, they might take advantage of that.

True, but the writers who are churning out lots of grammatically correct stories that aren't AI or illegal content, aren't the problem.

 

[Voboy]

Just as a thought, how about just letting any long established Literotica authors with either forty+ published stories and/or 200,000 published words, just be able to publish their stories directly to the site, without going through the moderation process?

I think that's a capital idea.

I bet Laurel and Manu wouldn't even consider it. So therefore, it doesn't matter how capital it is.

Their site, their rules.

ETA: as a writer who sits squarely in this demographic you mention, I have zero interest in skipping the moderation process. Just as a data point.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Okay, that's fair enough, but what proportion of the flood is that? Some 150 or more stories get published every day, out of rather more (we don't know how many) that are submitted. Prolific authors in good standing might constitute one or two of those. It wouldn't appreciably lower the burden.

Yes, you could assume prolific authors wouldn't suddenly change tack, just as I haven't started touting for escorts in Mumbai since I got whitelisted for comments. It would be a safe enough assumption, but not make much practical difference.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I'm not sure that quantity approximates to quality in any useful way.

It obviously doesn’t. But quality isn’t the relevant metric here, it’s blamelessness.

Fifty stories with not a single one sent back for any of:

1. AI
2. Underage
3. Terrible punctuation (a bugbear with Laurel)
4. Irredeemable spelling (it has to be truly awful)
5. Rape that isn’t a cheerful fun thing for the woman involved

Then I’d say you get a pass, one that can be revoked.

But yes, of course, your stories may be elementary-school level (the prose not the protagonists).

There is no bar relating to literary quality here whatsoever.

 

[SmilingLez]

Given that no filtering tool is 100% accurate, I have to wonder how many stories have already slipped through the cracks on this commercial, for-profit porn site that would potentially fall into categories the site presumably has a particular interest in detecting, including CSAM, bestiality, glorification of sexual violence or non-consensual rape, and AI-generated content.

If an algorithm can incorrectly reject legitimate stories, it seems reasonable to ask how often it also fails in the other direction and allows prohibited or problematic material through. False positives are visible to the person whose story was rejected. False negatives are considerably harder to see.

So how accurate is the system when nobody is counting the stories it failed to catch?

 

[ChuckWolf]

Okay, that's fair enough, but what proportion of the flood is that? Some 150 or more stories get published every day, out of rather more (we don't know how many) that are submitted. Prolific authors in good standing might constitute one or two of those. It wouldn't appreciably lower the burden.

Yes, you could assume prolific authors wouldn't suddenly change tack, just as I haven't started touting for escorts in Mumbai since I got whitelisted for comments. It would be a safe enough assumption, but not make much practical difference.

Yeah, not a perfect solution, but I think it'd make the site owner's job at least a little easier and would cover most situations.

If there are longtime writers on here that can be trusted, you might as well rubber-stamp their stories, IMO.

 

[ChuckWolf]

I think that's a capital idea.

I bet Laurel and Manu wouldn't even consider it. So therefore, it doesn't matter how capital it is.

Their site, their rules.

Assuming it can be technologically done on a 25+ year old website, I think Laurel & Manu would be the biggest beneficiaries of it.

That said, there could be other factors/tech issues involved that I don't know about.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Oh I agree that there a few people here who should be waved through like royalty. Laurel should have a little list (she could sing it: 'I've got a little list') of writers who never ring any bells and get published the next day. We can all name a few of those. But the effort of implementing that in the creaky software versus the very small lessening of burden...?

 

[EmilyMiller]

But the effort of implementing that in the creaky software versus the very small lessening of burden...?

I agree.

From convos, her ‘white list’ is entirely manual.

 

[BeechLeaf]

It doesn't even have to be written. She knows some names, and knows that if redgarters gets pinged for AI/bestiality/halitosis/whatever, fuck that, it's redgarters, just publish it. Her tools are fallible; a few authors are reliable.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It doesn't even have to be written. She knows some names, and knows that if redgarters gets pinged for AI/bestiality/halitosis/whatever, fuck that, it's redgarters, just publish it. Her tools are fallible; a few authors are reliable.

Precisely…

 

[ElectricBlue]

I agree.

From convos, her ‘white list’ is entirely manual.

That's my belief too. A little piece of paper pinned to the cork board, or a decent memory.

 

[SmilingLez]

View attachment 2680068

 

[Britva415]

I'm not sure that quantity approximates to quality in any useful way

But it isn't about quality.

It's about adhering to the rules.

None of the rules say a submitted story has to be "good enough."

 

[Voboy]

Assuming it can be technologically done on a 25+ year old website, I think Laurel & Manu would be the biggest beneficiaries of it.

Yeah... I mean, like I said, I think it's a great idea. But I've always wondered just how much actual work they have ever put into vetting stories. I assume it's "not much."

I also suppose, like a lot of people here, that they give less scrutiny to longtime posters. It just makes sense. I bet the whole process is pretty fast.

That said, there could be other factors/tech issues involved that I don't know about.

Beats me, but that makes sense too.

 

[BaldMerkin]

True, but the writers who are churning out lots of grammatically correct stories that aren't AI or illegal content, aren't the problem.

That's not quite true. I've heard of authors who definitely do NOT use AI but have been accused of doing so. Their work was probably rejected because it was too grammatically correct and hence, the algorithms marked it a AI.

Melville's Moby Dick has been identified as being AI generated but it was written well before AI was invented. Using algorithms is fallible so a story shouldn't be rejected because it IS grammatically correct.