If only Literotica had an actual editor

[TheWritingGroup]

I'm absolutely not mocking our volunteer editors, but they clearly don't see every story. Looking at New Stories today, I see typos in subject and one-line description that I'm sure any proofreader would have caught. That's one place where a typo getting through is (in my opinion) actually an issue. One title is missing an initial "I", so it's "f We Make it ..." One description refers to "musci" meaning "music".

I'm not criticizing the authors, either. I've made plenty of typos. I'm just contrasting Lit to traditional publishing, where at least one real person like @StillStunned reads over the story, and most especially the title, before it gets published.

--Annie

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I've seen a large number of glaring errors recently. Really obvious errors.


With all the rejection threads we get, I have no idea how they're getting through.


Edit: I'm not seeing either of those tough. Are the page results randomized somehow?

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'm absolutely not mocking our volunteer editors, but they clearly don't see every story. Looking at New Stories today, I see typos in subject and one-line description that I'm sure any proofreader would have caught. That's one place where a typo getting through is (in my opinion) actually an issue. One title is missing an initial "I", so it's "f We Make it ..." One description refers to "musci" meaning "music".

I'm not criticizing the authors, either. I've made plenty of typos. I'm just contrasting Lit to traditional publishing, where at least one real person like @StillStunned reads over the story, and most especially the title, before it gets published.

--Annie

I would guess that volunteer editors see less than 5% of what's published on a daily basis. I'd also guess that a quarter of what comes out on any given day, at least, hasn't been proofed even by the author.

 

[old_prof]

I have to admit that I spend much more effort on the story itself than I do on the title or description. I should probably write those somewhere to proofread them and then copy and paste rather than just (mis)typing them. I try to double check them, but that's not my focus when I'm submitting.

 

[yowser]

I would guess that volunteer editors see less than 5% of what's published on a daily basis. I'd also guess that a quarter of what comes out on any given day, at least, hasn't been proofed even by the author.

This sounds right. I do confess to be astonished at careless Title/description issues. This is your best chance of attracting a read, your first impression. Couple typos in the MS, no worries. Two in the description? Not likely to be a very thoughtful tale.

Also in the T/D business:

Title: My first time.
Description: My first time.

Surely, even for one's first time, one can do better...

 

[KittyOfSteele]

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...-need-to-add-to-not-be-flagged-as-ai.1646184/

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...ike-this-to-prove-they-didn’t-use-ai.1645349/

Coincidence?

 

[TheLobster]

Surely, even for one's first time, one can do better...

That's what happens when you get your education from bad porn (literary, in this case).

 

[Voboy]

I would guess that volunteer editors see less than 5% of what's published on a daily basis. I'd also guess that a quarter of what comes out on any given day, at least, hasn't been proofed even by the author.

I'd imagine it's a whole lot less than 5%.

I figure there are probably entire weeks that go by without seeing a single New submission that one of the site's volunteer editors has ever laid eyes on.

 

[StillStunned]

at least one real person like @StillStunned

I prefer to think that there's nobody like me.

On subject: I suspect there are degrees of care taken with the stories that are published here. Not every author cares - or knows - enough to understand that texts need editing/proofreading. Even if they do, I doubt many of them put a huge amount of effort into it. Even fewer will get someone to do the editing for them. And the ones that do are reliant on their editor's skill, dedication and willingness. Editing is always more tiring and time-consuming than anyone expects.

And then, even if the editor does an amazing job and returns a text that has all the errors marked and suggestions highlighted, there's a huge margin for more mistakes to creep in. And the more mistakes there were in the original, the less likely the final text will be perfect. The author would have to go through all the edits and suggestions and process them correctly, without introducing more errors. I doubt that more than the tiniest proportion of Lit authors would ask their editor to do a final check again. Or bother with Text to Speech for proofreading after processing all the edits.

That said, we're all hobbyists here. I come across plenty of typos and continuity errors in published books that I paid money for, and if a professional publishing house can't be arsed to catch every mistake, why should we expect it of amateur writers and volunteer editors?

Also, just to prove that even professional editors slip up:

 

[TheLobster]

Also, just to prove that even professional editors slip up:

Eh, that's not too bad. You can add up a extra "up" to spice up pretty much any verb, and the result won't repel up all but the most astute readers. Some may not even notice up such a mistake.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

That said, we're all hobbyists here. I come across plenty of typos and continuity errors in published books that I paid money for, and if a professional publishing house can't be arsed to catch every mistake, why should we expect it of amateur writers and volunteer editors?

I've been saying it all along: proofreading is to writers what debugging is to programmers.

 

[TheLobster]

I've been saying it all along: proofreading is to writers what debugging is to programmers.

Except there is no test suite, and the QA process is even more tedious than manually clicking through every use case

 

[StillStunned]

I've been saying it all along: proofreading is to writers what debugging is to programmers.

Lately I've also seen several posts along the lines of "I published a rough draft of my story, and I'd like people to point out any typos." Which basically means, "I couldn't be arsed, you lot do the work and then I'll make the site review my story again."

 

[IWroteThis]

When I was fairly new, I sent messages to a lot of the volunteer editors looking for one to help me. Not a single one of them could be bothered to even reply with a polite (or impolite) rejection.

Now, I look at the stories where the writer mentions that their story was edited by one of those, and I'm kind of glad none of them got back to me.

 

[Britva415]

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...-need-to-add-to-not-be-flagged-as-ai.1646184/

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/people-are-writing-like-this-to-prove-they-didn’t-use-ai.1645349/

Coincidence?

I'd venture "yes," the phenomenon of unironically low-polish stories goes way way back.

Not to say low-quality, and paint them all with the one brush, but that, considered as a separate classification and set, also goes way way back. And I don't think any of us would expect an official site editor to impose their fiat upon that. I could be wrong

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I've had three writer friends-- JoshFrom53 (I've done some editing for him, Smutty&Fun, and SisterJezabel-- beta read three of my works for particular content, but have never had anyone edit for me. Between the "finding-an-editor" horror stories and the one time I asked for editing help before giving up when I never received a response, I suspect finding an editor who's available is like finding a needle in a haystack. They may be out there somewhere, but there better be a powerful attraction if you're going to find them.

 

[StillStunned]

When I was fairly new, I sent messages to a lot of the volunteer editors looking for one to help me. Not a single one of them could be bothered to even reply with a polite (or impolite) rejection.

Now, I look at the stories where the writer mentions that their story was edited by one of those, and I'm kind of glad none of them got back to me.

Like I mentioned above (and I've often explained on these forums), editing is hard work. I usually estimate 500-1000 words an hour, and quite often the quality is so poor that I can't manage more than 5 hours work a day.

I suspect that a lot of people sign up as volunteer editors because they want to help. They see stories being published with mistakes, or they see questions being posted about grammar and style, and they feel they have something to offer.

But then they're faced with the actual job, and they realise how much energy it takes. A writer sends them 9k words, and after two hours they're still on the first page. In the end they spend a full day on it, if not two or more. And they're exhausted.

So the next time they get a request, they're reluctant to answer. In their mind they still want to help out, but their only memory of the first time is of how time-consuming and energy-sapping the experience was. And that's completely normal, but quite often they don't know that. So they feel bad, and they tell themselves they still want to edit stories because surely it can't that bad, surely they were doing something wrong?

In short: volunteer editors are a wonderful concept, but there's a reason why the professionals get paid a decent hourly rate.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Lately I've also seen several posts along the lines of "I published a rough draft of my story, and I'd like people to point out any typos." Which basically means, "I couldn't be arsed, you lot do the work and then I'll make the site review my story again."

Dude... I can hear the voice of someone being so annoyed to reply with something like 'Umm, it'S LiKe cAllEd liKE eArLy aCcEsS? liKE, hAvE yOu pLaYeD a gAmE oVEr thE pAst dEcADe yOu OLd fArT?' and now I can't stop laughing.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Like I mentioned above (and I've often explained on these forums), editing is hard work. I usually estimate 500-1000 words an hour, and quite often the quality is so poor that I can't manage more than 5 hours work a day.

I suspect that a lot of people sign up as volunteer editors because they want to help. They see stories being published with mistakes, or they see questions being posted about grammar and style, and they feel they have something to offer.

But then they're faced with the actual job, and they realise how much energy it takes. A writer sends them 9k words, and after two hours they're still on the first page. In the end they spend a full day on it, if not two or more. And they're exhausted.

So the next time they get a request, they're reluctant to answer. In their mind they still want to help out, but their only memory of the first time is of how time-consuming and energy-sapping the experience was. And that's completely normal, but quite often they don't know that. So they feel bad, and they tell themselves they still want to edit stories because surely it can't that bad, surely they were doing something wrong?

In short: volunteer editors are a wonderful concept, but there's a reason why the professionals get paid a decent hourly rate.

Yes and: I think it's very easy to get burned out by writerly intransigence. It sucks when you do close reading and analysis of a piece and your advice is ignored. And and: copy editors and story editors are different, and I have to imagine there's burnout caused by conflicts over which service the editor thinks they're going to be providing and what service the author wants.

 

[TheLobster]

Dude... I can hear the voice of someone being so annoyed to reply with something like 'Umm, it'S LiKe cAllEd liKE eArLy aCcEsS? liKE, hAvE yOu pLaYeD a gAmE oVEr thE pAst dEcADe yOu OLd fArT?' and now I can't stop laughing.

So if I write a series and publish the first two chapters at once, is that a zero-day DLC?

 

[IWroteThis]

Like I mentioned above (and I've often explained on these forums), editing is hard work. I usually estimate 500-1000 words an hour, and quite often the quality is so poor that I can't manage more than 5 hours work a day.

I suspect that a lot of people sign up as volunteer editors because they want to help. They see stories being published with mistakes, or they see questions being posted about grammar and style, and they feel they have something to offer.

But then they're faced with the actual job, and they realise how much energy it takes. A writer sends them 9k words, and after two hours they're still on the first page. In the end they spend a full day on it, if not two or more. And they're exhausted.

So the next time they get a request, they're reluctant to answer. In their mind they still want to help out, but their only memory of the first time is of how time-consuming and energy-sapping the experience was. And that's completely normal, but quite often they don't know that. So they feel bad, and they tell themselves they still want to edit stories because surely it can't that bad, surely they were doing something wrong?

In short: volunteer editors are a wonderful concept, but there's a reason why the professionals get paid a decent hourly rate.

You're making bad excuses for bad behavior, but I'm not buying it.

I went in order of most recent updates to their volunteer editor entry, and I skipped the ones who actually were upfront about not accepting new writers or only editing in certain categories. The only ones I contacted were the ones who left me feeling like they were a viable option. Many of them even said how long they'd been doing it.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I see typos in subject and one-line description that I'm sure any proofreader would have caught.

I am struggling to see how an editor or proofreader would have come into play here.

These appear to errors upon submission of the story, which would have been after any editing or proofreading was done.

Just this morning, upon reviewing my pending folder, I noticed that the title of one story had a typo in it. Biting the bullet, I went in and modified the submission and put myself back into the rear of the queue.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

In tradpub, the editors would be handling that, not the author. My point was very much about how we writers are doing stuff here that we would maybe not even have input into in the old system.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

In tradpub, the editors would be handling that, not the author. My point was very much about how we writers are doing stuff here that we would maybe not even have input into in the old system.

I agree, but with the proliferation of self-publishing, there are certain disciplines that should be embraced by writers here that cast them and their stories into a more favorable (if not professional) light with readers.

Even in tradpub, I backstop anything that could reflect on me or my stories, regardless of who is doing the actual handling.

 

[Omenainen]

I have a theory that author’s first submission is handled more leniently than subsequent ones. I assume this is to encourage people to provide content. I know for sure that in my case, my second story got sent back for run-on sentences and incorrect dialogue punctuation which I most certainly also had in my first one. In my mind, this theory explains the very sloppily edited stories and cases where dialogue punctuation uses a whole different notation than the rest of the site.