If only Literotica had an actual editor

[SimonDoom]

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

Literotica has no capacity to do a thorough edit before stories are published. Even if they hired a couple of full-time editors/proofreaders I don't think they could do it. They get at least 170 story submissions every single day. They do the bare minimum needed to clear the story, and even that process has holes in it.

 

[StillStunned]

Literotica has no capacity to do a thorough edit before stories are published. Even if they hired a couple of full-time editors/proofreaders I don't think they could do it. They get at least 170 story submissions every single day. They do the bare minimum needed to clear the story, and even that process has holes in it.

170 stories = 170 editors, I'd say.

 

[Britva415]

Literotica has no capacity to do a thorough edit before stories are published

And even less obligation.

I for one bristle at the entire notion of Lit enforcing "quality" in any of its facets. Typographical, spelling and grammatical quality are only a couple of small facets. Others include editorial quality judgements with regard to any and all of: Content, narrative coherence, taste, logical consistency, making-sense, plausibility, relatability, any of it.

The proofreading part isn't somehow special compared to the other editorial functions, and as much as I dislike clicking into a story and seeing inexcusably bad proofreading and even worse storytelling, to the idea that Lit should take responsibility for any of it, I say "No."

I should probably @ the OP
@TheWritingGroup

 

[Bazzle]

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

The only way to do it would to charge for posting and have an equal number of editors to authors.

It would be a nightmare.

 

[SimonDoom]

And even less obligation.

I for one bristle at the entire notion of Lit enforcing "quality" in any of its facets. Typographical, spelling and grammatical quality are only a couple of small facets. Others include editorial quality judgements with regard to any and all of: Content, narrative coherence, taste, logical consistency, making-sense, plausibility, relatability, any of it.

The proofreading part isn't somehow special compared to the other editorial functions, and as much as I dislike clicking into a story and seeing inexcusably bad proofreading and even worse storytelling, to the idea that Lit should take responsibility for any of it, I say "No."

I should probably @ the OP
@TheWritingGroup

I agree 100%. I think Lit gets it about right, although like everyone else I'd like the process to be a bit quicker, and with better communication.

I think gatekeeping should be minimal. Make sure the stories meet the content criteria, and that they meet very basic minimal requirements for grammar, spelling, punctuation and form. But don't do more.

I can tell within a few paragraphs whether the form of the story meets my own criteria. I can click out if I don't approve. That's a minimal inconvenience.

This is a fairly "open" site -- they put up minimal barriers for people to publish stories, and for people to read them and provide feedback on them. I think that's a sound policy, whatever the costs it entails in the form of author annoyance.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is a fairly "open" site -- they put up minimal barriers for people to publish stories, and for people to read them and provide feedback on them. I think that's a sound policy, whatever the costs it entails in the form of author annoyance.

Didn't someone make an observation a month or so ago that 80% percent (thereabouts) of new stories are first offerings, and most folk only go on to write two or three? If that's the case, it's a pretty quick process to sort out the wheat from the chaff, and send the rest off the pig farm.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

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

"Important"?

 

[Bramblethorn]

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.

That was my thought. When I submit a story, the body is pasted from a document which has been beta-ed by other people, but the title, blurb, and tags are typed directly into that field. If I screw up at that point there's nobody else to catch it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

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.

This. People think "it's just reading, I love reading" and it's...not.

For me, the draining part of editing isn't the reading, or even spotting the mistakes; it's the bit where I have to explain what the problem is and suggest how to fix it, without trying to take over the author's story and make it my story.

 

[TheLobster]

"Important"?

Dreaded.

But it’s also like testing — neglected.

And sometimes also like monitoring — missed for its absence at the worst of times.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I agree 100%. I think Lit gets it about right, although like everyone else I'd like the process to be a bit quicker, and with better communication.

I think gatekeeping should be minimal. Make sure the stories meet the content criteria, and that they meet very basic minimal requirements for grammar, spelling, punctuation and form. But don't do more.

I can tell within a few paragraphs whether the form of the story meets my own criteria. I can click out if I don't approve. That's a minimal inconvenience.

This is a fairly "open" site -- they put up minimal barriers for people to publish stories, and for people to read them and provide feedback on them. I think that's a sound policy, whatever the costs it entails in the form of author annoyance.

Agreed. People who want consistently professional-grade writing and editing need to understand that "professional-grade" is something one pays for. Some pro-grade people choose to do pro-level work here for free, but that doesn't mean everybody else should be excluded.

Everybody has to cut their teeth somewhere, and even if some of these stories make my eyeballs itch I'm glad that people are writing them. It's like having a community oval where everybody can have fun kicking a ball around; being good is nice but it shouldn't be the admission criterion. If you want to watch professionals, go buy a ticket.

 

[Britva415]

It's not like authors couldn't show their proposed title and description to a VE. It's not like they couldn't be in that shared document. It's not like they have to select-all before pasting into the story field.

 

[alohadave]

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.

I did it for a while before I started writing. I focused on line editing, and some of the stories needed a lot of work.

I enjoyed doing it. They got help on their stories, and the behind the scenes work was interesting.

I really only stopped doing it because I wanted to write for myself, but I also took myself off the list so people wouldn't think I was still available.

 

[alohadave]

I went in order of most recent updates to their volunteer editor entry

The listing shows and sorts by newest Biography updates. There isn't a volunteer editor entry that populates that list.

If an author is in the VE program, and update their Bio, they'll bump to the top of the list. It's an almost useless way to find an editor. I got most of the work I did from the Editors forum where authors and editors who are actually active are posting.

 

[IWroteThis]

The listing shows and sorts by newest Biography updates. There isn't a volunteer editor entry that populates that list.

If an author is in the VE program, and update their Bio, they'll bump to the top of the list. It's an almost useless way to find an editor. I got most of the work I did from the Editors forum where authors and editors who are actually active are posting.

That seems like a bad idea, so I looked at the first two on the date sorted Volunteer Editors list…

Doc_YesReally
Editor page: 12/14/2025
Bio page: "This Year"

kenjisato
Editor page: 12/13/2025
Bio page: "A Long Time Ago"

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's not like authors couldn't show their proposed title and description to a VE. It's not like they couldn't be in that shared document.

I'd guess this is exactly what the author did in the case that OP mentioned with a title missing its initial letter. IME it's far easier to lose an initial letter when C&Ping than to forget to type it in the first place.

 

[ronde]

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.

I have been one of those volunteer editors in the past and I can tell you that for the most part it's a thankless job for several reasons.

Many authors don't just want proofreading for spelling and punctuation. They expect a volunteer editor to turn their quickly written story into a story that will be rated a 5. They're disappointed if it rates lower and will let the volunteer editor know that.

Some authors will argue that the volunteer editor didn't read and understand what the writer was trying to write. I can't alter a story to make sense if I can't understand what the writer wrote to begin with. Yes, some of the writing is that bad.

Proofreading another's work requires more time than writing my own stories. That's because I have to not only look for typos, spelling, and punctuation errors, but also to make sure the words are written into a format that's readable.

 

[ronde]

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 have written one story for a site that had in-house editors. Any story published had to go through one of those editors. They are a two-edged sword.

The good is you'll get a story published with few if any typos, spelling errors, punctuation errors, and grammatical errors.

The bad is that the story I submitted was indeed published, but the story that was published was a re-written version that was in fact, what the editor thought I should have written instead of what I wrote. To top it all off, the story was published without giving me the courtesy of seeing the changes and making my own corrections to keep the plot and tone of the story the same.

 

[IWroteThis]

I have been one of those volunteer editors in the past and I can tell you that for the most part it's a thankless job for several reasons.

Many authors don't just want proofreading for spelling and punctuation. They expect a volunteer editor to turn their quickly written story into a story that will be rated a 5. They're disappointed if it rates lower and will let the volunteer editor know that.

Some authors will argue that the volunteer editor didn't read and understand what the writer was trying to write. I can't alter a story to make sense if I can't understand what the writer wrote to begin with. Yes, some of the writing is that bad.

Proofreading another's work requires more time than writing my own stories. That's because I have to not only look for typos, spelling, and punctuation errors, but also to make sure the words are written into a format that's readable.

To be clear, I have no problem with any volunteer editor declining to assist me. I likewise have no problem with them ceasing to be a volunteer editor and removing their name from the list.

My issue is with them not having the common decency to reply to my query.

I didn't just pick accounts at random and ask them about being my editor. I went to a list that they voluntarily put themselves on, and I read the nice little blurbs they wrote to advertise what they were offering. You know, the perfect place to say, "Only accepting drafts from writers I've previously worked with," or "Not accepting new writers with less than twenty stories published."

Also, to be clear, I didn't just go down the list firing off message after message. The amount of time I waited before trying the next one went down as my frustration went up, but their failure to write an accurate blurb and/or reply to my message wasted a lot of my time. So, don't talk to me about their time when they had no regard for mine.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

The listing shows and sorts by newest Biography updates. There isn't a volunteer editor entry that populates that list.

If an author is in the VE program, and update their Bio, they'll bump to the top of the list. It's an almost useless way to find an editor. I got most of the work I did from the Editors forum where authors and editors who are actually active are posting.

That seems like a bad idea, so I looked at the first two on the date sorted Volunteer Editors list…

Doc_YesReally
Editor page: 12/14/2025
Bio page: "This Year"

kenjisato
Editor page: 12/13/2025
Bio page: "A Long Time Ago"

Yes, it's sorted by when they last updated their editor statement, not their main site profile. It's amazing how many people don't even bother to READ the editor statements and just send whatever to people who explicitly say what kind of editing they're looking to do.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Yesterday, one story's short description is, "A nhephew comforts an oyt of work aunt."

I speculate this person was just typing really fast and hit one letter away from the right one on the keyboard (in one case hitting both keys), and didn't proofread.

--Annie

 

[YmaOHyd]

Yesterday, one story's short description is, "A nhephew comforts an oyt of work aunt."

I speculate this person was just typing really fast and hit one letter away from the right one on the keyboard (in one case hitting both keys), and didn't proofread.

--Annie

There's also a story on the front page that's just a really grotesque murder fantasy.

 

[TheExperimentalist]

There's also a story on the front page that's just a really grotesque murder fantasy.

Isn't that against the rules?

 

[YmaOHyd]

Isn't that against the rules?

The spirit of the rules, certainly. The actual rules... maybe not, as it's not played for eroticism; it's just a straightforward story about a guy murdering his wife in cold blood. It should be against the rules, certainly, and the author should be banned as he's submitted like a hundred of these in the last five months.

 

[Voboy]

Isn't that against the rules?

Murder isn't against the rules. Snuff is against the rules.