Stories pending over 3 weeks

[SkyBubble]

I haven't submitted in a while due to The Glitch but I have a couple of pieces that will be ready to submit today or tomorrow. Are stories still disappearing into the void?

 

[Britva415]

Oh I totally get that is what could be happening, but when I have no idea where in my stories those lines are, I'm left with no direction on how to fix the work.

You shouldn't start off with a "how to fix it" mindset, if there's nothing wrong with it to begin with (meaning, you didn't write it with AI).

Instead, you can just re-submit it, un-changed, with a statement in the Notes field saying you got hit with a false positive, didn't use AI, and want a human review.

 

[metropolinational]

You shouldn't start off with a "how to fix it" mindset, if there's nothing wrong with it to begin with (meaning, you didn't write it with AI).

Instead, you can just re-submit it, in-changed, with a statement in the Notes field saying you got hit with a false positive, didn't use AI, and want a human review.

Has resubmission without changes ever worked for anyone? I did that and, after waiting for a long time, simply got another rejection with the same exact note about AI.

 

[BeechLeaf]

My observation of these threads is that 'resubmitted after rejection for AI' often results in repeated rejection for AI. But not for other reasons. I had one rejected for dialogue formatting, and resubmitted it unchanged with a note of explanation. It was immediately accepted and published. My explanation made sense to a human being and was accepted.

The specific problem with AI rejection is that no-one has any clear idea what it means - the authors don't, and Laurel doesn't. So for this specific rejection reason you can't simply send it back with 'your automated check was wrong because of X, Y, Z'. You can point out the reasons if it was rejected for underage ('she is 17 but she doesn't get near the sex scene') or other specific problems, but not for AI, where the criterion seems to be 'Well, it just seems to be a bit too neat so maybe AI was used'.

 

[metropolinational]

I recently got my AI-rejected chapter accepted after two failed tries. Happy to share what worked and didn't work, for me.

First try was to simply resubmit with a note. It sat for a couple of weeks and then got rejected with no further info.

Second try was a light edit for the items mentioned here as generic AI flags. Things like rules of three, numbering, etc. Again, that took a few weeks and same outcome.

Finally, I did what I was told NOT to do by most people here. I used AI to actually get around the problem. Here is what I did:

1. I used two AI detector packages (humanize and gptzero) to flag AI trigger sentences. I went to my chapter and highlighted those.
2. I then asked two AIs (ChatGPT and grok) to identify the paragraphs/sections of my chapter that they thought were most likely to be AI products. I highlighted those. I have very little confidence in either of the two above methods, but I figured, whatever was causing the flag, it was probably in there somewhere. At this point, nearly half my chapter was highlighted.
3. I deleted whole sections that had more blue than white.
4. I wrote those sections again from scratch.
5. Then I edited the whole chapter again, top to bottom.
6. Edited again, and again, until I felt it was BETTER than the original I had submitted.

So, I submitted that one, with a note saying I had rewritten half of it from scratch. It was accepted in 24 hours.

YMMV.

 

[IslaMcRae]

I’d first of all try PMing the story reviewer (and site co-owner) @Laurel - click on that link and then click ‘start conversation.’ Ask what is going on.

It’s helpful to include the reference ID of the story. Open the story in your author’s control panel (don’t change anything!!!!!), and copy the URL from your browser. The digits at the end of this are the story ID, it helps her locate your work.

If you don’t hear anything back in say 5 days, consider resubmitting the work. This puts you at the end of the line again, but if you are stuck for some random reason it can help.

Most likely you are going to get an AI rejection in coming days if you do nothing. But it could also be a glitch, which the above may help with.

Good luck

—

UPDATE: If my instructions about PMing Laurel were unclear, look at this thread:

Post in thread 'Message the site admin directly?'
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/message-the-site-admin-directly.1650398/post-102411697

—

UPDATE 2: On the story ID, this is the URL of one of my scratchpad stories (ones I use to listen back to sections of stories). You won’t be able to access it (I fervently hope) but the bit you need to share is the 7 digit number at the end in red:

https://www.literotica.com/my/#/works/edit/3940527

Thank you. I have sent the message as instructed. Fingers crossed we get them over the line. Thanks again guys!

 

[Britva415]

My observation of these threads is that 'resubmitted after rejection for AI' often results in repeated rejection for AI

It's true, that does happen.

It's also true that it often happens in response to repeated resubmission of AI stuff.

That too is an observation. Not a projection. We have seen people admit it. Not necessarily in a "oh, I guess I got caught and didn't get away with it" kind of a way, more in a "oh, that tool or service or software is considered AI?" kind of a way.

 

[OddLove]

I haven't submitted in a while due to The Glitch but I have a couple of pieces that will be ready to submit today or tomorrow. Are stories still disappearing into the void?

From my current personal experience things are fine. I've been publishing a four episode series this week. First two episodes have taken about 1 day to get approved and 1 day to be published. I'm submitting them one at a time, in order, and I don't submit the next one until the one before it is approved and published. That way if something does get sent back, I can fix whatever problem there is and resubmit it so the episodes are still in the correct order.

I might just be getting lucky, idk. Maybe some big shadowing figure behind the scenes likes me and I'm getting some sort of special treatment, perhaps. But I think it's more likely that I'm just submitting stories that have no AI, are imperfect but solid enough grammar to pass their standards, I'm picking the right categories, I'm fallowing all the content guidelines obviously and cleanly, etc.

So to be honest, from my point of view/personal experience, nothing here is broken. It's a awkward place to be, because even though I wouldn't go out an say "Everyone claiming to be stuck in limbo or receiving false AI flags are lying" just coming out and plainly saying "I've had no problems at all, not once," comes off as "You're *calling me a liar!!" when I'm just staying my experience.

Ranting.

But overall point. You should just try it and report back in a few days about your experience with it. How long did it take? Did you get false flagged for AI? Did you get stuck in limbo? etc.

 

[SkyBubble]

The last story I submitted (before yesterday) sat in Pending limbo for 7 weeks. I withdrew it, resubmitted it, and it sat for a month. So I withdrew it and figured I'd send it later.

 

[SkyBubble]

From my current personal experience things are fine. I've been publishing a four episode series this week. First two episodes have taken about 1 day to get approved and 1 day to be published. I'm submitting them one at a time, in order, and I don't submit the next one until the one before it is approved and published. That way if something does get sent back, I can fix whatever problem there is and resubmit it so the episodes are still in the correct order.

I might just be getting lucky, idk. Maybe some big shadowing figure behind the scenes likes me and I'm getting some sort of special treatment, perhaps. But I think it's more likely that I'm just submitting stories that have no AI, are imperfect but solid enough grammar to pass their standards, I'm picking the right categories, I'm fallowing all the content guidelines obviously and cleanly, etc.

So to be honest, from my point of view/personal experience, nothing here is broken. It's a awkward place to be, because even though I wouldn't go out an say "Everyone claiming to be stuck in limbo or receiving false AI flags are lying" just coming out and plainly saying "I've had no problems at all, not once," comes off as "You're *calling me a liar!!" when I'm just staying my experience.

Ranting.

But overall point. You should just try it and report back in a few days about your experience with it. How long did it take? Did you get false flagged for AI? Did you get stuck in limbo? etc.

I submitted a story on the 27th. it got published today (doing well.) I have another pending that JUUUUST barely made it into the February window for the recent Pink Orchid event. (Submitted February 28 at 11:58 PM.) Let's see what happens with that one.

 

[Periquito1]

Hi. I have now 2 pending stories (yes, in pending). One has been 25 days there, the other 13. I wrote Laurel, and I don't know what else to do.
If it was just one, I'd try to resend it, but two? Coincidence? I think NOT!
Help!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hi. I have now 2 pending stories (yes, in pending). One has been 25 days there, the other 13. I wrote Laurel, and I don't know what else to do.
If it was just one, I'd try to resend it, but two? Coincidence? I think NOT!
Help!

After that length of time, try resubmitting.

Most likely you will eventually get an AI rejection, but resibmitting avoids any other potential issues and rolls the dice on AI detection again.

 

[IsenRae]

I've been struggling with the pending badge on my pieces for some time now. I just re-submitted a piece that had been in pending for a couple of weeks. Removed all of the others. I did message Laurel, got no response.
I couldn't imagine it getting a rejection for ai, so I'm not sure what is happening.

I was enjoying writing and publishing here. But I've kind been hovering over my larger non-erotic work while I wait for this to resolve.

No use continuing a piece if I can't get it to the audience.

 

[ILoveMilfs69]

My story has been stuck in pending for over a month now, I've tried resubmitting a few times but nothing's changed. This has never happened to me before, all of them usually get approved in a day or two.

 

[AbbeFaria]

Pending for 28 days, and one message to the overlord. Still nothing. But hey...at least it hasn't been sent back as AI. So I got that going for me, I guess.

 

[AbbeFaria]

I recently got my AI-rejected chapter accepted after two failed tries. Happy to share what worked and didn't work, for me.

First try was to simply resubmit with a note. It sat for a couple of weeks and then got rejected with no further info.

Second try was a light edit for the items mentioned here as generic AI flags. Things like rules of three, numbering, etc. Again, that took a few weeks and same outcome.

Finally, I did what I was told NOT to do by most people here. I used AI to actually get around the problem. Here is what I did:

1. I used two AI detector packages (humanize and gptzero) to flag AI trigger sentences. I went to my chapter and highlighted those.
2. I then asked two AIs (ChatGPT and grok) to identify the paragraphs/sections of my chapter that they thought were most likely to be AI products. I highlighted those. I have very little confidence in either of the two above methods, but I figured, whatever was causing the flag, it was probably in there somewhere. At this point, nearly half my chapter was highlighted.
3. I deleted whole sections that had more blue than white.
4. I wrote those sections again from scratch.
5. Then I edited the whole chapter again, top to bottom.
6. Edited again, and again, until I felt it was BETTER than the original I had submitted.

So, I submitted that one, with a note saying I had rewritten half of it from scratch. It was accepted in 24 hours.

YMMV.

The fact that authors here are being reduced to this amount of work to simply post a story that they aren't getting paid for on a site that seems to actively hates authors should cause a mass exodus from this dumpster fire.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

That's when you have to put on your reader's hat and read your own work detached from the fact that you wrote it.

Or better yet, also listen to your work. Your ears will detect things that are written awkward faster than your eyes will.

 

[EmilyMiller]

on a site that seems to actively hates authors

I have had my own - very well documented - issues with the site, and in particular their frequent lack of responsiveness to obvious author issues (they did eventually respond to me - with some help from @MelissaBaby of course). But your guns are pointing the wrong way on this issue.

The actual fault is the lazy humans who submit actual AI slop here - because writing takes effort and who wants to put effort in LOLZ? The site is taking a principled stand - one I support - against this. But the methods of detecting AI - even the commercial ones which are much better than the free ones (professional knowledge) - are flaky as fuck. They have false positives and false negatives.

Sadly many genuine authors are caught, as well as the nefarious. I can only imagine how frustrating this is. But the site has to do something. I mentioned them being principled on this issue and I think they are. But there is also the question of legal liability. This arises as genAI has stolen everything it produces from copyright holders. It is to be hoped that eventually this area will be resolved by the courts in line with natural justice. If so, sites hosting stolen content would also be liable, so Literotica is protecting itself as well as the integrity of the writing process.

Blame should be placed with the people who submit AI slop. Without them acting so poorly, there would be no problem.

I fully acknowledge the additional issues faced by German language authors, it seems a German language reviewer is needed. But the issue is caused by other humans here, the site is doing what it can (with unreliable tools) to address it. I have some sympathy with them; as well as with the genuine authors caught up in this mess.

 

[metropolinational]

But the site has to do something.

I wish the site did this:
1. Reject slop, not just AI slop. It's actually quite easy to detect slop and it's rampant here.
2. Plagiarism detection technology is quite good. Use it.
3. If they feel like they must use AI detection, then publish the results along with the story. Give authors the chance to see the score before publishing and let them decide if they can live with the number or not. Personally, since I have zero faith in the software and my readers already hate me, I would not care if my stories were labeled as being 99% AI slop. That would look quite nice next to me 2.85 scores.

What the site is doing instead:
1. allowing slop to be published
2. randomly rejecting stories based on crap detection technology
3. allowing AI slop to be published

 

[EmilyMiller]

I wish the site did this:
1. Reject slop, not just AI slop. It's actually quite easy to detect slop and it's rampant here.
2. Plagiarism detection technology is quite good. Use it.
3. If they feel like they must use AI detection, then publish the results along with the story. Give authors the chance to see the score before publishing and let them decide if they can live with the number or not. Personally, since I have zero faith in the software and my readers already hate me, I would not care if my stories were labeled as being 99% AI slop. That would look quite nice next to me 2.85 scores.

What the site is doing instead:
1. allowing slop to be published
2. randomly rejecting stories based on crap detection technology
3. allowing AI slop to be published

Publishing the story along with an AI rating does nothing to reduce the site’s potential future legal liability. Having a good faith process that at least tries (if sometimes fails) to mitigate the issue does. I know what I would do if I was facing these risks.

 

[Periquito1]

I've been struggling with the pending badge on my pieces for some time now. I just re-submitted a piece that had been in pending for a couple of weeks. Removed all of the others. I did message Laurel, got no response.
I couldn't imagine it getting a rejection for ai, so I'm not sure what is happening.

I was enjoying writing and publishing here. But I've kind been hovering over my larger non-erotic work while I wait for this to resolve.

No use continuing a piece if I can't get it to the audience.

Same here. Wrote to Laurel, 2 feedbacks unanswered, resubmitted twice... Guess I'll search for another place to upload my stories, which are piling up now...

 

[AbbeFaria]

I have had my own - very well documented - issues with the site, and in particular their frequent lack of responsiveness to obvious author issues (they did eventually respond to me - with some help from @MelissaBaby of course). But your guns are pointing the wrong way on this issue.

The actual fault is the lazy humans who submit actual AI slop here - because writing takes effort and who wants to put effort in LOLZ? The site is taking a principled stand - one I support - against this. But the methods of detecting AI - even the commercial ones which are much better than the free ones (professional knowledge) - are flaky as fuck. They have false positives and false negatives.

Sadly many genuine authors are caught, as well as the nefarious. I can only imagine how frustrating this is. But the site has to do something. I mentioned them being principled on this issue and I think they are. But there is also the question of legal liability. This arises as genAI has stolen everything it produces from copyright holders. It is to be hoped that eventually this area will be resolved by the courts in line with natural justice. If so, sites hosting stolen content would also be liable, so Literotica is protecting itself as well as the integrity of the writing process.

Blame should be placed with the people who submit AI slop. Without them acting so poorly, there would be no problem.

I fully acknowledge the additional issues faced by German language authors, it seems a German language reviewer is needed. But the issue is caused by other humans here, the site is doing what it can (with unreliable tools) to address it. I have some sympathy with them; as well as with the genuine authors caught up in this mess.

You're not wrong, but I wouldn't say you're exactly right, either. Yes, people using AI and submitting it as their own is lazy and harms the work of authors like ourselves. It floods the space, makes it harder to get noticed, and generally degrades the user experience, as well. But that does not excuse the piss-poor decision making that went into the decision to institute this detection/rejection system. I also haven't been effected by that as, so far, my only story submission since this system came online has not been rejected as AI, it's just been pending for a month. The AI problem is just another nail in the coffin of this once-good site that has been destroyed by the laziness and hubris of the owners. The AI problem is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that stretch back literal decades. Band-aid after band-aid on this aging site architecture and overly-restrictive posting guildelines have made LE an inhospitable place to publish for a long time. Given the place they occupied in the online erotica landscape, they could have been the leaders. Instead, they are stuck in the 90s. FFS, I still have the option to put in my ICQ id in my profile.

 

[EmilyMiller]

overly-restrictive posting guildelines

Like?

 

[AbbeFaria]

Like?

The approval process (3 days to never), the inability to edit our own work for the fear that we might retroactively add unapproved content, the inability to even edit the title of our stories without an edit request that takes 4 to 6 weeks to never, and the inability to delete our own stories.

Oh, also, the story I submitted got rejected once before several months back (I had to think deeply about whether I still wanted to even try again) because I put, in an author's note at the beginning of the installment, that this was a sequel to the original story that was no longer available. I explained that it had to be removed to comply with publishing guidelines but that they could check my profile for information on reading book one. Standard notice for new readers that may be finding me for the first time and want to read book one. It was rejected. Can't even direct people to my profile if they want to learn more about my work. That is blatantly anti-author as it makes it harder for us to develop a fan base here. I didn't link anything, didn't say 'check out my patreon!' but I broke the rules. Compare that to a site like Royal Road which, sure, doesn't do erotica, but helps authors promote their work when they take it to Amazon. They have a partnership program! What doers LE have? Nada. Can't even reply directly to comments here to thank fans for their kind and gracious words.

 

[EmilyMiller]

the inability to delete our own stories.

You can have stories deleted. I have done so.

to comply with publishing guidelines

which publishing guidelines, which I guess was my actual question before.

That is blatantly anti-author as it makes it harder for us to develop a fan base here.

I’m not quite following what happened to you.

Compare that to a site like Royal Road which, sure, doesn't do erotica, but helps authors promote their work when they take it to Amazon.

I’d not find thaf helpful. It sounds like most of your issues are commercial publishing ones, do I have that right?