Stories stuck in pending, series not working properly, data not up to date on stories

[Claire_RA]

@Manu and @Laurel

I hope I mentioned the correct people here.

I want to use this thread to go through several issues I encountered while I've tried to post the chapters of a novel I'm writing as part of a series.

I started to post my novel Divergent Limit on May 15. The first two chapters

Element 0 - Prologue (Submitted May 15 , Published May 16, according to my notifications)
Element 01 - A HInt Of Summer (Submitted May 21, Published May 23, according to my notifications)

have been published here successfully, somewhat at least. According to my memory, it took about 12 hours or so until they got approved.

I also created immediately a series for my novel: Divergent Limit

A few things immediately stand out when you click on these links. If you click on the series link, you see that in the description of the series the text is full of ?-symbols where there should actually be ", ', and ö. Why that is the case I have no idea, but it's of course not a good look. Since I don't know what the issue here is and since I also can't just edit the description without sending the series back to "pending approval" (which took more than 10 days to get approved the first time I think) I don't know what to do to fix this.

If you follow this link to the page where the series is listed, it seems to be that only on my series there are no statistics being shown (views, favorites, comments, lists). I'm not saying the series has particularly impressive engagement metrics so far, but the site signaling to potential readers that there has been 0 engagement with the story isn't particularly encouraging for me as the author.

The statistics shown on the two published chapters are also out of date, especially on "Element 01 - A Hint Of Summer". Here is what it says on the story page versus what it says on my control panel.

Element 0 - Prologue:

• Public: Rating 4.48, Views 968
• Control Panel: Rating 4.48, Views: 1051

Element 01 - A Hint Of Summer:

• Public: Rating 4.15, Views 428
• Control Panel: Rating 4.44, Views 719

So especially Element 1 seems to be stuck on the views and rating of day 1 or 2 after I published it. Again, I'm not saying these are secretly massively popular stories, but as the author I would of course prefer it if potentially interested readers would see the true higher rating close the Hot-threshold and not the outdated 4.15 rating. I find that particularly worrysome because from my experience there seems to be a tendency here to downvote stories shortly after they are published. At least, almost all of my stories have improved their average rating after day 1 of being published.

Also, on the individual stories, there is no link to the series under Story Info. That is an issue that I have also observed for other authors' series. i talked about this in detail here already. Following a suggestion from @TheLobster I used the "New Feedback" feature from the control panel where I explained the issue with the series again and linked to the same thread that I linked to here again. I sent that feedback on June 5, so 11 days ago at this point. So far, no response, nor has the issue of the missing links to the series on the individual chapters of the story been solved.

On May 29 I submitted

Element 02 - I Hate Kurt Gödel (ID: 4415109)

the third chapter in the Divergent Limit series. The story has not been approved since then. I resubmitted the story on June 6 (edited the story, added one tag, resubmitted it) since I heard that this might help when a story is stuck in pending due to a bug. It didn't

I also mentioned that the story is stuck in pending in my feedback post regarding the series on June 5.

On June 10 I submitted

Element 03 - Midnight Ramen (ID: 4428835)

the fourth chapter in the Divergent Limit series. I added a note for the moderators in which I asked to please publish Element 02 first. I was hoping that maybe submitting the next part and adding a note for the moderators like this might reach somebody. Instead, Element 03 has now been pending for 6 days too.

In the meantime, other multi part series like Princess of the Fae had at least 5 new parts published in the Novellas and Novels category which is where I'm publishing the chapters of my series too. So I'm fairly confident that the issue is not a giant backlog of stories being worked through.


That is my experience with posting a series here:

• Stories are stuck in pending
• The two published chapters show no link to the series
• The description text of the series can't handle quotation marks or ' and ö
• The public engagement metrics on my series aren't shown at all
• The public engagement metrics on the individual chapters are outdated by weeks at this point
• Using the feedback feature from the control panel got not response
• Posting the series-related issue on the forum got no official response despite the thread being moved by a moderator from the Editor's Forum to the Author's Hangout
• Adding a note to a newly submitted story to make moderators aware of the previous story being stuck in pending had no effect

Before anybody gets me wrong: I'm not saying I expect every story to get approved within hours. I understand that this site is run apparently by only very few people who have to handle a ton of stories. What I can say though that as an author who only wants to post her stories in a somewhat regular fashion here, it is deeply frustrating. I'd just like to post a new part like once a week. Then suddenly, one part is stuck for weeks, my published stories show no links to the series, the series description is a mess, and the public statistics on my stories look worse than they are. When you try to reach someone, it is incredibly hard to figure out what even the intended way to do that is. And when you do find certain ways to reach out, the response seems to be silence.

If I'm doing something wrong, please tell me. All I want is to post the chapters of my novel here in a semi-regular, reliable fashion. Thank you for your time!

 

[Claire_RA]

A few hours after I created the first post, the issues that I've mentioned have mostly been fixed. I would like to say thank you to the anonymous helper who took a look. It is much appreciated!

For anybody else reading this, this means that Element 02 and Element 03 have now been approved and are scheduled for release tomorrow (June 17) and the day after tomorrow (June 18).

Element 0 and Element 01 now both show the link to the series and the statistics look to be up to date.

The only thing that's still missing are the stats on the series as a whole, and the description of the series is still showing weird ?-symbols, but maybe that will be fixed with the update of the story catalogue tomorrow.

Again, I have sadly no idea who the person is who read my post and fixed things for me, but you have my sincere gratitude if you're reading this. Thank you!

 

[donaldworrell]

now fix vegitto306 pending story. Going on two months pending

 

[Catcher78]

I have posted stories since the update that will not be published. Various suggestions as to use of AI, which is not true. Then I said on another one that is based on a true story, and it was rejected by the use of 'true', which was something previously used by classic 'loving wives' authors as well as me prior to the update. Now they just languish.

 

[kopinov]

I've been waiting nearly four months now.

 

[SmilingLez]

The pending Purgatory bug is alive and well (since 2003 - that was the earliest report I could find) and affecting more people.

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/possible-pending-purgatory-fix.1655295/

The only hack that seems to work for most people most of the time is getting a second account because their original account is toast. The downside, you have two accounts with two sets of work and there's no guarantee that you won't get bitten by the Pending Purgatory bug again.

As always my opinion and YMMV

 

[SmilingLez]

Seems like the pending bug posts from 2003 are no longer visible.

Would like to know why these posts are no longer visible while recent ones still are?

 

[SmilingLez]

It looks like my post about bug reports concerning pending status going back as far as 2003 and wondering why I can't find them, now has been mysteriously moved from the Lit Tech Support Forum (where according to the description bug reports go) to the Authors Hangout.


The same thing happened to my Pending Purgatory bug report as well as the misclassification bug report where four of my stories which had been posted live for months were mysteriously rejected without reason.

 

[Catcher78]

The pending Purgatory bug is alive and well (since 2003 - that was the earliest report I could find) and affecting more people.

https://forum.literotica.com/threads/possible-pending-purgatory-fix.1655295/

The only hack that seems to work for most people most of the time is getting a second account because their original account is toast. The downside, you have two accounts with two sets of work and there's no guarantee that you won't get bitten by the Pending Purgatory bug again.

As always my opinion and YMMV

I just deleted eight stories that sat. for a month. Absolutely nothing wrong with some follow ons earlier published the other new. I just dropped a part two of my most heaving reacted to loving wife story 'How do you unsee, p2' I capitalized the title, which is apparently a new no-no and was rejected. Fixed that and reposted it and I promise you it's dead. There is another that's sitting and dead. Meanwhile lots of dreck gets posted.

 

[Catcher78]

I've been waiting nearly four months now.

Almost surely there is nothing wrong with your story. They will not admit there's anything wrong with their process. Lots of hubris.

 

[Catcher78]

A few hours after I created the first post, the issues that I've mentioned have mostly been fixed. I would like to say thank you to the anonymous helper who took a look. It is much appreciated!

For anybody else reading this, this means that Element 02 and Element 03 have now been approved and are scheduled for release tomorrow (June 17) and the day after tomorrow (June 18).

Element 0 and Element 01 now both show the link to the series and the statistics look to be up to date.

The only thing that's still missing are the stats on the series as a whole, and the description of the series is still showing weird ?-symbols, but maybe that will be fixed with the update of the story catalogue tomorrow.

Again, I have sadly no idea who the person is who read my post and fixed things for me, but you have my sincere gratitude if you're reading this. Thank you!

tons of long term writers have bailed

 

[Kelliezgirl]

With regards to the views and ratings, that isn't a bug.
Your control panel updates every time you refresh it. The site wide data that readers see on the story page updates on a regular schedule.
Just the way the site works.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

tons of long term writers have bailed

But the number of stories being published is going up.
So either the reports of Lits demise are premature, or we have a case of, "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

 

[Catcher78]

But the number of stories being published is going up.
So either the reports of Lits demise are premature, or we have a case of, "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

I don't believe that.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't believe that.

Roughly two hundred submissions a week, as I recall someone counting, which is probably double what it was ten years ago. Submissions kicked up during Covid, and haven't dropped since.

 

[StillStunned]

Roughly two hundred submissions a week, as I recall someone counting, which is probably double what it was ten years ago. Submissions kicked up during Covid, and haven't dropped since.

Two hundred a day, I thought.

 

[Writer61]

If you follow this link to the page where the series is listed, it seems to be that only on my series there are no statistics being shown (views, favorites, comments, lists).

It's not you. The series page does not show any stats. Even in the works listing, only comments and lists are aggregated.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The New page typically has more than two pages of stories with today's date, and I think one page is 75 stories, so that's getting towards 200 a day. Back in 1999 they got 15-20 (sometimes more) submissions every day. How do I know this?

Near the top of the AH are some tabs for going back in the past: 1 2 3 ... 1552. So I wondered what the earliest posts on AH were, and clicked on that 1552. Fascinating. They're from late 1999, and in the shrieking lament "WHAT DOES ONE NEED TO SUBMIT A STORY?" we find that some things never change, and others have changed a lot. This guy's complaint was that he submitted a story, but a few hours later ten others appeared, but not his! So complaints about long delays are nothing new.

The next person answered, 'It takes up to a week or so to see a story posted here, since there is a bit of a backlog.' - So long backlogs were already known.

Then Laurel answered. And she kept on answering, chatting, enthusing about her love for boxing, and being very human. I'll only quote her first answer, but the whole thread is fascinating:

As I've said before, Manu and I run this site together. We both work "real" jobs and do this in our "spare" time (read: 6-10 hours a day). We get 15-20 story submissions (sometimes more) every day, and we read and post each one personally. In addition, we have email to respond to, technical problems to work out, and general site maintenance. I love Literotica, but at times it is difficult to keep up with the demand, and it is most frustrating for us when the people we are trying to please are unhappy with us. We want to keep the site free, and so we can't really afford to quit our jobs and do this full-time. We thank you for your patience. take care...

 

[BeechLeaf]

*laughter* And on Aug 7, 2000, the renowned Dixon Carter Lee commented on a thread in AH:

Guy, you're new here, if you're going to worry about threads going off on tangents you're going to have to complain about every single thread. Don't worry about making rules for us, we've been doing this a long time.

Welcome to the Board.

 

[Voboy]

The pending Purgatory bug is alive and well (since 2003 - that was the earliest report I could find) and affecting more people.

You've made this statement in many, many threads that I've seen, and I don't doubt it; I'm mostly just curious about how prevalent you think it was back then?

Meaning, one "early report" of a bug doesn't necessarily mean there was a long-term problem in this regard. Was it several reports from that long ago? If you've done that research, I'm curious what you've uncovered.

My own perception is that the "PP bug" is fairly recent at the level we've been discussing it. At what level do you think it existed in 2003?

 

[Writer61]

My own perception is that the "PP bug" is fairly recent at the level we've been discussing it. At what level do you think it existed in 2003?

I can't speak for pre-history, but in the bit over two years that I have been here, things were markedly worse in the second half of 2025. Since then, things have improved, at least for me.

My last three stories were all approved in <48 hours. Admittedly, all are contest entries, but the window for one has not opened yet, so it should not be a priority.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

The New page typically has more than two pages of stories with today's date, and I think one page is 75 stories, so that's getting towards 200 a day. Back in 1999 they got 15-20 (sometimes more) submissions every day. How do I know this?

Near the top of the AH are some tabs for going back in the past: 1 2 3 ... 1552. So I wondered what the earliest posts on AH were, and clicked on that 1552. Fascinating. They're from late 1999, and in the shrieking lament "WHAT DOES ONE NEED TO SUBMIT A STORY?" we find that some things never change, and others have changed a lot. This guy's complaint was that he submitted a story, but a few hours later ten others appeared, but not his! So complaints about long delays are nothing new.

The next person answered, 'It takes up to a week or so to see a story posted here, since there is a bit of a backlog.' - So long backlogs were already known.

Then Laurel answered. And she kept on answering, chatting, enthusing about her love for boxing, and being very human. I'll only quote her first answer, but the whole thread is fascinating:

As I've said before, Manu and I run this site together. We both work "real" jobs and do this in our "spare" time (read: 6-10 hours a day). We get 15-20 story submissions (sometimes more) every day, and we read and post each one personally. In addition, we have email to respond to, technical problems to work out, and general site maintenance. I love Literotica, but at times it is difficult to keep up with the demand, and it is most frustrating for us when the people we are trying to please are unhappy with us. We want to keep the site free, and so we can't really afford to quit our jobs and do this full-time. We thank you for your patience. take care...

That's awesome, thank you for sharing!

 

[jsmiam]

Some of us “complainers” are just trying to help.

Lit hasn’t dwindled into obscurity. Maybe never. Or maybe not yet. Who knows.

But somewhere out there (I’m repeating myself from another thread) is the next txtalltales, dreamcloud, lovecraft68, etc., and either it has happened or it will happen, that one of those people gives up on lit and by going elsewhere, helps some other site gain momentum and market share and readers.

It’s dumb of lit not to care, and not to try harder to keep its leading position by offering the most basic efforts at catering to us donors of free content. Yes, the reader is their customer. But try having an erotica site (or a blood bank) without donors. It doesn’t work.

The fact is, if or when some competitor bursts onto the scene, it’ll be super easy for authors to ditch lit. Think about MySpace. Do we really care that it’s basically gone? We do not. Something else came along. The same can happen to lit.

 

[SmilingLez]

You've made this statement in many, many threads that I've seen, and I don't doubt it; I'm mostly just curious about how prevalent you think it was back then?

Meaning, one "early report" of a bug doesn't necessarily mean there was a long-term problem in this regard. Was it several reports from that long ago? If you've done that research, I'm curious what you've uncovered.

My own perception is that the "PP bug" is fairly recent at the level we've been discussing it. At what level do you think it existed in 2003?

I saw a handful of pending reports from about 2003 to just before covid. More during covid to present day. There were reactions and some replies by other people, so I don't know if they were experiencing it too. In addition there was no reply from the site owners on any of the reports. It's also possible that pending issues were moved by the site owners from the tech support forum to the AH as my 2 were. This leads me to believe that when the forum was built, the site owners forgot to give themselves permission to delete comments from the tech support forum and only able to move the posts to other sections (so they don't have to deal with them). Again my opinion and ymmv

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Some of us “complainers” are just trying to help.

Lit hasn’t dwindled into obscurity. Maybe never. Or maybe not yet. Who knows.

But somewhere out there (I’m repeating myself from another thread) is the next txtalltales, dreamcloud, lovecraft68, etc., and either it has happened or it will happen, that one of those people gives up on lit and by going elsewhere, helps some other site gain momentum and market share and readers.

It’s dumb of lit not to care, and not to try harder to keep its leading position by offering the most basic efforts at catering to us donors of free content. Yes, the reader is their customer. But try having an erotica site (or a blood bank) without donors. It doesn’t work.

The fact is, if or when some competitor bursts onto the scene, it’ll be super easy for authors to ditch lit. Think about MySpace. Do we really care that it’s basically gone? We do not. Something else came along. The same can happen to lit.

I don't doubt that some people are trying to help, but at some point you have to realize that the site doesn't want our help.

Maybe some other site figures out the formula and becomes the next big text porn site, maybe they don't. But your point about MySpace cuts both ways. Do I care that MySpace is gone? Nope, because I can just move on to the next thing.
I like Lit, I want Lit to be successful, but I'm not invested, I don't have skin in the game, this site isn't paying my bills. If I try to go to Lit tomorrow and I get a 404 error and find out that the whole site is gone... whelp... I'll go find another site to upload my stories to. Life will go on.

If Jsmiam's Smutty Stories becomes the next big thing in stories... I'll post them there. It will take me a fraction of the time people waste complaining Lit isn't exactly the way they think it should be, or the endless conspiracy theories.

TLDR: We aren't important and Lit doesn't care. Go touch some grass, then write some porn.