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

[SmilingLez]

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

You forgot the fact that the site owners make money on the back on us storytellers. With close to a million stories posted, the site owners can shutdown the ability to post any new stories and still profit on our labor. Stories were always the side dish, porn (buying cam time, videos, sex toys, etc.) - the main course. My opinion YMMV

 

[jsmiam]

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.

…

You’re right. But see below for more.

…
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.

Leaving and starting over will be easy. But it’ll be inconvenient. We complainers complain because we see, even if the site doesn’t, how easy it would be for lit to address very common complaints that fall into the basic customer service category. (Yes, we aren’t customers, I know. But we’re donors. I’m a multi-gallon blood donor because the blood bank treats me well.). And It’s irritating to see Lit let such easily solvable problems become major obstacles.

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.

Yes they clearly don’t care. You are completey right.



Final act: a confession. Given that Lit still has more readers than anywhere else, my “caring”, is in part self serving too. It’d be far easier and more convenient for me, if lit keeps its leadership position. My caring is partly selfish.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

And It’s irritating to see Lit let such easily solvable problems become major obstacles.

Objection, facts not in evidence.

None of us know what's going on under the hood at Lit, people can assume that all this stuff is "easily solvable". If that was the case, then many of those issues would have been solved.
As others more tech savvy than I am have noted, Lit appears (again we're all speculation but it fits the evidence we do have) to be built on an outdated house of cards. I suspect that it was built on the best system they could afford 25 years ago (when it was a hobby and they weren't making money) and it has been bubble gummed and bailing wired together for almost longer than I've been alive. We aren't talking about upgrading to the newest version of Word at this point.
All these "simple" things people want could cause all kinds of cascading failures in an already rickety database.

 

[SmilingLez]

Objection, facts not in evidence.


All these "simple" things people want could cause all kinds of cascading failures in an already rickety database.

What's worse is the silence when it comes to actual bugs/glitches/oopsies from the site owners. Private texting with the chosen few are unacceptable. Acknowledgment that the system has issues by the site owners is unacceptable.

Most of us just want open and honest communication from the site owners. Acknowledgment that there is an issue concerning pending status. Acknowledgement that the AI tools are flawed and some stories get rejected due to false positives while others get posted due to false negatives. Acknowledgment that there are some issues with the site in general, flickering screens, forum login issues, control panel issues, duplicate notifications etc

My opinion, YMMV

 

[Kelliezgirl]

What's worse is the silence when it comes to actual bugs/glitches/oopsies from the site owners. Private texting with the chosen few are unacceptable. Acknowledgment that the system has issues by the site owners is unacceptable.

Most of us just want open and honest communication from the site owners. Acknowledgment that there is an issue concerning pending status. Acknowledgement that the AI tools are flawed and some stories get rejected due to false positives while others get posted due to false negatives. Acknowledgment that there are some issues with the site in general, flickering screens, forum login issues, control panel issues, duplicate notifications etc

My opinion, YMMV

Everyone get their own definition of "unacceptable", they don't have to accept yours. If you don't like their policies and processes you are free to take your business elsewhere.

Would I prefer a more robust system and better communication? Sure, it would be nice. It's their site, they can do whatever they want. We can contribute here or not based on how we feel about that. They don't owe us a thing.

 

[qidniz]

None of us know what's going on under the hood at Lit, people can assume that all this stuff is "easily solvable". If that was the case, then many of those issues would have been solved.

That, sadly, is a non sequitur. The sticking point between "easily solvable" and "easily solved", never mind "already done", is inertia. TPTB are used to certain ways of doing things, no matter how cumbersome or inefficient these have become. Deploying solutions also means changes in procedures and workflows. Nope, not worth the hassle.

That's the way the world works. Especially in software. I speak from long (and bitter) experience.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That, sadly, is a non sequitur. The sticking point between "easily solvable" and "easily solved", never mind "already done", is inertia. TPTB are used to certain ways of doing things, no matter how cumbersome or inefficient these have become. Deploying solutions also means changes in procedures and workflows. Nope, not worth the hassle.

That's the way the world works. Especially in software. I speak from long (and bitter) experience.

What's the cost for those changes? I've heard software engineers expect to get paid. How do the costs relate to the current income derived from running Lit? How "easy" are these changes? What are the risks of the implementation?

Your argument seems to be "they could fix it, they just don't want to", as we've seen them implement changes and fixes, that's obviously not the case.

 

[Writer61]

One site estimates the value of Literotica.com to be US$1.4m, with ad revenue of $234k per annum.

Which is not to be sniffed at. That should be enough to pay for a few improvements.

 

[qidniz]

Your argument seems to be "they could fix it, they just don't want to", as we've seen them implement changes and fixes, that's obviously not the case.

No, my argument is that they don't want to make changes in their workflows. Fixes that don't threaten that are fine. Such as changes in the front end.

 

[SmilingLez]

One site estimates the value of Literotica.com to be US$1.4m, with ad revenue of $234k per annum.

Which is not to be sniffed at. That should be enough to pay for a few improvements.

Porn is big busine$$ and Literotica grabbed the coattails early on. Just stating fact

https://bedbible.com/porn-industry-revenue-statistics/

 

[Kelliezgirl]

No, my argument is that they don't want to make changes in their workflows. Fixes that don't threaten that are fine. Such as changes in the front end.

And you know this how?

 

[qidniz]

And you know this how?

I don't. It's my hypothesis about why "easily solvable" is not happening.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

One site estimates the value of Literotica.com to be US$1.4m, with ad revenue of $234k per annum.

Which is not to be sniffed at. That should be enough to pay for a few improvements.

What would the cost of those improvements be?
If we assume that number is accurate (it's on the internet, it must be true...) then they still have to pay all the expenses for running the site out of that.
Then they have to pay taxes on any profit.
Then they have to pay themselves.
Since they are small business owners they have to pay for their own healthcare, which isn't cheap...
And on and on...

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Porn is big busine$$ and Literotica grabbed the coattails early on. Just stating fact

https://bedbible.com/porn-industry-revenue-statistics/

Visual porn is big business, which explains why there are so many companies doing it.
Naughty stories is a small, small sub-niche of that, which is why there is so little competition in this space.
It's like arguing that fashion is big business so Gunther's Lederhosen Emporium must be a gold mine.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I don't. It's my hypothesis about why "easily solvable" is not happening.

So, a guess with nothing to back it up.

 

[Writer61]

What would the cost of those improvements be?
If we assume that number is accurate (it's on the internet, it must be true...) then they still have to pay all the expenses for running the site out of that.
Then they have to pay taxes on any profit.
Then they have to pay themselves.
Since they are small business owners they have to pay for their own healthcare, which isn't cheap...
And on and on...

I agree, it's not a gold mine, but it's not an empty hole either.

The real question is whether investment, however funded, could improve the return sufficiently to justify it.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I agree, it's not a gold mine, but it's not an empty hole either.

The real question is whether investment, however funded, could improve the return sufficiently to justify it.

And that's the rub. Things that make a few people in the AH happy cost x amount? What's the return on investment.
I don't think they are broke, but just because porn is a multi-billion dollar business doesnt mean Lit is all that profitable.
The kind of software they need isn't cheap.
They probably need to move everything to a new system lock stock and barrel, and that is prohibitively expensive.

 

[qidniz]

So, a guess with nothing to back it up.

Other than long experience with the phenomenon in other systems.

 

[SmilingLez]

With close to 1,000,000 stories already posted it makes no financial sense to fix anything at this point and that includes the pending purgatory issue as well as false positives and negatives when it comes to AI storytelling. For me, lack of public, honest, open, and transparent communication from the site owners is by far the biggest problem, And to fix this problem, it costs nothing. My opinion and YMMV

 

[SmilingLez]

What would the cost of those improvements be?
If we assume that number is accurate (it's on the internet, it must be true...) then they still have to pay all the expenses for running the site out of that.
Then they have to pay taxes on any profit.
Then they have to pay themselves.
Since they are small business owners they have to pay for their own healthcare, which isn't cheap...
And on and on...

If the site owners closed literotica -only leaving the story section open to readers, they would still make more money after expenses than the average American. Given their lack of open honest and transparent public communication, their only motive to leave literotica the way it is is greed. And that is a neutral statement neither positive nor negative. Greed is big business globally. Again this is my opinion and ymmv

 

[Kelliezgirl]

If the site owners closed literotica -only leaving the story section open to readers, they would still make more money after expenses than the average American. Given their lack of open honest and transparent public communication, their only motive to leave literotica the way it is is greed. And that is a neutral statement neither positive nor negative. Greed is big business globally. Again this is my opinion and ymmv

Can you give a breakdown of their expense, for comparison purposes?

Otherwise this is just a "anyone who won't do what I want must be a bad person with bad motives" argument, based on nothing but feels.

 

[SmilingLez]

One site estimates the value of Literotica.com to be US$1.4m, with ad revenue of $234k per annum.

Which is not to be sniffed at. That should be enough to pay for a few improvements.

@Kelliezgirl


FWIW, I NEVER ASKED FOR FIXES - I ONLY ASKED FOR PUBLIC HONEST TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION FROM THE SITE OWNERS!!


Edit - uppercase intentional because you have missed that point on numerous occasions

 

[Kelliezgirl]

@Kelliezgirl


FWIW, I NEVER ASKED FOR FIXES - I ONLY ASKED FOR PUBLIC HONEST TRANSPARENT COMMUNICATION FROM THE SITE OWNERS!!


Edit - uppercase intentional because you have missed that point on numerous occasions

And I've pointed out in this discussion that they don't owe any of us a damn thing. I've said before that better communication would be nice, but they don't owe it to us.


If you don't like they way they run their website...well... find a better one. Why would you want to hang out at a site run by evil greedy people anyway?

 

[AH_Mod]

The original purpose of this thread was served within the first two posts. As it is well on its way toward a flamewar, it will now be closed.