Forum: Site Announcements

I'm hoping that is an option at some point, I'd like to just get emails.

@Vlad_Inhaler
I'm hoping that is an option at some point, I'd like to just get emails.

Ditto. But These changes do help. Lazeez is listening, and that is what matters most.

Having a switch at the disposal of the author that can simply circumvent such protection negates the whole system.

Maybe it's my nagging to lazeez that helped push him to implement this. I hated how many authors put me on their mailing lists as soon as I sent them a 'thank you, good work' message.

aybe it's my nagging to lazeez that helped push him to implement this. I hated how many authors put me on their mailing lists as soon as I sent them a 'thank you, good work' message.

And that is totally inappropriate behavior on the part of the author. :-(

Maybe it's my nagging to lazeez that helped push him to implement this. I hated how many authors put me on their mailing lists as soon as I sent them a 'thank you, good work' message.

could be, however, I suspect it's much deeper than that.

BTW, you'd be surprised how many reader mailing lists I ended up on after replying to them direct and they had my email. However, I never bothered complaining about it. I just delete the jokes and the offers to joing anti-social media sites.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, the new mail system automatically manages pen names. Clever!

AJ

We are all creatures of habit and do not like change. We are used to receiving feedback by email and that is the way we want things to continue.

Excuse me, but there are more benefits lost than just 'not being comfortable with change'. As I stated earlier, the new system clearly benefits readers and SOL, but is less beneficial to authors.

For those who don't maintain a history of all their email, then they likely won't care. For those who do maintain such a history, we lose that ability, as well as the added features (html features and off-line messaging for extended conversations).

However, the new email alerts negate many of those lost features.

For those who do maintain such a history, we lose that ability

As I said earlier, we will just have to put in a bit more effort to retain that ability by manually archiving the messages, if we want to keep them forever.

Think of all those thousands of SOL emails you have archived CW. For many of them, the titles are so similar that it is hard to distinguish one from another. You are probably so overwhelmed by the mass of feedback messages you received in the past years that you would be unable to retrieve anything meaningful from them.

Think of all those thousands of SOL emails you have archived CW. For many of them, the titles are so similar that it is hard to distinguish one from another. You are probably so overwhelmed by the mass of feedback messages you received in the past years that you would be unable to retrieve anything meaningful from them.

Not really, since the old SOL emails all contain the specific chapter and username (at least in the replies). Once you isolate the specific date of the chapter, you can figure out which response you want.

However, they key is retaining old emails. That doesn't mean copying them all to text, but instead backing up your online email (which typically doesn't ALLOW backups). Instead, you need to open your email program, select "copy files to disk" from each email folder and then backing THOSE up.

Typically, I simply copy the backups to my new email folder, which then recopies them to my mail system. (Complicated, I know), but PC's are notoriously bad about allowing you access to your email internal data.

I dealt with trolls by turning off anonymous feedback.

I have five trolls who don't mind me knowing their email, since the gmail account name doesn't identify who they are. I also have one troll who uses their real name - they seriously object to all present tense stories and constantly send me abusive emails when I post a new story that uses either first person or present tense.

Which is where the second part of my comment comes in - Tag the person as JUNK in your email app. Viola, no more abusive emails.

That only

edit with full post mostly eaten by Gremlins.

That only only works if the email is from their email address, but when they send it from the SoL system it comes with the SoL address. Thus tagging their personal email as junk didn't stop the emails they send via SoL - but the new system will.

That only

Did you tag the rest of your comment as "JUNK"?

Did you tag the rest of your comment as "JUNK"?

no, but the Gremlins have been busy of late. I'll edit it with the full post.

The email headers have the sender as: Storiesonline Feedback < feedback @ storiesonline.net > - while the 'Reply to' address has the reader's email address.

Most email clients simply add the 'Sender' address to the block list when you hit the 'Add to junk' list button. To have it work off the 'Reply to' address takes more work to create a rule than I wish to do. It's easier for me to simply hit the delete key when I see those emails. With the new system I can easily report them to Lazeez and he can take some action about it. Thus the new system solves the issue for me.

All the other potential benefits are for authors. The largest of which is control over trolls, the main reason behind this change.

While I don't dispute this, I've never run into a troll. I get hundreds of messages about AWLL, but none of them have ever been abusive. And, honestly, the old system allowed for more convenient extended conversations, which happened quite often. I've taken to including my email address and asking correspondents to use it if they want a longer conversation.

In other words, I can work with the system, even if it isn''t optimal for me.

the old system allowed for more convenient extended conversations, which happened quite often.

you can always provide you own email address in the reply to them.

The largest of which is control over trolls, the main reason behind this change.

Which is the reason I asked for a "block user" option so that an author can block a specific user.

Lazeez, do what you think is best. You'll never please everyone.

When you changed the forum from emails to it's current form I was annoyed. I liked doing it through email. But it's better this way. Much better.

I don't save email feedback. I don't save email addresses. So it doesn't affect me. When you first announced the new messaging system I asked for email notification because I thought I'd miss messages since I don't go to the SOL home page often. But I've learned to go there to check for messages. No big deal. The positive side effect of having to go to the SOL site is my stories won't get archived to Premier until 5 years after I die.

I asked for email notification because I thought I'd miss messages since I don't go to the SOL home page often. But I've learned to go there to check for messages. No big deal. The positive side effect of having to go to the SOL site is my stories won't get archived to Premier until 5 years after I die.

In my case, even though I typically visit the site every single day, I rarely open the main window, instead going directly to the "Story Update" and "Author stats" pages for each site. Thus I kept finding responses to stories several days after they were first posted. But the newest changes address that shortfall.

I thought I'd miss messages since I don't go to the SOL home page often.

I very rarely see the 'Home' page, but I check the 'My Library' page with my 'Favourite Authors' several times a day to see if they've put up a new story or blog etc. The 'Mail' link and its notifications are on that the same as the 'SoL Home' page, so I see them there.

All the other potential benefits are for authors. The largest of which is control over trolls, the main reason behind this change.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Since I've never really gotten much troll emailing (I've gotten much more score-bombing), I hadn't noticed this, though on other sites, it's MUCH more common (as the spambots capture your email address and inundate your email with spam, forcing you to abandon one email address after another). Still, I hadn't seen that happening on SOL, while I HAVE seen it on other sites (including my own, where WordPress doesn't have any way to block such actions).

Still, I'm satisfied with the new workaround, as sending me the original emails and their replies allows me to keep the messages indefinitely (as well as capturing the positive reviews for stories).

but how the hell does someone message a reader (i.e. someone without a specific message link?).

If they sent you a message through the new system you simply go to the message in the new system, open the message (or any message by them), and click on the 'Reply' button. If you deleted the message from them instead of archiving it, it may be a bit hard to deal with.

If you archived the message then you go to the archive page to find the message. Top left bar of the message system has the links - Home (SoL Homepage) - In Box (your inbox) Sent (your sent messages) - Archive (the messages you archived) - - click on link and view list, click on message to read and reply

If they sent a message under the old system their email address is usually in the email headers and the reply button works.

If they sent a message under the old system their email address is usually in the email headers and the reply button works.

But didn't Lazeez say (somewhere) that the new system enabled reader-to-reader exchanges (I'm guessing, private conversations triggered by story comments). That's what I was trying to activate, in order to send a private message to follow up on something I didn't want to say publicly on the Forum.

in order to send a private message to follow up on something I didn't want to say publicly on the Forum.

Ahh - the SoL story servers and the Forum servers use different code for most of it, so there's likely to be a disconnect between the two systems. To do what you want, simply ask the reader who posted the froum message to send you a personal email through the 'Contact Author' mail system - you can do that with a forum post.

Ahh - the SoL story servers and the Forum servers use different code for most of it, so there's likely to be a disconnect between the two systems. To do what you want, simply ask the reader who posted the froum message to send you a personal email through the 'Contact Author' mail system - you can do that with a forum post.

I trust he can accomplish that, but Lazeez corrected the situation, so now there really is no need. As I said, I really didn't want to make the offer publicly on the forum, so tried the new system, but it's not enabled yet (if it's ever scheduled to be).

I was mistaken in believing it was already enabled. I'm so used to his magic that I expect Lazeez to be everywhere, all the time, sprinkling his magic fairy dust on all the servers. He's spoiled us with his rapid responses.

Lazeez to be everywhere, all the time, sprinkling his magic fairy dust on all the servers.

Lazeez has had to slow down because his magic wand burnt out from over use.

Lazeez has had to slow down because his magic wand burnt out from over use.

It's no wonder he's slowed down. He's too busy sprinkling his magic fairy dust with his magic wand. Those fairies must be walking bowlegged by now!

And that's when you know a forum thread has finally finished, when the stupid puns and internal jokes take over.

And that's when you know a forum thread has finally finished, when the stupid puns and internal jokes take over.

nah, the thread is dead when the jokes cease to be funny.

nah, the thread is dead when the jokes cease to be funny.

If that was the case, they'd never start in the first place!

We may be struggling authors, but punsters we ain't!

We may be struggling authors, but punsters we ain't!

speak for yourself, I'm a well known pernicious purveyor of puny poor puerile puns.

For now, the new messaging system isn't integrated with the forum. So you can't initiate contact with a reader because there is no anchor point to start from.

That's fine. As I said, I recalled you saying something about reader-to-reader messages, but it may have been a planned future expansion (or my hearing the voices inside my head, instead of those in your messaging system).

Either way, I can survive without the functionality at the moment. I thought I was simply missing something.

Did I send an email or a new SOL type message?

I'm pretty sure it's the new message system, but I just sent you a test message that way, so You should have the answer in seconds, if not already.

I just sent you a test message that way

The new messaging system.

The new messaging system.

ayep, and i got an email alert there was a message when you replied. So now everyone who reads this thread knows how it works.

There is no more email. I just kept the link names the same to help with the transition.

I'm pretty sure that's what we were all assuming. Switch was just trying to confirm (since I hadn't responded yet).

It went thru the new messaging system, and through that, to my OLD email system (i.e. both systems are working fine). I was just slow in responding, given all my blog posts today.

organize the archive the way we wanted to.

Lazeez has said he intends to include a tagging system to help sort the messages. He's also said he'll look at including a delete option, mind you, he's already said they'll get deleted after a year, anyway.

As to moving them back to the InBox - all you need to do is be very sure before you move it from the InBox to the Archives in the first place. I've got five read message still in the InBox so i can go through them for further action later.

With the change of the reply window to have a 'Send & Archive' button as well as a 'Send' button that's a lot easier to manage. 'Send' leaves it in the InBox while the 'Send & Archive' moves it to the Archive at the same time - thus saving you time to do that.