Another live author bites the dust, sadly.
https://storiesonline.net/ablog/jody-daniel
I'm not living in their shoes or seeing the messages they are getting, but it seems like a massive overreaction. The story currently has over 42,000 downloads, 300+ votes with a score of 8.36, at this moment. People seem to like it. Feels like a 'turn the comments off' situation, if the few are overshadowing the many.
Just my thoughts. I hope things calm down and they stick around.
I sent him a very positive comment when I read that. We need to send him more positive comments.
I have too. Hope after a break he might reconsider that final sounding "goodbye". Really good to have a bit of different perspective and style to the stories. The ratio of good authors to poor seems to have slipped enough without losing another one.
Fingers crossed!
The more unique voices, the more options everyone has (no size fits everyone). Similarly, I don't mind gay, scat or snuff tales, I just choose not to read those I'm not crazy about, as seeing them doesn't offend me in any way.
If someone can let one or even a few trolls chase them offline then maybe they shouldn't be online.
This is something I will never understand, how can you let someone you never met or even know get you that upset? Trolls have been around all through history. There is 100% chance someone will troll you just on the hope they can upset you.
Jody has always been a trooper, so if they scared her off, it had to have been pretty over the top. Which given the recent change of content and reader responses, doesn't surprise me. The old adage applies, "Hater gonna hate", just like serpents and spiders bite. It's just their nature (or alternately "jerks be jerks").
This is something you can blame fairly and squarely on the internet.
Not one in 1,000 of those armchair experts would bother (or be able) to write a letter complaining about a story. Much less sign their name to the complaint.
When you make it easy enough for an infant to do it, infants will do it.
This is something you can blame fairly and squarely on the internet.
I disagree. Blaming the internet is too broad. It falls squarely on social media. But the problem isn't just the trolls but also the people who act surprised that there are trolls in the first place. No matter how skinny you are someone will call you fat because you gave them the ability to do that.
I disagree. Blaming the internet is too broad. It falls squarely on social media
Trolls were a thing on Usenet in the 90s. To the point where one major troll actually sued a dozen individuals and companies for, in effect, pointing out he was a troll.
My one and only appearance in federal district court (representing myself). I won.
Were you the troll or one of the defendants? Asking for a friend
One of the many defendants. 😜
Trolls were a thing on Usenet in the 90s. To the point where one major troll actually sued a dozen individuals and companies for, in effect, pointing out he was a troll.
True, but the internet was still in its infancy where mostly only nerds and trolls were using it. The internet back then was still mostly dial-up (I miss that sound). It wasn't till MySpace in 2003 that trolling really took off.
I don't think the word 'troll' was used but Usenet and NewsGroups were a great source of debate, although it was probably more polite and restrained than today's casual environment...You have to be pretty old school to recall those days but probably a building block if you will.
Back then a floppy disc flopped more than a limp dick and a new 20 Meg hard drive cost 2,000 dollars with the tag line "So big no one will fill it."
"So big no one will fill it."
When the hard drive came out, I removed one of my 2 floppies from my 1980 IBM PC and replaced it with a 10mb hard drive, converting my IBM PC to an XT.
I actually thought there was no way to fill a 10mb drive on a PC.
I actually thought there was no way to fill a 10mb drive on a PC.
And then they came out with the 3 1/2" 1.4 meg disc and programs that had up to 10 discs to install. I still have hundreds of them.
I miss going to the computer shows at the Civic center. Now we don't even have a Fry's to go to.
Or when the monthly computer magazine, Computer Shopper (UK) was the same thickness as the phone book, and now, it doesn't even exist any-more... 🤷♀️
Either does the phone book.
In the UK, they are no longer issued automatically, but BT will still provide you with a physical one (if you pay for it).
EDIT: Out of curiosity, I went and had a look. BT stopped selling printed versions in September of this year. So yes, you are correct, neither does the printed version of the phone book....
They don't want you looking up the residential numbers you want for free. They charge for information, and if you try to look someone up on the web, you usually get routed to a pay site that may or may not give the correct number.
They don't want you looking up the residential numbers you want for free. They charge for information, and if you try to look someone up on the web, you usually get routed to a pay site that may or may not give the correct number.
Not true in the UK. You can freely download a pdf of the phone book (https://www.bt.com/help/the-phone-book/a-z-directory-finder).
Back in the day, only those who lived nearby would known who you were or where you lived. People didn't move quite as rapidly or have access to as much info. as now.
Though honestly, I gave up even looking for those details anymore, as it's virtually impossible to use either phones or text apps any more given the spam and malware. Who needs that kind of grief?
We (U.S.A) often have local ones, yet it depends on the local community. But again, there's no simple way of going a widespread search.
In the US the magazines came with a CD packed full of Shareware programs and games. Still have a bunch of them also.
In the US the magazines came with a CD packed full of Shareware programs and games. Still have a bunch of them also.
I had a subscription to Creative Computing and typed in the game programs every month, having to translate from whichever BASIC the author used to either Apple II or TRS-80 BASIC.
Then there was 101 BASIC Computer Games, which was later republished without the '101' in the title.
Been there done that. First with an Apple ][+, then an Apple ][e, and finally an Apple ][ GS. That one I added a PC Transporter and started running MS-DOS on the Apple in the late 80's and early 90's. It wouldn't run anything past Windows 3.21. Finally got a real Windows 95 machine.
Before Fry's arrived, there were 2 computer stores (Computer City bought out by CompUSA, and Circuit City) about a half mile apart here in Phoenix that would compete to see could have the lowest prices. One week they each offered 150 packs of 3 1/2" 1.4 meg discs with 100% rebate, so it only cost you sales tax and a stamp. Then a few weeks later they offered 100 packs of CD-R discs on the same basis. I've still got unopened packs of CD-R's and 3 1/2" discs.
I don't think the word 'troll' was used but Usenet and NewsGroups were a great source of debate, although it was probably more polite and restrained than today's casual environment...You have to be pretty old school to recall those days but probably a building block if you will.
Troll was absolutely used back then, and to suggest that Usenet was more polite is, well, an error.
Good newsreaders implemented both poster and topic kill lists so you could avoid the trolls.
Back then, with fewer people using the 'pre-internet, Usenet, everyone felt like they were a part of the community. Now, again where anyone can post anything anonymously, all bets of off and responses continually grow worse as everyone has their own "Hate List" of subject and topics.
At least those folks can't shoot you quite as easily.
The term "troll" was absolutely used in Usenet. Perusing the prolific rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan was where "stop feeding the trolls" became part of my near regular lexicon.
The term "troll" was absolutely used in Usenet.
There was a whole vocabulary, most of which I've forgotten.
Shill?
AJ
Yes, but to be fair, that was simply a very slight derivation from the verb or noun "shill", which is a common term used for selling or being a sales person/promoter of something:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shill
Yeah, I really miss when "Freedom of speech" was still a thing. Simpler times I guess.
Hi all, just to clarify, I'm not a troll as has been claimed.
I have been a member on here for 6 years or so and only made a few comments in the past. I have also read all of Jody's stories and enjoyed most of them (the one with the ghost wasn't my cup of tea).
However, on his latest story, I was bugged by what I consider a glaring hole in the plot / character development, I waiting a couple of chapters to see if it would be fixed, but alas it wasn't.
So, I did what I consider the correct thing to do, I left a comment on the story in the comment section of the story. If I have misinterpreted the purpose of the comments section, then can someone please provide clarity on what it is for.
Another user then posted a long winded response to my comment concentrating on a throw away 2 word phrase I used and ignoring the main part of my criticism. Half his comments were irrelevant and the other half ignored the events in the 13 chapters of the story up to that point. So, I wrote a rebuttal and expanded on my issues with the plot, was that rebuttal sarcastic, absolutely, it my default setting. But supposedly all members of this site are 18 years or older and if an adult is offended by sarcasm from a stanger, then instead of an apology I offer a spoonful of cement.
Now, up to this point I have never address any insults at Jody despite what he claimed in his most recent post. My Asshole comment was directed at fictional character in a make believe world. But based on the way he has behaved over the last few days, that is about to change.
Jody's original blog post (the 1 linked in the original post) can be boiled down to:
"Someone was mean to my imaginary friends so I'm going to quit"
That is illogical, but I have 2 theories that might explain it.
1. Jody is a toddler in a man's body and his natural response to any criticism is to chuck a tantrum, or
2. It was a cry for attention, "someone had something negative to say about my story, so I will tell everyone I'm going to quit, so that everyone else tells me how good I am to inflate my ego and I can come back by popular demand".
Based on his most recent blog post, #2 seems most likely, but it probably a combination both.
So, to the "more than a thousand" people who sent him messages, congratulations, you did exactly what you were meant to and gave an ego boost to a petty little man.
Jody, if you read this, don't bother waiting the 3 days, and do what you are going to do. And if the concerns I raised about the plot/characters are wrong, then please tell us all why. Because as far as I can see you have never addressed them, you have just played the victim and directed hatred at me for publicly pointing them out.
Admin, if Jody does submit a complaint about me, please consider this my response. Also, you might need to examine your ID verification process to become a member, because it appears that you have a bunch of children and mindless sheep with accounts.
Something I wish I had learned in my youth; criticize in private, compliment in public. I also learned that there is a way to criticize politely and helpfully.
I am sorry that you feel you now have to insult more than a thousand of us readers to justify that you are not a troll.
I am just a reader who enjoys the free fictional content here.
Happytechguy15 said,
criticize in private, compliment in public.
Well said!
I do, occasionally, post what I believe to be constructive criticism, and if there is not a way to PM the author, I might comment on the story, or in the forums. I realize some authors don't want any feedback. I don't intend to bother them. However, I have benefitted from reading criticism, and suggested improvements in other peoples' stories, and I believe I have improved my writing based upon that feedback. So, even if the author I am commenting about doesn't respond, I hope that others might benefit.
So, occasionally, there is a purpose to making a public criticism, however, I avoid making the criticism insulting.
Sometimes there are choices an author makes, that not everyone understands. I have replied to critics, explaining why I made a decision to not have proper grammar in dialog, or even descriptive text, because I was trying to set a particular tone. Vernacular often doesn't translate well for people who have a different native language than English; or a person from a different culture, say New Zealand.
I appreciate the free stories available on SoL, and I also appreciate those who have offered me constructive criticism.
P.S. I am glad that Jody is choosing to remain, I have enjoyed his stories!
I can see not wanting to be criticized, but NOT caring if the story has issues seems a bit over-the-top, as well as immature. If you can't stand the criticism, then stay off the field.
Now, up to this point I have never address any insults at Jody
You should have stopped there.
Jody is a respected author who does a lot of research for his stories. At the end of the day it's his story and he's free to write it how he judges best. And SOL readers are very impressed with his choices.
You, of course, are free to write your own stories and make different choices.
AJ
Sorry, but this weak-a** apology is fooling no one, as your hostile, juvenile response is as plain as day.
So, I did what I consider the correct thing to do, I left a comment on the story in the comment section of the story. If I have misinterpreted the purpose of the comments section, then can someone please provide clarity on what it is for.
I haven't read either the story in question or your post, but to answer your question here - assuming you had extensive and (what you consider) significant feedback to the author about their story you should have used the 'contact author' button to send them the feedback directly. This would have both avoided getting in what sounds like a pointless argument with other readers, and had a better chance of the author taking the feedback as intended, while giving them a chance to figure out how (or if) they want to address it before mentioning anything in public.
Oh and if the author does not have a contact for the 'contact author'? I'd take that as a hint they are not interested in your feedback.
@manoffur117 is clearly just another two-year-old throwing a tantrum here, probably because his mom doesn't pay attention to his rants any longer.
It's amazing how many people remain infants for most of their lives.
Dragging the thread back to the topic. The results for the Halloween competition are out (well done to the winners), and as is my usual want, I opened all the authors in new tabs and had a nosey at their scores (yes, it's a pet obsession of mine!) in relation to their normal work.
And as usual, competition entries are some of their (the writers) worst 'scoring' works on the site.
I don't think this is healthy. For the site or the writers.
I also have no constructive suggestions on how to counter it. I have mentioned before, that I don't think such voting behaviour is constructive. It's an ego bruising kick in the teeth to some writers and all that happens is they are less inclined to participate ever again.
Yes, you can carelessly throw out there "Grow a thicker skin, or get a new hobby". But that's neither helpful, nor constructive.
Some can weather the scoring (well done, you are a better individual than I am) and some cannot. I hope the majority of participants can look past the scoring to participate in many future competitions.
And as usual, competition entries are some of their (the writers) worst 'scoring' works on the site.
Is this because they're being down scored by others who are hoping to thereby advance the placement of their own favorite authors or themselves?
Is this because they're being down scored by others who are hoping to thereby advance the placement of their own favorite authors or themselves?
Absolutely no idea. But it's a fair suggestion/possibility.
Absolutely not! Contest participants are barred from scoring their own and others' entries. The lower scores result from a more careful scoring, since the voting members are aware that it's a contest (no blanket nines and tens). On top of a more conservative scoring, the median scores of the contests are subjected to the same normalization as non-contest entries. An unfair disadvantage? Maybe, but the highest score still wins, regardless.
Still, I would like to see the raw scores in contests to see if my theory holds water.
I wonder whether there was a rash of one-month paid memberships covering the voting period.
AJ
That is how I started, for 1 month then went to annual once I found out the benefits. I figured I would download for a month then read, but every time I signed on, there was something else to download. Great benefits, and support for a great website with no advertising.
What does it help to establish five or six identities and even payment channels for five 10s that likely end up getting cut with the 5% upper outliers? A drop in the bucket, at best. Yet, it would help the site (ka-ching!), so these people (if there are any) are welcome to their little shenanigans.
I was talking about contests which, I believe have monetary prizes. 5 or 6 shill 10s might make a big difference when stories would otherwise have 20 or so votes. And I imagine it would be very difficult to police.
AJ
To vote, you need to be a paid Premier user, and to 'rig' a vote like that, you would need (probably) at least ten Premier accounts. Ten Premier accounts are going to eat substantially into any possible prize money. Financially, I doubt it's worth the effort.
I wonder whether there was a rash of one-month paid memberships covering the voting period.
How much is a month's paid membership?
I seem to remember one of the top three Halloween entries had quite a low number of votes. Five or six shills would make a significant difference.
AJ
To vote, you need to be a paid Premier user, and to 'rig' a vote like that, you would need (probably) at least ten Premier accounts.
I don't believe an author can score their own contest entry story. I don't think they can score it even after the contest ends. There's something in the system that stops that. I would hope that would be true for all accounts that author has.
And as usual, competition entries are some of their (the writers) worst 'scoring' works on the site.
Anonymity excludes the fanboi vote which, when all is said and done, is far more powerful than the 1-bomber vote.
One option might be that rather than rectifying story scores to the general population, story scores are rectified to story contest entries.
AJ
And as usual, competition entries are some of their (the writers) worst 'scoring' works on the site.
I think this is always the case when a story first comes out as behind the paywall.
if someone lets their life be shattered by having a story bomb the toilet, and leave alot of smudges behind..
they shouldnt be writing anything for general presentation. At best they should be kept under the bed smudging away on coloring books and scrap paper with a half melted crayon
I suspect that this is at least in part because people are reading and scoring stories because they're part of the competition that they would ordinarily skip as not being to their tastes.
I suspect that this is at least in part because people are reading and scoring stories because they're part of the competition that they would ordinarily skip as not being to their tastes.
I don't think that's the case. My assumption is based on the fact that there's a large difference in the total number of scores among stories. Some get a lot; some get a few. If that were the case, I think the number of scores given would be similar among all stories.
Why the scores are lower I have no idea. From personal experience, I think they are. Once the contest ends, my score creeps up so I agree with Pixy. But I don't know why that's the case.
Is it because it's a contest and that impacts the readers' scoring? Are the paid Premier readers different than other readers on the site? Do they like different kinds of stories? Do they have different criteria for what's good? Do they like different writing styles? I have no idea. But I had thought about it.
if the person cant take criticism, they should go back to coloring books and safe spaces.
The stuff in that account is not great at all. Its like, they tried to combine marvels, that dicraprio blood diamond movie, and the cussler book movie Sahara
if the person cant take criticism, they should go back to coloring books and safe spaces.
Hang on! Aren't you the same individual who posted that they would refuse to engage in any criticism levelled against them? Doesn't that imply that you can't take constructive criticism and, by your own admission, that you should go back to...
coloring books and safe spaces.
?
Not quite. Refusing to 'engage' with a pointless conversation isn't the same as quitting the site entirely because of reader complaints. Frankly, that seems a better overall strategy.
The follow-up question should be whether Cheshire accepts corrects or advice or not. It seems to me that he has, but there are too many authors who don't to keep track of each and everyone.
more people defending asswipe shit stories because it makes them feel better by being the "social justice worries of pussyville"
"social justice worries of pussyville"
Come back when you can write something useful in the English language.
On second thought - don't come back.
I wonder if I have unintentionally just added to this list.
'I don't often read stories here, but when I do....'
Joking aside, yesterday I read a story, the premise of which interested me. Turned out that the implementation didn't agree with me. It was bad, but in my view, it was fixable.
A lot of it was simple things, like the girl in the story at the start was wearing shorts, yet when the father put his hand on her knee, as they were sitting next to each other, he was feeling it through denim. Which kinda made me go 'Huh?'. It took me out of the story faster than an axe to the back of the head. I pointed out the length problem and that most people see female shorts as being ten or so inches long and ending no-where near the kneecap. However, if they wished to keep it as they had written it, then all they had to do was add 'Bermuda' before the word 'shorts'.
Had it just been that, I could have ignored it, but the writer liked using the letter I, as in 'I did this and I did that'. It was... bad... I jokingly called it an Ipocalypse in the message to them.
I tried to be constructive, in that I copied some of the worst offending parts in a message (including one part that had three consecutive paragraphs starting with 'I'), along with the same part reworded to remove the 'I' so as to show what could be done instead of using 'I' all the time.
Now, my experience of sending messages to authors here with my 'observations' tends to go one of two ways. A polite reply thanking me for the message, or an angry reply. There was silence twenty four hours later. Granted not everyone logs on every day, but it was a newly posted story, so you would expect the writer to check in on it's progress at least once a day.
Interestingly enough, my message seemed to be missing from the mail folder as well, which got me thinking and a quick look at 'recently removed' confirmed that the writer had deleted all their stories.
Now I wouldn't have said the quality of their work was bad. It was all low sevens, high sixes, which I class to be pretty decent (but then I am biased as that's -generally- my loitering ground.) When I can't continue a story within the first page or two, that's normally an automatic '5' for me with points deducted for spelling, grammar and believability. In this case it was a '4' for me. However, I did believe it had potential, which was why I spent the time to explain how it could have been improved. A quick look at their author page and choosing to view their stories by score, revealed that although the score was still hidden, it was tracking to be their lowest scoring to date.
They may yet still adjust and re-post, but given that they removed all their stories (ten or so) the likely hood of that would appear to be slim...
(including one part that had three consecutive paragraphs starting with 'I'), along with the same part reworded to remove the 'I' so as to show what could be done instead of using 'I' all the time.
Is that why your third paragraph doesn't start with 'I read a story yesterday'? :-)
AJ
Is that why your third paragraph doesn't start with 'I read a story yesterday'? :-)
You are actually 100% correct. It originally did start with 'I' ("I read a story yesterday...") but on re-reading it, I realised what I had done, and how stupid it made me look (Don't normally need much help in that department!) considering the topic of the post.
So I changed it. I wanted to change the second line, but couldn't actually think of how to to do it, nor how to change the first line either, so as to leave the second line starting with an 'I'. Eventually, I decided to insert a quotation mark instead, so it didn't 'technically' start with 'I'.
I'm going to blame the original story. I have never, ever, seen so many 'I's in a piece of written work before and I'm still a little I-shocked. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.