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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Story access, voting, and removing access.

taulsk 🚫

To be blunt, I want all my votes stripped off of any story that is made pay access. If I can not access the story, as a free account, then my vote should be stripped off the story, be it good, bad, or horrid. I consider this absolutely abusive to start a story as a free story, then to switch it to pay, before the second chapter hits. There should be a mandatory requirement to finish the story as free, if you start it free, only allowing it to be turned to pay thirty days after it is finished. Also if a pay story is made free, it must stay free for a minimum of thirty days before it is switched back to pay. The switching of a story from free to pay is no different than posting a teaser in my opinion, posting rule 17, should expand to include free stories being required to finish as free. Now I know many authors will not agree, and I don't care, this is me stating my opinion. Feel free to argue about my comment, without further input from me.

Replies: REP garymrssn solitude awnlee jawking jimq2 madnige

REP 🚫
Updated:

@taulsk

I disagree with you.

To start with what story was switched from free to Premier and why? Actually, from your rant, you don't know why the story was made Premier – just do not like the fact that it is now Premier. I can think of several valid reasons why it happened.

The bottom line seems to be the conversion of the story to Premier affected you and you don't want to pay for a Premier membership to read any potential future chapters. So, you are making demands and ranting about creating new rules like a spoiled child. No one on SOL owes you anything.

Replies: REP

REP 🚫

@REP

I remind all of the above of the following:

1. The OP has not identified the story under discussion.

2. The author has not stated why the story was made Premier.

Therefore, everything we say is just possibilities, which may be wrong.

garymrssn 🚫

@taulsk

The people who pay for Premier access are the only reason you, and I for that matter, have access to any free stories.
I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
If enough people like you complain about the taste of your free lunch maybe the owner of the site will decide that having a limited free access membership isn't worth the trouble and do away with it.
I happen to like my free lunch so don't antagonize the cook.

solitude 🚫

@taulsk

My only comment would be that authors intending to switch a story to premium before it is fully posted should be encouraged to make this clear when they start to post the story. That way, people will know what to expect, and can't complain when the switch occurs.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@taulsk

Here is my opinion, which is worth exactly what you paid for it, and may change according to how the wind is blowing.

The story belongs to the author and, to a large extent, they can do what they want with it. However, if you're complaining about the particular instance that sprang to my mind, the author is planning to monetise the story by publishing on zbookstore. I believe that means the author now has to finish the story on SOL, although it's ethically questionable to have moved it to premier.

On the other hand, I believe the individual scores should belong to the readers who made them and, now the story is premier, free readers cannot update their scores as the story progresses. As 'Arlene and Jeff' showed, you can't fairly judge a long story on its first three chapters.

As to what a solution might be, I have no idea.

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde madnige

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

As to what a solution might be, I have no idea.

This is not an opinion. It's me thinking out loud.

Should a story that is posting in the free area be allowed to move to Premier before it's completed in the free area?

Replies: Pixy

Pixy 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Should a story that is posting in the free area be allowed to move to Premier before it's completed in the free area?

Why not? If you want something, pay for it. As a society, I think we need to steer ourselves away from the thinking that everything is free, or should be free.

Everything has a cost. If you don't want to pay for it, that is fine, just don't avail yourself of the product. Or if you want something, make/create it yourself.

When I first read the post a couple of days ago, my first reaction was "What an entitled piece of...". Also, anyone who say's that they don't care, cares (otherwise they wouldn't remark about it, would they, because they don't care...) 🤷

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@Pixy

Why not? If you want something, pay for it.

That's not how ZBookStore and Bookapy work. An author can post a novel a chapter at a time on SOL (either in the Premier or free area) while offering the complete novel for sale on the bookstore. But the author must continue to post new chapters on SOL in a reasonable time (I'm too lazy to look up what that time is). If the author violates that rule, Lazeez considers it teasing rather than marketing/promotion and posts the rest of the story on SOL.

I don't know what the author's motive was, but maybe it was to get around the teasing rule. If the novel is for sale on the bookstore, by posting n-number of chapters in the free area gets readers interested. Some will buy the novel while others will simply wait for it to be fully posted on SOL. But if all of a sudden it's moved to the Premier area, the only option the non-Premier members have is to not read the whole thing or buy it at the bookstore (or sign up for Premier which I doubt is the reason the author did it).

I've always hated when people game the system.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Management has to juggle the pissed-off author versus pissed-off reader conflict in such a way as to maximise the benefit to the site in order to further its existence.

AJ

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Management has to juggle the pissed-off author versus pissed-off reader conflict in such a way as to maximise the benefit to the site in order to further its existence.

I agree. All I'm saying is the "no teasing" rule is a management decision and, IMO, this author gamed the system.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

this author

That's if the story is the first that sprang to my mind. If I was wrong, it's possible the author took their story premier for other reasons. I've seen authors do it with the aim of boosting income for the site, although I have no idea whether that actually works or not.

AJ

madnige 🚫

@awnlee jawking

now the story is premier, free readers cannot update their scores as the story progresses

Of course they can - just open the preview, that lets you vote. Unfortunately, they cannot withdraw their vote, as trying to vote the 'Select Value to Vote' gives 'You must select a score', so the likelihood is that the vote will be changed to 'You call this a story?!'. Perhaps Lazeez will change things so that if a vote has been cast already, it can be withdrawn by selecting the select option.

Replies: awnlee jawking Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

awnlee jawking 🚫

@madnige

Of course they can - just open the preview, that lets you vote.

Thank you, I didn't know that.

AJ

Lazeez Jiddan (Webmaster)

@madnige

Since OP didn't specify which story, I don't have an opinion on the subject really.

But something like this is the author's prerogative. It has happened in the past, before I added the 'hide behind paywall' button, that authors asked to delete their stories instead of continuing their postings if I didn't put their stories as premier only.

Of course they can - just open the preview, that lets you vote.

It was a bug that allowed the voting form to show. Fixed.

If a free member tried to use that form on a premier-only story, they would have received a message telling them that they can't vote.

jimq2 🚫

@taulsk

There is an old saying, "You get what you pay for." If you pay nothing, you should expect nothing.

Unfortunately, Democrats have left everyone expecting to get what they want for free. Free food, free daycare, free housing, free medical, free college...

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." That is Karl Marx's definition of communism.

madnige 🚫

@taulsk

start a story as a free story, then to switch it to pay, before the second chapter hits

There is a, to my mind, simple possible explanation here. The story may have been premier to begin with, the OP didn't notice, and just reached the end of the free preview and thought it had just been changed. The tenor and tone of the OP's rant seems consistent with them not noticing a watermarked background on a 'Random story from the archives', which we all know means only a preview is available to basic members, this preview being of a size (related to the overall story size) anywhere from a half-page to about a half-dozen. I don't think a story has gone premier since Mon 2025-10-27 when one from Prince_von_Vlox was dropped on the site and immediately (well, within a few hours) went premier (as the author hadn't been around for years, the story probably being an import from BtFH). This wasn't the OP's target story though as it was a single chapter.

Lazeez could check the story if the OP had identified it, otherwise he'd have to look up the OP's account, checking historical access back from the posting of the rant and checking the premier status history of each story, back an unknowable number of days - why should he, when the OP fails to give the most basic information of what the story in question was? That historical checking may not reveal anything anyway if it was just a preview being complained about, if preview access is not recorded (it doesn't appear on basic members access records, but the site may keep track).

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Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

Story access, voting, and removing access.

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