Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

@robotica

make my cron script check for it daily instead of weekly.

Actually, if you want to maximise the time available for download, try twice a day - Lazeez's script for the TBA list runs at 05:30 and 17:30 GMT/BST (except around the change of DST when it might run an hour earlier), so about 5 mins after that would be best. My script (not cron, I'm just sleeping 12h between invocations) scrapes the TBA list and informs me of added/removed authors/stories. I was intending to try to automate a download, but have put it off again as I've got premier at the mo'. What my script does do is automatically update some records of archived authors (not stories) to replace my manually kept records (which go back to 03-2018).
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ETA: WRT your other thread, if you want to catch stories added from elsewhere for archived authors before they get archived, you'll need to check the New Stories list a bit BEFORE the 05:30/17:30 times, and check if any added stories are from already-archived authors and get the download in quickly. Even that will not get you everything, as sometimes there's not enough time between a story being added and the archiving script running, or the added story is a multichapter and goes premier with just the first chapter up. You'd have to keep a record of such stories and access them when you've got a premier membership - support the site!

@REP

However, I recall an author making 1 of his stories available for several weeks and then it would be archived.

My understanding is that the Up for Archival list is only those stories due for automatic archival because the author has been inactive for 5 years.

As far as I know, it does not include stories that authors manually make premiere only.

@solitude

replaced with an authors whose stories are up for archival one

A good idea, I'd vote for it, BUT - there are a few multi-author stories and generally the authors will come up for archival at different times (when multiple authors join the TBA list together, they are often nyms of a single author), and after the earlier author has been archived but before the later, the joint authorship stories are NOT archived, and also did not appear in the TBA list for the earlier author. There is, however, a bug so that when the latter author's works are due to be added to the TBA list they are instead immediately archived, so if you want to see them beforehand, you have to check through ALL the earlier author's works rather than just those on the TBA list. This situation can be spotted when the number of stories added to the TBA list is less than the total of stories for authors added. Lazeez has stated that it's not worth the effort of fixing this bug considering the relatively few stories affected and that's fine by me, however 1) probably the same bug means that stories reposted from an archived author from elsewhere under an old agreement with Lazeez, immediately drop behind the paywall with no grace period (this clause explains the few cases where for some archived authors, the last activity date is less than five years ago); and 2) the existence of the bug, and the required workaround, means it would actually be more useful to have the TBA list be of the authors, not stories.

Note that on the authors list pages (the A-Z lists) the author entry background goes to the check pattern when the author goes onto the TBA list, not when their works are archived, so there will be 7+ days where the author is flagged as archived on those pages, but their works are in fact still available to basic members.