Irked a Bit and Some Site Pimping

[amberfocus]

I'm really trying my best not to be frustrated with Teaspoon.  Two days with nothing posted, nothing to read there, and then boom today they've posted 6 pages worth of stuff.  Very hard to take the time to go through all of that in one go and also, one of my stories that I'd been waiting on for a while to have come up, is of course, five pages back.  So I hope people actually get the chance to see it.  Mostly I've given up caring about it for myself, but it's for my readers there that I feel bad.  I hope we don't see another two day freeze on postings as I just sent in ch. 12 of Hunger Moon and I know I've got people waiting for it there who don't come to LJ and they've emailed me asking for when the next one is coming.  Same with Moments in Darkness of which Devastate ch. 3 did finally post.

Kate Carter has started a new website a couple months back that archives fic and I think I'm going to start putting stuff up there, too.  Maybe some of the others of you who are so frustrated with the changes as well might want to have a go there.  She has an adult story board as well as a regular one.  I think it's all New Who, but I'm not sure.  It's called New Whovian, so I'm assuming.  Haven't seen anything classic Whoish there yet, but it's not going too fast just yet.  Anyway, the link if you're interested is this:  http://newwhovian.proboards89.com/  I've seen a lot of frustrated people on my f-list and around other places who are annoyed, so maybe this'll be a new outlet.  Worth a go, I suppose.  It seems author friendly and Kate's sensible so I don't think there'll be the same kind of issues going on there ever.

Comments

[azriona.livejournal.com]

Urgh, I've been noticing the same thing about the lag at Teaspoon. My only thought is that the change seemed to happen so quickly - two weeks ago, the oddness in posting wasn't an issue, at least, not that I could see. I'd get a chapter up in six hours, tops, and now it's a 2-day wait. Makes me think someone's sick or has been having internet problems. If that's the case, I wish they'd tell us, so we could give them some slack, or at least help. I did coding for a HP fanfic site a few years ago; it was actually kind of fun.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's been bad the last couple of weeks. It was bad like this in the beginning, too, when they switched from no mods at all and instant updating to full moderation. Well, I did hear on someone else's LJ that one of the mods had no internet access at that moment. But there's several of them, unless it's the one that does the majority of the work, I don't see how that could affect them so badly. If it's a techinical glitch I wish they'd say so. I have a lot more patience for that. Heck, I'd have more patience if they said one of them was sick and things would slow down, or one of them broke their laptop, or they just gave reasons. I can be really patient if they give reasons.

[melnay13.livejournal.com]

I know, the lag in Teaspoon makes me think that there is a problem. They could and should tell us, but that's not what's happening. If they're not careful, they are going to lose readers/writers. It took two days for them to post the final chapter of Mixed Signals. I don't think anyone actually got to read it unless they'd favorited it. It makes it impossible for me to keep track of things I want to read, too. Might have to try this new site.

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

I keep looking for updates on their front page that explain the problems but they never come. The new site is pretty new, but I'm sure they'd love the influx of writers.

[lillibetm3.livejournal.com]

Maybe you should take a look at this:

http://honorh.livejournal.com/435995.html

In particular, calapine's response(s) to my comments. :/

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that. Didn't think they were particularly nice to you about it, either. Most of the time the fics do post in alphabetical order, but more rarely they don't. All you have to do is look at the list of them and it's pretty obvious. *sighs* Though after all of this, Hunger Moon posted two hours after I sent it in. Although, it almost always does. I think one of the mods likes that particular story and grabs it, reads it and puts it through whenever I send in an update. Happened with Wolf Moon, too. Not that I'm complaining. Never happens with any of the other stories, though.

[lillibetm3.livejournal.com]

The strange thing is that I wasn't the first person to comment on the delay, or the alphabetical order idea... but I was the one (and only) person she chose to respond to about it.

Oh and as for... Didn't think they were particularly nice to you about it, either.

Hmmm... so you noticed that too? XD
Although at the time I kinda wondered if I was being over sensitive. *shrugs*

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think you were being overly sensitive. It seemed like the person was singling you out to me and was just shy of picking on you. I dunno. It can be hard sometimes to read text accurately and relate it to behavior, but some things do come across pretty clearly and bullying is one of them even in relatively mild cases.

[ramblinsuze.livejournal.com]

It looked kinda snarky to me, too. Definitely not just you. :\

Full-moderation is a ridiculous policy for a fanfic archive. It just slows down the process *so* much. And what's the point of it, really? I ran a fanfic archive for many years and there's no *way* I could have read and scrutinized everything that was submitted!

I don't use Teaspoon for reading any WIP fics. I'll go there periodically to look up older or complete stories, but LJ has the new chapters up instantaneously. I'll stick with that, thanks!

[lillibetm3.livejournal.com]

What I don't understand is why the mods don't seem to be listening to what people are saying. Teaspoon is there for readers and writers alike, isn't it? At the minute they seem to be giving the impression that it's more like: 'we are the mods and what we say is law. If you don't like it, go somewhere else'.
Which to my mind is a very strange attitude to take.

As a reader and writer, I love Teaspoon. All my stories are posted there first. I'd hate for that to have to change. :(

[thelosttimelady.livejournal.com]

I had to wait a couple of days before my last few stories got uploaded... thought it was just 'cause the mod got a bit bogged down and I wasn't a favourite of theirs... but... wow.
I did wonder why they were doing the sudden modding of everything that went into the site. I mean, seriously. It's not like the stuff, or at least what I saw, was that bad to begin with, so couldn't they just leave it alone unless someone emailed them and said that that story over there kept confusing "your" and "you're"? Seems to me that that would be a lot simpler... But what do I know? I'm just a lowly fanfic author. The Almighty Mods come from beyond the universe and they bring with them knowledge and wisdom far beyond what we small creatures can imagine.
And I read the thingie, Lillibetm3. You weren't being oversensitive.
I need tea. -stalks off to get some-

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

I think it would be much easier if they did that, too, but I don't think it's easier they're after. *sighs*

[amyo67.livejournal.com]

As solely a reader I have noticed the delay. I am glad that I found LJ. Although, I did notice they already had chapter 4 of Devastate posted this morning. I agree with the trying to catch up. It is easier when the updates are daily and 1 or 2 pages. I have trouble catching up when it's 5 or 6 pages.
I will definitely check out the link you provided. It might come in handy as well in finding a story that I forgot to bookmark and am having trouble finding again. It doesn't help that I can't remember title or author. So I will give the link a try. Thanks

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, of course they did, as soon as I posted this. You'd just know they finally would. They seem to be back on a regular posting thing now. Maybe all the complaints finally started sinking in.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll be looking into this one.

Apparently, none of the Teaspoon mods was a business major. From what I can tell, it's like if there was a local restaurant where the food was sometimes dodgy, but the service was friendly and the desserts divine (and it was a great improvement on the greasy spoon down the road), and the community loved it. Then new owners took over, pledging to improve the food. And sure enough, the food's great, but the service takes a dive and there are suddenly long lines to even get in. Then, when people bring up these very reasonable concerns to the management, the management tells them, "Well, this is the way we're doing things nowadays, and if you don't like it, there's the greasy spoon down the road." I'm dissatisfied, and if they're not going to address the concerns of their patrons, I'm looking elsewhere to post my stories.

[lillibetm3.livejournal.com]

I love your analogy. :D

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

This is such a good comparison. It's exactly like this. Or like the little kid who takes their ball and goes home when they don't get their own way so no one else can play when before everything was just happily going along.

[sisterofkarn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this whole thing with Teaspoon is really annoying.
Worse, many authors I've been looking for new chpters from do have LJ accounts, but have them completely f-locked now, so I can't even go to their journals for the new chapters... assuming they're being written.
:(

Of course, so many of the changes are a direct result of Teaspoon's almost exponential growth over the last few years. I've helped to admin a large forum before, and it's not easy.

Still, having said that, if they are having trouble getting through submissions for approval, then they should rethink that change. I know that this was one of the very reasons the old Mod group never chose to implement such a rule, they anticipated this very thing. So should have the new Mod group. Unless they're hoping to pare down the user and readership of the page and are doing this knowing it would happen. That would be sad.
Not surprising, though. Bills for the site will be lower if they don't need as big a server with as much bandwidth.

Thanks so much for the link to the New Whovian. I've book-marked and will definitely check it out. I hope it does very well!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[katecarter.livejournal.com]

Right. So this is why I nearly fell out of chair in shock when I finally got a chance to check it and saw that the number of people registered has doubled (the icon is the closest I could get to my reaction!).

And yeah, the idea is that it's a board dedicated to New Who (partially for those like me who haven't had the opportunity to see classic Who) with plenty of Doctor/Rose shipper discussion, fanfic posting, etc. Basically everything I've always wanted in a board!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Well...gues that's what happens when I get a little fed up. And besides, I like the board over there and was hoping to see a little more action coming to it. Never dreamed it would double the membership, though!