Story verification times

Quote by Evocative
I’d be genuinely curious what the approve-to-deny ratio is

About 60%, or thereabouts. Seems to be gradually dropping, sadly, with the AI slop that's being dumped on us, and it's slowing everything down.

Rejections take more time than passing a well-written story. Worse, many of the people who pretend they can write by prompting AI to do it for them, don't even read the rejection note that the moderator spent time crafting, nor care how long it took them to read. Why would they, when it took minimum effort to create the content? Easy come, easy go. They simply delete the story, generate a new pile of soulless generic garbage and resubmit it 10 minutes later. Many times, these people are so fucking lazy they also leave the AI prompts in the story itself! It honestly defies belief.

I can only assume it's a by-product of look at meee, I'm the centre of the universe. Look at me NOW.

Thankfully, the only brains harmed in the process are the people who don't use them fully for creative purposes.

Quote by moasan

to techgoddess, I understand all of what you say, but I am prolific and get new story ideas every week. Consider that at this moment I have 40 5,000 word chapters all finished in draft form and am ready to start 5 new serials of 6 to 7 chapters each. At the rate of one submission every 3 weeks l will still be submitting the already finished chapters up until next spring. I'll be half a year older.

I'm assuming you want people to read what you've taken the time to write. If I could offer you some advice, you need to give your readers time to actually read and enjoy your stories. This will improve your number of views, likes, and comments.

As for your rate of submission, I'm confused as to what you mean by one submission every 3 weeks. Looking back over this year, you have averaged 3-4 stories per month. That's roughly 1 story per week.

Am I the only one here in the entitled generation. I really don't find $149.00 for a lifetime membership a major hardship.

A carton of cigarettes, few less beers, one less tank of fuel/petrol/gas, a couple bottles of the hard stuff, or wine. Stop paying the hookers once.

The Mods can only do what they can do. They have lives outside of Lush, too. You know making money to buy the above mentioned shit

Yes, these fucking AI submissions are killing it for everyone. Not just here, but on every site that stories are published. Even the ebooks are being hammered by this crap.

Yes, I am about to be cruel here, but I am sadistic. Most of y'all are too old for this argument. Your blood pressure must be sky high over what? Not like any of us are making money off our stories. If we were, that might justify all this bickering.

Go sit in a fucking corner, read others stories and pleasure yourself. Your fucking prostates will thank you.

DISCLAIMER: First trimester baby on board and this Dominatrix is hormonal. Yes, I got fucked waiting on a story to be published and I enjoyed it.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

About 60%, or thereabouts. Seems to be gradually dropping, sadly, with the AI slop that's being dumped on us, and it's slowing everything down.

I find this really scary. I dont really understand AI. As advised my the Mods I check my story before submission using Grammarly. I only accept punctuation and spelling corrections. The rest I ignore, most suggestions are rubbish and alter the thought. If it is not your work, can some one possibly explain any gratification or satisfaction in getting a story published?? How on earth can you tell what is humanly penned?

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

I find this really scary. I dont really understand AI. As advised my the Mods I check my story before submission using Grammarly. I only accept punctuation and spelling corrections. The rest I ignore, most suggestions are rubbish and alter the thought. If it is not your work, can some one possibly explain any gratification or satisfaction in getting a story published?? How on earth can you tell what is humanly penned?

You answered your own question. Rubbish and alter the thought. When AI generates the story it's all rubbish.

Perhaps Im being dim, I usually am. What I meant was, I dont understand AI writing complete stories. I get the purpose as a correction tool.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

About 60%, or thereabouts. Seems to be gradually dropping, sadly, with the AI slop that's being dumped on us, and it's slowing everything down.

That is interesting. Thank you, WW, for letting us all know. 😊

Has there been any progress on using software (AI) to weed out AI-generated stories?

Might there be a possibility of having more than 29 story moderators in the future?

Obviously, I don't know why. However, the number of moderators never seems to exceed this number. Is there a reason for this? Software licensing? A practical one?

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

Perhaps Im being dim, I usually am. What I meant was, I dont understand AI writing complete stories. I get the purpose as a correction tool.

Lazy, uncreative people.

Quote by wxt55uk

That is interesting. Thank you, WW, for letting us all know. 😊

Has there been any progress on using software (AI) to weed out AI-generated stories?

Might there be a possibility of having more than 29 story moderators in the future?

Obviously, I don't know why. However, the number of moderators never seems to exceed this number. Is there a reason for this? Software licensing? A practical one?

After reading this thread, would you want to be a mod?

Ok. Thanks MissVixen. I just don't see the point, but obviously that's not the case for everybody.

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

Ok. Thanks MissVixen. I just don't see the point, but obviously that's not the case for everybody.

As was said, "look at me, look at me." A theme that seems to have spilled into this thread.

The main reason you won't find this teen on Facebook, TikTok, or Threads.

DISCLAIMER: Still first trimester hormonal.

Quote by Shyexhibitionist
If it is not your work, can some one possibly explain any gratification or satisfaction in getting a story published??

Nope. Beats me.

How on earth can you tell what is humanly penned?

We can't. Not with any degree of accuracy. You could prompt an AI engine "write a 3000-word story about a priest and a nun, suitable for lushstories.com, written in the style of wannabewordsmith" and it would comb my work, instantly learn how I write and copy it to the point it'd probably be almost indistinguishable from my story published today on that subject. Or you could prompt it to steal my story and rewrite it in the style of [insert author name] and it would do it.

But in both cases, while it would be grammatically perfect and a carbon copy of my writing style, the storyline would be dull, repetitive and derivative, with the only redeeming feature being the stylistic flourishes that LLMs inject to make things pretend to have that wow factor.

Such stories are hyper-real, mega-polished, Hollywood stylistic glamourballs that are jaw-droppingly pretty. But they try sooo hard to be this pinnacle of perfectionism, the overall effect is like having a conversation with that annoying twat at a party who talks about how successful he is all night. By the end of it, you're utterly exhausted. Yes, floored by all the amazing things he's done and jealous as all hell, but you still want someone to let a leopard into the room to savage him so you can escape to talk to the barman who is real and makes you genuinely laugh.

Quote by wxt55uk
Has there been any progress on using software (AI) to weed out AI-generated stories?

No, and there never will be. Why would a machine rat on a machine?

This thread is veering way off topic and It's been said elsewhere. I've fed my stories to AI checkers and they've said they're machine-generated. They're not. I've fed wholly-generated AI stories to AI checkers and they reported they're human written. And I've fed them other AI stories and they've reported they're AI-generated, and by the way, would I like the checker to make it sound more human for me?

All they do is slurp up what is given to "check" and add it to the pool of crap they regurgitate.

So, no.

Oops sorry. I've contributed to this thread veering off the topic. My mind tends to do that !

Quote by Shyexhibitionist
How on earth can you tell what is humanly penned?

I don't want to tip my hand with a full explanation, but I can recognize most AI stories, most of the time, just by reading a few sentences. Some people go to some lengths to edit and cover up the obvious AI tells, but they can't hide the underlying... mechanics... of an AI-crafted story. Once you learn to recognize the 'scaffolding' of an AI story, they become easy to spot - and hard to hide.

Most people don't bother trying to hide it, and it's super obvious. The ones that try to hide it, can't really. At best, they leave me wondering if it's an AI story that's been heavily edited by a human, or a human-written story that's been polished/edited by AI. No matter which is true, I can still see AI fingerprints all over the place.

Reassuring that humans can still out wit machines! Keep up the good work !

I listen to many sci-fi stories created by AI on YouTube and it's obvious just through the use of certain repetitive phrases that they were written by a computer. And, they are often highly derivative and monotonous.

Computers are fine for a level of editing but even then it's grammatical suggestions are complete crap unless you are writing a business report.

It was bad enough when the mods had to deal with writers who were trying to slip inappropriate content into a story. I hate to have to go through and try to filter out everything that might’ve been written by a machine.

My hats off to the team. I don’t think I’d wanna do that job today. That was a problem no one ever thought about when last I was an active member

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

About 60%, or thereabouts. Seems to be gradually dropping, sadly, with the AI slop that's being dumped on us, and it's slowing everything down.

Rejections take more time than passing a well-written story. Worse, many of the people who pretend they can write by prompting AI to do it for them, don't even read the rejection note that the moderator spent time crafting, nor care how long it took them to read. Why would they, when it took minimum effort to create the content? Easy come, easy go. They simply delete the story, generate a new pile of soulless generic garbage and resubmit it 10 minutes later. Many times, these people are so fucking lazy they also leave the AI prompts in the story itself! It honestly defies belief.

I can only assume it's a by-product of look at meee, I'm the centre of the universe. Look at me NOW.

Thankfully, the only brains harmed in the process are the people who don't use them fully for creative purposes.

It truly does defy belief. It was bad enough dealing with writers who refused to put in basic effort. I saw a lot if that, those that were only interested in seeing their name on the front page and thought views, positive comments and even awards were their due simply because they hit submit.

But now these same kinds of people can flood the Que with AI crap they can generate in seconds (I assume it's that fast)

Franky I think the site should treat that with the same direct responce one gets from other flagrant violations of the submission guidelines. Warning, suspension and ban

Quote by David_LeRoy
the site should treat that with the same direct responce one gets from other flagrant violations of the submission guidelines. Warning, suspension and ban

If we could prove it, that would be something I'd love to implement. But:

• AI tools can clone a writing style in seconds, even if the story isn't all that engaging.

• Authors can generate a boilerplate via AI and then edit it. At that point, how much is their work vs the machine's work, given they instructed the machine to write a story based on a premise the author dreamed up, and then put their own spin on it?

• We ask authors to use things like Grammarly to flag/correct obvious grammar snafus. But those tools now say: "hey, while I'm here, this sentence might sound better like this... want me to change it for you?" and bases its suggestion on content stolen/plagiarized from others. So even if the author wrote it from scratch, AI is assisting them to make it better... and we asked them to do it (sort of) to keep the site quality up.

With all the above shades of usage, it's difficult to prove one way or another how much input a machine has had, so we're stuck with it at present.

All we can do is encourage authors to use their brains to have a go at writing, keep their synapse plasticity ticking into old age, and enjoy the process of bringing something to life instead of taking a shortcut

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

If we could prove it, that would be something I'd love to implement. But:

• AI tools can clone a writing style in seconds, even if the story isn't all that engaging.

• Authors can generate a boilerplate via AI and then edit it. At that point, how much is their work vs the machine's work, given they instructed the machine to write a story based on a premise the author dreamed up, and then put their own spin on it?

• We ask authors to use things like Grammarly to flag/correct obvious grammar snafus. But those tools now say: "hey, while I'm here, this sentence might sound better like this... want me to change it for you?" and bases its suggestion on content stolen/plagiarized from others. So even if the author wrote it from scratch, AI is assisting them to make it better... and we asked them to do it (sort of) to keep the site quality up.

With all the above shades of usage, it's difficult to prove one way or another how much input a machine has had, so we're stuck with it at present.

All we can do is encourage authors to use their brains to have a go at writing, keep their synapse plasticity ticking into old age, and enjoy the process of bringing something to life instead of taking a shortcut

I use Grammarly myself for general editing due to my dyslexia so I see your point. I was more referring to stories that were basically fully generated, but my knowledge of those programs and how they work beyond reading the results from stories off site are all the experience I have on the subject.

Your response is appreciated

Yeah, my Uni is very anti-AI programs, even Grammarly sometimes, with how bad things are. It literally feels like an epidemic. One saving grace is the "document/version history" feature on Google Docs/Word. Pretty easy to spot AI if someone just randomly pastes a story into their document. So, if someone were to be asked to prove they wrote something, they would show their document history to help aid in that.

Also, the point above about how you can tell it's AI-written by the structure/flow/etc... is really true. Everyone has their own writing "signature." It's why when you read more than one book/story by an author, you'll find they have the same "sound." It's also the thing that makes great writers excellent - when they can make their sound change, say, if they're writing from multiple characters' perspectives and whatnot. (Goals, to be honest)

I view my writing as "okay-good," but I still make lots of mistakes. I utilize the free version of Grammarly to catch the basic things (tense/punctuation). But I just wanted to say, the mods who have reviewed and approved my stories have been amazing. The fact that they take the time to point out mistakes made is something I appreciate because I genuinely want to be a great writer one day. These mods are doing the work that my professors do without the benefits (salary/etc), and it's admirable. I'd love to be a mod one day (I think... maybe...) to continue the current vibe.

Also, I'm still so new to the site, so I didn't realize there were recommendations for people to avoid "back-to-back" submissions... which I've been guilty of. I'll try not to do that so much, haha. I just submit when I have a story done. So, oopsies!

I had an interesting, though not perhaps a positive thought.

Has the site encouted AI narration in Audio stories? And would that be at all acceptable if the story itself wasn't artificially generated?

It's not something I'd be interested in myself. I'm not one for audio in the first place but I imagine the issue will come up soon if has not already.

As I mentioned above, I've listened to a number of sci-fi stories on youtube that were both written and voiced by computer. It can work in that genre but as an erotic work? It's lack of emotion would seem to make that impossible to do effectively

Quote by David_LeRoy
Has the site encouted AI narration in Audio stories?

We have authors who routinely submit audiio narrated by a machine. It's about as sexy as asking your sat-nav to recite a shopping list, but each to their own I guess.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

We have authors who routinely submit audiio narrated by a machine. It's about as sexy as asking your sat-nav to recite a shopping list, but each to their own I guess.

I love it!! I had a silly thought. I try to respond to everyone who takes the time to comment on my stories. Now if those “authors” who use AI were to use AI to respond?… I guess it's a possibility.

Quote by Shyexhibitionist

I love it!! I had a silly thought. I try to respond to everyone who takes the time to comment on my stories. Now if those “authors” who use AI were to use AI to respond?… I guess it's a possibility.

They aren’t really machines lol. And they’re actually typically very nice so it’s a real mind bender. Most of them could very likely write their own stories for real but they’re either too nervous or too lazy, I think.

Also, yall! I was worried this thread was blowing up bc people were mad about verifying times 😂

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

We have authors who routinely submit audiio narrated by a machine. It's about as sexy as asking your sat-nav to recite a shopping list, but each to their own I guess.

Really? And that's about how exciting I suspected it would be.

Siri, read ‘The Story of O’’

Yeah, no thanks

currently ben waiting a week for a story to be approved. As a new author to the site this does not encourage me to want to publish here. Also add the fact that to improve my approval time seems to require me to buy a platinum membership. Really? I effectively have to pay to get my stories published?

Quote by MicaMeesha
I effectively have to pay to get my stories published?

No. You can elect to pay if you are impatient or would like to take advantage of the other perks that membership affords (more messages, greater storage, access to member forums and chatrooms, etc).

We are reading, processing, discussing and offering advice to authors of the deluge of stories - several hundred a week - as fast as we can.

P.S. your story is also around 10,000 words and, from a casual skim read, could easily be half that with some judicial editing, without losing any of the plot points, and providing greater story momentum. A moderator has to set aside well over half an hour to read it, as will potential readers. Consult What story length do you prefer to read for some insight into the reader preferences here, as it may shape your future submissions.

Quote by MicaMeesha

Also add the fact that to improve my approval time seems to require me to buy a platinum membership. Really? I effectively have to pay to get my stories published?

As WW said you don’t HAVE to buy platinum. I have gold. It offers me endless messages , thats one of the reasons I bought it. Sites like Lush need funds to exist. Moderators are volunteers doing a thankless task. After submitting your story, use the waiting time to read some of the fantastic work. Read the interesting profiles of your fellow Lushies, make friends. Don’t keep checking the status of your tale. As an aside, I don’t read really long stories, a lot of people don’t .Be patient. Lush is a great place to be if you give it a chance 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿