Quote by WannabeWordsmith

This.

Thank you for the clarification. It did feel very aimed at my inquiry.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

A reminder

People who open multiple accounts and/or push AI-generated or AI-assisted dreck to the queue, and then have the cheek to complain about wait times, are doing the site and all the authors who care about the craft of storytelling a disservice.

We have made our stance on AI public. Just because we're currently publishing such work - deliberately slowly - to give real authors and those who play by the rules a chance at getting published, doesn't mean that will always be the case.

Plans are afoot to tackle this scourge, this blight on the quality of stories published here, but our resources are limited and it may take time.

If your stories are not AI-generated/assisted and your story has been inadvertently caught up in our sweeps that allow us to move past the crap and get to the real stories buried below, please accept our apologies. We currently have a very limited toolset at our disposal and manually sifting the deluge and cross-checking accounts and content is time consuming and error prone.

Please, please, again, do not present AI content and pretend you wrote it. It's not big, nor is it clever, to steal work from other authors and take credit for the mediocre, repetitive nonsense it spits out. I'm surprised the brave moderating team haven't all had a collective nervous breakdown having to wade through the same tired hipster phrasing, the same clichéd tropes, story after story after story, a hundred times a week each.

It's demoralising and unjust when we're giving our time - for free - to use our collective years of expertise to help authors find their storytelling voice, only to be presented with 30-40 stories per day, all with a near-identical voice and cadence generated by a soulless algorithm.

We urge you to have a go at writing something yourself. Something fresh. Something exciting that you're proud of and allows you to build a steady readership. If you genuinely try, we are more than happy to help you build on those foundations by providing tips, resources, and guidance to help you develop.

We're here to help and are being hamstrung from doing so by inconsiderate site members.

I asked an honest question. I did not expect to be accused of producing AI-generated stories or having multiple accounts. Yes, I deleted my old account, the recommended reads, the competition win, and the editor's pics for very personal reasons. I did not return crying about lost stories, nor have I attempted to resubmit any of my old work.

I did not know that having a change of heart was frowned upon by the community. I did not know, in effect, that being a "double-platinum" member would put me under scrutiny. I did not know that having people who wanted me back, would upset you.

The accusation that my stories are AI-generated rubs me all the wrong ways. I very actively try to avoid the tropes you refer to, which this site is riddled with. I also try to avoid the same old phrasings and ideas.

English is not my first language. My brain works in Norwegian first. Maybe my translations turn out foreign to your eyes. I do not understand the rules of grammar, not in Norwegian, not in English. I am a "by ear" learner.

I cannot apologize for that.

At least Kat offered useful feedback to my inquiry.

Quote by simplyjohn

That really doesn't make any sense. The fact that a moderator has picked the story up, assigned it to themselves, is progress.

Also-this is not helpful feedback in any shape or form, and misses addressing the points i made.

But, as a site administrator, you do make an excellent point. My only option is to delete. There is no “contact mod option”, no “recall option”, no “support” option. It truly, in your own words, makes no sense.

It makes no sense to lock down a story with no intent to mod it for an entire week.

Quote by simplyjohn

That really doesn't make any sense. The fact that a moderator has picked the story up, assigned it to themselves, is progress.

So. Having a story locked down for an entire week is progress?

I work for the city of Oslo, even by our standards that is slow.

I submitted part 2 of a mini-series last Sunday. Thursday (a week ago today), it was locked by a moderator. Since then, it's been radio silence. I intended to publish it as a single piece, but someone on here advised splitting stories down to make moderation a little easier. It's effectively a 2k-word story that's been under moderation for ten days now. I appreciate that moderation times are long, but I can't help but notice that other platinum members have had up to two stories published since I submitted mine. Since there is no information on who's locked my story down, no clear guidelines on who to contact, my only option seems to be to delete my story and resubmit.

She came from a place outside silence—
He never questioned why.
She didn’t look for pleasure.
He saw the static behind her eyes.

To be read without questions,
To be held without demand.
He didn’t rush.
He didn’t reach.
He stayed.

And when she opened—
not lips,
but breath,
but body—
he met her there.

Wet Fire