Yes WW, that would be useful. There have been mixed messages from the help desk over the past few weeks. I logged an issue last week about the series order being wrong and was told to post it on the forums. When I logged about the notifications I was told we already know. So yes, something to stop the help desk being overloaded would be useful and we can see what is supposed to be working but is broken or whatever. 

I know you don’t like the idea of timelines for implementation but even if there was just a list of design features that are in the pipeline, people would know they are coming and that what they are enduring now isn’t going to be for ever. 

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Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Quote by NicolasBelvoir

Lush is now mainly a site for chatting and swapping porn pics. With some stories added on.

Because Lush is homed on a site that was, up until six weeks ago, a place mainly for chatting and swapping porn pics. The stories have been added on; that's why it feels like it _now_. But it won't be that way forever.

Given infinite time and resources, it could all be made the same as it was, sooner. Sadly that's not the case and everything takes time to (re)build. In addition, there are ever increasing and oppressive content restrictions being put in place by stakeholders such as financial gateways and hosting providers that have an impact on what can be rolled out and how it is managed. Lush 1 would equally have been affected and would have required sweeping changes to comply; basically forcing us to moderate every single picture posted anywhere on the site, in addition to the stories.

Yes the upheaval is inconvenient in the short term. Yes there are features I would dearly love to see returned as soon as possible, including stable email notifications of stories published - as an author that can make the difference between a few reads and hundreds.

The points Susie and others have raised are all valid. Everyone has their own idea of what features are important, and not everyone's vision aligns. Some features in Lush 1 were bodges. Bodging them again for the sake of getting it working right this minute, for parity, isn't a sustainable path; it introduces instability which makes it harder to add new stuff and maintain existing features down the line.

If I had a roadmap, I'd publish it. Maybe now much of the firefighting is out of the way and people can (mostly) log in and use the site, a tentative schedule can be published. I don't know.

Trouble is, if a schedule or feature hit list is published and it's not adhered to or doesn't meet some people's expectations, it will be used as a vehicle to trash the site. If a changeset is published after every software push, it might give some people a reason to flame the site for prioritising feature X over feature Y. Maybe an advertised fix means something else breaks (which happened regularly in Lush 1 and happens in every complex software system the world over - it's not unique). In that case, publishing the fix list gives people ammo to ridicule it.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Very well said, WW. 

Members continually asserting that they are "being patient, but", is the opposite of being patient. 

Whilst I appreciate that this site upgrade, and it is a significant upgrade, has been an upheaval for many, it doesn't help to be patronising and unkind to one another. 

Everyone here is doing their best, the developers have done an outstanding job catering to what is a very demanding membership base. Having high expectations is a good thing, let's also be realistic. 

It's been a month. We're getting there. 

I have seen several forum threads where posters have been slapped down by cries of its great, there are new features every day, Rome want built in a day, you can’t go back so shut up. 

I understand all about the old site was going to keel over and we had to move. I think the fact we moved to a swingers chat site with a story bolt on shocked everyone and with hindsight I imagine there would have been a lot more notices preparing people about the new normal.

Yes let’s agree that Lush is improving weekly but let’s not pretend it’s all great and there are no issues so let’s all keep quiet. To create an environment like that merely encourages everyone to slink away quietly and with no fuss or protest.

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Hello, hello, is anybody here? 

Help, please. When you click on Statuses on the Home Page, do you see any from me? I make them, but they never show up on my Profile under Statuses.   I know others can see their status posts because I reply to them and then they reply to my replies. 

I wonder where mine are going in this big cyber space world we live in

Meanwhile, I'll be in the corner... 

I don’t get any status updates from you. I don’t think I get many as my feed hasn’t really changed in the past couple of weeks. I know other people are seeing my status as they comment on it. 

Just another quirk which makes me seem aloof and rude and ignoring everyone  😘

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

And since author notifications are still unreliable, here is this week's harvest of fine smut by Rump’s Regulars:

KimmiBeGood – Mirror, Mirror on the Wall (Competition entry)

JamesLlewellyn – The Huntress – My Life After Death (True)

DeviantSusie – Charlotte Sometimes - 8 - Last Dance (Novel)

Verity100 – The Honey Trap (Competition entry)

JamesLlewellyn – Helping Helen Cum – Part 2: Cumming Hard (Masturbation)

JamesLlewellyn – Helping Helen Cum – Part 1 (Masturbation)

redwriter34 – Thinking of Men (Micro)

KimmiBeGood – Balls in His Court ( )

KistinsPencil – Chalk One Up (Micro)

Verity100 – A Vicar’s Wife (Cheating)

Fluttered – Attention Seeking Word Whore (Micro)

KistinsPencil – In Nature Joined (Micro)

KimmiBeGood – Death of a Nympho (Cheating)

Actually, I think I've overlapped with a couple of these from last week, but since they belong to Kimmi and Kistin, I think it's more than fitting that we do that!

So, if anyone has, um, time in – or on – their hands, there's a list of things to do with it!

Let me ask the assembled multitude – this list takes some work to produce.

Do people find it useful? Or should I not bother?

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Quote by VioletVixen

I just wanted to add to this that I've stopped receiving notification for authors I follow when they publish a story. I was receiving them for a few, but didn't realize I wasn't being notified of others before. Today I didn't get any notifications from two authors I follow whose stories I saw on the front page. One of whom I had been notified of previously.
Thanks for looking into this.

Some have had success unfollowing, then refollowing authors. It does not work for all, but is worth a try.

You really have to question what is the point of writing stories if no one knows you are writing them.

They stay on the front page for less than 24 hours.

They do not appear on your profile page. You have to actively seek them out by clicking on a profile's stories page.

You do not get a list of what your friends have been reading or voting on so do not have a guide to stories you might have missed.

You do not see if a story has received a Recommended Read unless you click on the story or click in the recommended read section. Even then, it is easy to miss as it is not highlighted. The blue severed thumb was easy to spot.

You do not receive a notification if an author has replied to a comment you have left. This really removes the interaction between author and reader that made this site so unique.

All the priority seems to be going to the Chat side. The four page pdf of issues circulating in the chat rooms was very skewed towards the chat side. This is a chat site with a side serving of stories.

Simple things such as fixing the spacing between lines and the font size could have been easily fixed but isn't seen as a priority.

There are vague promises of all these changes coming in the design fix but there is no list anywhere of what the design changes will be.

Every day or two I hear of authors deciding not the renew their subscription.

Yes I know Lush v1 was developed over 15 years and a lot of what was there wasn't there at the start but a lot of the evolution of lush v1 was because of changes in technology or because users realised how useful an addition would be, not because the developers only got around to it after 7, 8 or 10 years so for us to be told we should be thankful that Lush v2 will evolve from the bare bones of a swingers site into something possibly reminiscent of Lush v1 faster than lush v1 evolved is frankly patronising.

Quote by verity100

Never mind the tea or coffee, fill my glass with gin, I've had a bad morning and am currently sulking. 

I'll join you in a gin. Make them both doubles please, Mr bar-keep, fluttering my eyelashes 💋

I thought I'd pop in as I just posted another chapter in the charlotte series and well, considering it's Saturday, thought I may as well have a drink.

The new competition looks..er .. interesting Kistin but I think I'll give it a miss. Been trying to think of a seduction story for the big money comp but seem a bit stuck in grim reality with my recent stories. Maybe inspiration will strike before the deadline.

Cheers 🥂

Since it's Moan-day James, I'll add to the moaning... Shame the order of the series chapters is all screwed up again. They had this fixed weeks ago but now it's as bad as before. 

I notified the support desk who told me i was to post on the forums.. thought I thought the forum thread was locked for bugs and everyone was to report it.. still, no matter. it's fucked either way

This issue was fixed but now the series chapters are all in the wrong order again. 

I have a seven chapter series https://www.lushstories.com/stories/novels/charlotte-sometimes-7-a-strange-day-1

The order is screwed up. 

Can this be fixed again?

Quote by CallmeJayne

Quote by 3126MaryRose

I have noticed that since the new site went up I haven't been getting email notifications when arthur's I follow post a new story.

Do you only follow authors called arthur? 

In my world story notifications have been restored.

Slides onto a bar stool. I’ll have whatever Kimmi and Kistin are having and put all three on my tab. 

The word count thing is a mess. Has been raised in other threads so please don’t leave. I’m sure it’ll have to get fixed soon otherwise the 6000 word limit for the comp is meaningless. My 3000 word story went up by 400 words when I submitted it 

As for scores Kimmi. I have my doubts that they are being recorded properly. A lot of my old stories scores changed during the move and I have noticed a lot lower scores in my new stories than I would have had in the past. 

One story I was tracking closely dropped from a 5 to a 4.8 overnight and already had 60 votes so would have required a lot of votes to bring it down that far so fast. 

As for number of views  well some are getting close to famous story in a couple of weeks which seems incredible

So I think it’s easier to ignore votes, number of views and the lack of time on the front page and the inability to promote your stories properly and just prop up the bar instead. 

Hopefully they’ve fixed only showing 15 comp entries or the early entries will disappear during the comp too. 

So much fun. But hey, the sun is shining. It’s October which means Hallowe’en is coming. On that note, has Vanessa been in lately?

Must get myself a Halloween avatar 💋

Slides into the bar and pops onto a thankfully raisinless stool. 

 I’ll have a beer to celebrate the news that the notifications are back. Kimmi just told me she got a message to say my new story was published. 

In fact, news like that warrants two beers and whatever Kimmi is having 😘

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

Quote by deviantsusie

I got a longer story published yesterday. The seventh part of the Charlotte Sometimes series and things are getting better though the paragraph formatting still had to be done once I pasted the text into the editor. A return in google docs produced a big space in the Lush editor. But aside from that, it was quite seamless.

Here's the link if you fancy reading it. It got a Recommended Read though it is hard to tell since there is no indication on the story list which stories have an RR until you have opened them, but I imagine that is on the laundry list already too.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/novels/charlotte-sometimes-7-a-strange-day-1

Yea Susie! Not a surprise, but nice to see the planets aligning again!

Hope everyone has survived the start of the week in some shape or other.

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

 I believe that what they are working on now is the stuff writers want and need most, such as notifications that one of the authors we're following has just published a new story. Also, there are things that are still screwed up about linking stories, and, I believe, editing. And moderating them! Sara and I have had a story waiting since last Wednesday, with no indication as to whether it's going to be done, or when.

I got a longer story published yesterday. The seventh part of the Charlotte Sometimes series and things are getting better though the paragraph formatting still had to be done once I pasted the text into the editor. A return in google docs produced a big space in the Lush editor. But aside from that, it was quite seamless.

Here's the link if you fancy reading it. It got a Recommended Read though it is hard to tell since there is no indication on the story list which stories have an RR until you have opened them, but I imagine that is on the laundry list already too.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/novels/charlotte-sometimes-7-a-strange-day-1

Quote by kistinspencil

Given the state of image handling, the above is rather pointless not using a touch pad something. For those (like me) who don't, right click it and open in a new tab, where you can be astounded by its pithy cleverness. Or close it with a 'Meh' and go back to business. Whatever.

This was fuzzy and a mess until I logged in on the laptop and could actually read the text.

For a site that seems to be pushing pictures over stories, it seems counter-intuitive.. or is it just me that can't see the images properly?

ps: I loved the image you chose x

Woohoo it's Friday.. it's 5 o'clock.. it's crackerjack  

Ahemmm, sorry about that... Can I have a beer please.. and I may just circle back later for another. Hope everyone is good. I'm slowly coming to terms with the upheaval and apologise to anyone I was short or nippy with over the past week or so... sorry ❤️

I'm excited to hear notifications and comments etc are coming in the next set of fixes. Here's to a deluge of stories once it's semi back to normal... or as normal as this place gets anyway 😘💋

While the My Comments is nice in a way that I can see people who have commented on my story or liked my story or forum post, it doesn't show if someone has replied to a comment you leave on their story.

This was one of the things that made Lush so special. The camaraderie and authors replying to comments you left. This link is now broken.

Is it a flaw in the design and is on a list of things to be fixed or is this just the way things are now?

Ok. I clicked on the chat icon on mobile and ended up in the lounge. I did a quick tour of a few rooms but there seems to be no way out of the chat rooms area and back to profile or stories without either clicking the back button again and again or entering lush stories.com in the address bar. 

Am I missing something or are you not supposed to leave the chat rooms once you enter?

I tend to write in 3rd person but tend to write it as if it was from the main character’s perspective. In the 6 chapters of Charlotte Sometimes, the reader never leaves Charlotte so we don’t know anything else going on in the world unless observed by or told to Charlotte. 

I prefer 3rd person as 1st person feels too intimate to me when writing, but maybe I’m just weird

Quote by verity100

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

Quote by deviantsusie

Thank you so much for the shout out James. Let me buy you a Jamesons.

I wonder, as a fan of Irish whiskey, if you've ever tried Bushmills? 

From the oldest licensed distillery in the world. It's mellower than Jameson's but well worth it.

Yes, of course I've drunk Bushmills - and I was aware of the august status of it's product. And I will happily swill Bushmills any time it's available, I just slightly prefer Jameson's. No more reason than that.

So, thank you, either way!

My dad used to make his own whisky. You would not believe the time and love he put into it. All the ingredients were hand picked. The vintage oak barrel had to be just so. Every last detail was timed to absolute perfection. It still tasted shit thought. 

I did this yesterday with the chapters of my novel. I had them linked but not as a series so they lost the linkage in the migration.

I edited the first story and created a series name. This didn't require mods to reverify it.

I then went to the second chapter. Clicked on edit and linked it to the series name.

I then worked my way through the chapters in the correct order.

And everything was linked.

Hope it works for you. I've no idea why your story needed mods to reverify it.

Good luck x

Quote by JamesLlewellyn

So, links to some stories published by Rumps' Regulars over the past week that haven't gotten the attention they deserve:

Fluttered (poem) – Love Awakened 

Kistin (micro) – The Pool Guy

Kimmi (micro - a repeat from this morning) – The Lover in the Mirror

DeviantSusie (micro) – The Funeral Party

Jaymal (another repeat from this morning) –  A Perfect Place to Hyde - Part Four

LilCoffeeLover –  Titillating Treats

Verity100 (micro) – Caught Masturbating

techgoddess – Amazing Grace Part Thirteen

Kistin (micro)  – Monday Morning

techgoddess (micro) – Naked in the Dark

Fluttered (poem) – Recaptured Youth

So there you go. Lots of these are poems or micros, so won't take long to read, but all of them are bound to be enjoyable.

Have fun, y'all!

And remember, in this time of transition, let's help each other get noticed, OK?

I wonder, as a fan of Irish whiskey, if you've ever tried Bushmills? 

From the oldest licensed distillery in the world. It's mellower than Jameson's but well worth it. 

Evening everyone, but especially Kistin. Let me buy you a drink. I saw what happened you in the report the bugs forum. That is so not on to change your settings like that. There's more than a whiff of bullshit about his response too. Don't let the arsewipes grind you down ❤️

Quote by Theredbaron

Quote by kistinspencil

Quote by deviantsusie

When I click on Activity on the home page after logging in, I get this message.

An error occurred

An error occurred during execution; please try again later.

I've been trying again later for 4 hours

I just tried -- same error and it also logged me out entirely. I think it's broke

It's because you deselected everything and turned all your seeking settings off, just turned it back on for you so it's working. On the top right of activity page under settings you can adjust them all there. 

Quote by DaisyChained

Quote by Theredbaron

Quote by kistinspencil

Quote by deviantsusie

When I click on Activity on the home page after logging in, I get this message.

An error occurred

An error occurred during execution; please try again later.

I've been trying again later for 4 hours

I just tried -- same error and it also logged me out entirely. I think it's broke

It's because you deselected everything and turned all your seeking settings off, just turned it back on for you so it's working. On the top right of activity page under settings you can adjust them all there. 

I have the same thing. But I’m not seeking anyone. I don’t want to put those settings back on. But would like to see my friends updates.

Quote by WiseGinger

Funny thing: I haven't entered the story yet but the word count is 384 already. Why is that? 

My story on word is 9726 words, and on Lush is 10488. That's why it's been rejected.

I get an alert saying I have a new notification but when I click on the bell icon, it says there are no notifications

When I click on Activity on the home page after logging in, I get this message.

An error occurred

An error occurred during execution; please try again later.

I've been trying again later for 4 hours

Quote by naughtyannie

This looks like a genuine "bug" in the new version programming. The links to "Previous" and "Next" stories in my "Sex-Packed Holiday" series are all mixed up. For example, the "Previous Story" link in Chapter 2 takes you to Chapter 6, and the "Next Story" link takes you to Chapter 5. The rest are similarly randomly muddled. I pity anyone trying to read them in sequence! 

I'm giving up for a month. Those of you waiting for part 7 of Charlotte Sometimes, email me and i'll send you a pre-publication copy.

Quote by RejectReality

Quote by deviantsusie

The loss of data is particularly annoying - the scores, how I cherished those 1 or 2 votes.. I used to like looking at the bar graphs of how the votes were spread. The number of views. I was slowly watching 'In the Library' heading towards Famous story. Now it's all rounded off. The loss of word counts. I liked being told how many words were in a story, not how long it might take me to read it. 

I was watching "Nude Holly Day" move not so slowly toward Legendary.  ( around 1k per month ) Since the update, it's almost completely stagnant, because the bulk of the reads were coming from its high position on the popular page for Mature, and in turn driving reads to my other work.  There's also either a glitch in the score calculation or someone cast the magical 4 on it that dropped it to 4.99, which means it would have vanished into obscurity anyway, as happened with my previous main driver "Boned" in Milf.  Without notifications of new votes, I have no idea which it is.

Quote by RejectReality

Quote by Brookell

So now I have to go outside Lush to do a function that I used to be able to do within Lush.  It's a workaround, but not a very elegant or intuitive one.  The ability to sort is another function I miss.

I am in IT and have done much new development.  The number one rule about implementing a new version of something was never take away functionality.  Even changing how it works, you always left the ability to do it the older way at least for a few releases. It let's you ease users into new things.  So many functions are gone or changed to the point of being less capable.  The few new things (time zone elimination in forums and the My Comments) are nice, but have we lost more than gained.  I haven't posted since the new site went up.  I haven't been interested in posting -- which for any of you who know me understand that's weird.  I haven't stopped writing, just not been posting. 

Believe me, I know.  I also get that this was on an impossible timetable, though.  I'm just as frustrated as you are with the loss of functionality, and finding patience difficult despite knowing there was a hard end date when whatever was ready had to go up.

I'm not writing, but that's me.  Part of it is because Lush is my preferred venue for short stuff, and there's no drive to start those with the current state of things.  I have at least half a dozen 5-50k word stories in progress, but I haven't been feeling them.  Part of my recovery process in these slumps is to write quickies, but with that drive gone...

The effort vs. reward calculation isn't balancing for me right now.  The truncated exposure window for new stories, the loss of the popular lists that were a major driver of reads for me, and the inability to see my own statistics in full severely tips the scales.  The loss of forum signature functionality sucks the life out of me as well.  I enjoyed crafting my banners, and there's no point in doing so as things stand.

If I finish anything ( and if the submission process doesn't prove to be another barrier ) I'll post it, but that's unlikely right now.

I managed to write a micro today to try out the new submission process and see what happens but I feel like someone has gone into my room and thrown everything about and torn pages from my books. Everything has been turned upside down. The multipart stories that were not made as a series are all stand alone stories with no connection. The series chapters are all in the wrong order. The images I spent ages curating and turning into story covers look terrible and to cap it all, I've hopefully only temporarily lost my Omnium badge because I won't write an story.

I have my fingers crossed these are all temporary and everything will be put back, not quite in the same place but leaving my room looking recognisable. At the minute I can see no improvements in the new site and I'm talking about function because god knows I'm not even looking at the design flaws. Everything sees more awkward and complicated than before. Having my stories spread over 10 pages is annoying. Having my friends spread over 4 pages is irritating. Not being able to hide co-authored stories is annoying. Not receiving emails in my to say I have a new comment etc is annoying. Not receiving the text of the lush message in an email and having to log in to read it is annoying. I used to like not having to log into lush when at work but still be kept up to date. That is all gone.

The loss of data is particularly annoying - the scores, how I cherished those 1 or 2 votes.. I used to like looking at the bar graphs of how the votes were spread. The number of views. I was slowly watching 'In the Library' heading towards Famous story. Now it's all rounded off. The loss of word counts. I liked being told how many words were in a story, not how long it might take me to read it. 

I also liked having my stories in a particular order. so I could celebrate or push some stories or hide others. 

One final thing, which might be a bug... I submitted a 99 word micro there but the word count on the submission page said it was 156 words. Something is out of whack.

It all published fine and is on the front page but I miss not getting a notifcation that it was published.