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.

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 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.

Might be a temporary glitch. I'll ask the developers about it in the morning. Please drop me a line with the story name and what format file you're uploading (file size might be handy too) and we'll go from there.

On my journey towards Omnium, I have penned a trilogy that is with my trusty collaborator for editing when she has time to devote to it.

In the meantime, I started a humorous First Time story about a college kid and a Bohemian girl at uni. But then I stumbled across a fantastic image online that begged for a story, so I paused writing that to scribble Out Of The Habit. It's shaping up well and should be a fiery read for those that enjoy ecclesiastical wrongdoing...

Quote by ahab

When you’ve crafted some stimulating erotica do you tend to masturbate afterward, or sometimes even start playing while writing?

If it doesn't arouse me while writing, it's a sign it's not good enough, and will either need editing or be scrapped.

You're right that, for people not directly linking to giphy, tenor etc, there must be a tonne of redundancy on the server for people who have downloaded pics/GIFs and then uploaded/stored them in their own media folders to share.

But I don't know how a site like this could leverage its own library. Nor why the site would, when that wheel has already been invented, and works well.

There are also copyright issues if we're officially sanctioning stuff. At the moment, we push the burden of proof back on the author and disavow any content violation as caveat utilitor, unless we receive a takedown request. If we procure content scraped off the web and offer it for consumption to members, we're on thorny legal ground.

I'm not sure how many authors seek permission from the content owner before (re)posting pics and GIFs on their walls, or even using photos in their story covers. I suspect not many. Individuals doing that is one thing. An organisation doing that is a different matter entirely.

Couldn't resist a few more to, uhh "round off" the day.

I know what I'd be doing with the extra hour in bed this morning if I was married to the owners of these delicious curves...

Also, as an adjunct to what Jen said, sometimes resubs or subsequent chapters drop straight into the "Assigned to me" tab of the mod who handled it previously. Nobody has yet figured out why, because every time we try to find a cause, it behaves itself.

So, sometimes you might (re)submit a story and it'll be marked as assigned almost immediately. But maybe the mod doesn't log in for a few days because they're on vacation and then someone else spots it's locked without any movement a few days later and unlocks it. At that moment, it drops into the main queuea and you'll see the "awaiting moderation" message with the Recall link.

Little weird behaviours like that can contribute to the flip-flopping of a story status too. So, as Jen says, don't pay too much attention to the status because it may be this glitch at play too.

Quote by moasan
the limitation means it will take months to publish my work on this site

Conversely, releasing things serially means you have time to pimp your work in the forums and on your wall, etc to gain readers and followers who will await your future chapters with baited breath.

60,000 words in one go is a big ask for many readers, and may put them off.

Quote by moasan
a Novella category, permitting stores of up to 60,000 words

Short answer: No.

Long answer: it's hard enough for moderators to verify chapter upon chapter of 10K stories, let alone longer. Break your story up into manageable chunks please. And if you struggle to get your chapters under 10K, consider learning tricks from other authors to tell the same story in fewer words, tighter prose, etc.

Quote by Seeker4
There's no bookmark feature

Actually, there is. In the floaty footer as you scroll.

Wow, what a fab list. An incredible turnout of over 100 entries for such a high word limit, and with such varying slants on the theme, is testament to the talent we have on the site. There's no way I'd have even known where to start shortlisting, let alone judging.

Congratulations to the podium winners and all those who rounded out the top ten. And, in fact, anyone who took the time to sit down and craft a story from scratch for consideration deserves high praise, because entering Lush competitions can be daunting.

Sad to say that I haven't read most of the top ten, so I'll have to try to make time to do so. Crazy busy, unfortunately.

Usual shout-outs to the team behind the comps. It's a time-consuming process to set up, run, shortlist, judge and announce, so everyone involved needs a hearty pat on the back.

Congrats again to all involved. Onto the next one...

There'll be an announcement in the Site Announcements thread this coming week when the votes are all in.

The winners will also be posted on the Competitions page shortly after.

Quote by wxt55uk
LS shareholders

🤣

Lush plc. Next stop: the FTSE 100.

Quote by LordCephius
Grammarly will flag any sentence that starts with the word This.

Interesting. I've written for a few places with strict style guides in my time, and one in particular had editors who flagged my use of "this". I was told that starting sentences with This, or using this without any further clarification, adds cognitive load (or somesuch) to the reader who has to remember what this refers to. It also breaks SVO by having the subject/object in another sentence.

I'm not a Grammarly (or any checker) user but I'd be interested to know if the following passages are flagged. Version one uses "this" without any object:

The log files will be scanned for configuration settings and other metadata. This can take a few minutes for very large files.

And version two uses "this" with a qualifier to remind people of the object:

The log files will be scanned for configuration settings and other metadata. This verification process can take a few minutes for very large files.

To me, as a reader, I think the immediacy of the first one is still clear. There are no actions in the previous sentence other than "scanning" to which the object could be attached, and the sentence is short enough to fit in most people's working memory without losing flow.

I guess the second one could be shortened to "This process", which is perhaps better, and still attaches "this" to the action of scanning. It's more correct but I'd argue any of the above work.

This (situation, haha) is probably one of those scenarios where breaking the rule is okay if clarity is maintained, but Grammarly may not grasp the nuances of language with its strict built-in rulesets.

Quote by wxt55uk
Are you saying the stories which appear on trending banners are (as Fox and Kimmi have suggested), purely down to the number of likes they are currently receiving?

I have no idea how the algorithm works, but if I was calculating it, that's how I'd do it. Likes and reads and stuff = currently story du jour.

Quote by wxt55uk

I just checked my Steampunk story published on the 6th June, and I was surprised to see it was still trending.

For context, there's only been one story published since then, so the category isn't awash with new content. Stands to reason, as Foxy says, you'd linger longer in the trending area if there's not much activity in the category, nor attention on older stories.

Note: I have not had a single like for it since June/July.

It's likely nobody else in that category has either. The trending list only changes when some activity happens that causes stories to alter rank. Popular categories will shift a lot.

Quote by kistinspencil

I guess the best I can do then is hope for a dull week.

Because votes = validation of the joy of writing?

Quote by HungTalesFL
I would love to see LS allow the approval of stories with the option not to "publish" until you are ready. This would also be helpful when you want to publish a multiple-chapter story at the same time.

Not really sure how that would operate. Seems a lot of work to have to approve+lock a story from further editing to prevent people changing stuff between approval and when you decide to submit.

And if you don't decide to publish, then moderator time has been wasted.

I doubt this will see the light of day.

Quote by HungTalesFL
if your story gets rejected for any reason, you would essentially need to re-record.

The onus is on authors to write within the guidelines. If you do, there shouldn't be any problem. And if you're reading a story out that you've already written, the act of reading it aloud will help proofread it, allowing you to fix mistakes and thus making it better and more likely to be approved.

Win-win.

Audio files can now be uploaded and attached directly at story creation time.

So come on, sexy Lush voice artists. Let's hear you...

puts on creative hat

Will see if the hat offers any wisdom. Whether I enter or not, thank you Kimmi for this most generous prize and your support of the writing community here. ❤️

Quote by joe71
Why not leave the banner up at least until the announcement

Nice idea but it usually advertises "enter the comp" on the banner wording, which is misleading if it's over. And we don't have the capability to change the banner when entries close, nor is it satisfactory to put some text over it due to the different banner colourings and positions (mobile, desktop, etc).

I think we're stuck with it disappearing on closing date, sadly.

Congratulations, good sir. No mean feat.

Quote by sprite

Sorry, ominonicromiumcon badgers, but yeah, got a new one on its way. Micro-micro. Stories will need to be exactly 1.5 words long. should be up sometime in October.

What th...?

Quote by yourfantasylover

I'm still pretty new, and have no friends here, well, one. Sort of.

Then I'd start there. Read a load of stories here. Vote and comment on them. Put a few things on your profile wall. Start discussions in the forum. Pimp your stories in the Self-Promotion forum. Share your writing expertise; anything.

The more you start to contribute to more stuff on the site, the more people get to know you and check out your work. The more people you can start following you, the more exposure you get each time you publish.

RRs are nothing more than a personal recommendation from the moderator and gets the story listed on the Recommended Reads page, in additiom to whichever category and tags you used. It carries no more weight otherwise.

(Besides the prestige! They're not all that common)

Some categories are phenomenally popular and others, as you've found, aren't. The more niche fetishes, as well as (sadly) fantasy/sci-fi, tend to not have as many people camping there to see what's new.

But you should still publish in the most appropriate category for the story. Just because a story category doesn't have a massive following and your expected interaction counts are lower then you'd like, doesn't mean you won't get reads as you build your portfolio.

Speaking from experience, many people who follow you will read most of what you write, irrespective of genre, if you demonstrate you're good at the craft in genres they do like.