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Wondering
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 8:43 pm Reply with quote
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I've noticed that updates have been really uneven at Occlumency lately. Sometimes several days will go by without an update, then a whole bunch will come in at once. I know that this isn't due to a lack of submissions, since I have found myself waiting for days for chapters to be posted that I or my friends have uploaded.

This is a fairly problematical issue for both authors and readers. When updates come in huge batches instead of a steady flow, a story can get bumped back to the second page of the "Recent Additions" within a very short time of being posted, meaning that readers may completely miss the update.

I do understand that real life happens, but it would nice to know what's going on. It would be easier to be forgiving and sympathetic if we knew that the delays were actually due to serious issues (rather than laziness or slacking).


Wondering
Diana
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:30 pm Reply with quote
Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116
Hi,

I just wanted to take a few moments to clarify a few things regarding how submissions are handled at SH. For starters, it is absolutely not true that any of our admins are 'lazy' or 'slacking'; however, many of our admins have been very busy outside the site lately. In addition to basic everyday life getting hectic, with many of our admins having children returning to school for the fall semester, family matters to attend to, full time jobs and even a few illnesses, we also deal with hundreds of submissions per month (note that the number is much closer to a thousand per month than one hundred). I would also like to point out that our admins are volunteers who do not get paid for their time and service to SH.

As to why you may see many submissions hit the Recently Added page at once on one particular day and then see nothing posted the next day involves many factors. It is true that every once in awhile none of our admins may not be able to get to a particular archive for a day or two (although I would like to point out that I've only seen this personally happen maybe two or three times in the last nine months that I've been with the site, and only if a serious real life matter has gotten in the way). It is also true, however, that the nature of our submission rules dictate that authors and admins work together. Stories may be held up if an author has not completed their corrections on time. For example, if an author has corrections due on Chapter A, which is already posted to the archive, but Chapter B is now sitting in the queue, we will not work Chapter B until Chapter A has been handled. All of this information can be found in our Submission Rules. Finally, please note, as stated in our Submission Rules, which can be accessed from any SH archive, that admins are allowed up to seven days to completely work any given submission. If there is any reason for delay on the due time for submissions, our webmistress has always posted a notice (and reason) for the delay on each of our archive homepages.

If you have any other questions or concerns you can contact the SH admin team by using the contact information located at the User Help/Faq section on any of the SH archives.

Thank you.

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sweet_torments
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:18 pm Reply with quote
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I do realize that everyone has outside responsibilities to deal with. And, as you mentioned, the people here are volunteers who do not get paid. However, as an author here I don't get paid either. When my chapters aren't up in what people think is an acceptable time, they email me. So, I'm sitting around waiting for my chapter to go through and people are emailing me and asking where it is.

I have had absolutely no problem with Ashwinder in the past. Usually my story would be up within three days, even after I made corrections. Also, I've had a number of betas. I appreciate your search for perfection within stories and I just read a reader response that complained of some lower quality stories, but I'm finding it hard to find a beta that catches everything you guys require. In my latest chapter I asked for anyone interested in being a beta to email me, but if no one ever gets to see the chapter that's not going to do me a lot of good.

For the details, I posted the original chapter on the sixth. Four days later I was sent a correction with nine comma errors. So, I fixed them up and sent them right out. It's been another six days and I still haven't heard back. I have another chapter written and ready to go out. People are emailing me and asking where the chapter is and I have to write them back that it's on the way.

I really don't mean to be hard to get along with. I like Ashwinder, a lot. I appreciate what you guys do here. I'm happy to fix my errors. Hopefully I'll get the hang of what you guys want and get my commas under control. It's just really frustrating to sit and wait for my chapter to go through and have to wonder if I'd done something wrong to make this long of a wait. Is there anything I can do to make sure it goes through faster? Other than catch all the errors, of course. I try my best to do that anyway.

Michelle
Diana
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:02 pm Reply with quote
Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116
I'm going to attempt to answer this per issue.

Quote:
I do realize that everyone has outside responsibilities to deal with. And, as you mentioned, the people here are volunteers who do not get paid. However, as an author here I don't get paid either. When my chapters aren't up in what people think is an acceptable time, they email me. So, I'm sitting around waiting for my chapter to go through and people are emailing me and asking where it is.

The acceptable time is seven days from the date that your submission is submitted. Seven days is Sycophant Hex's policy. Seven days is the rule we go by unless there are circumstances beyond our control, and even then, we post a notice to let our authors know of the backlog.

Perhaps it will help if I give you a few general numbers that we constantly have to work with. I've just looked at a few of the queues to see where we are currently standing. Without going into specifics, which I refuse to do here, I'm going to post a few numbers:

Aswhinder: Thirty plus submissions. This number is not exceptionally large considering how busy the Aswhinder queue normally is. To be fair, this number is actually on the low end. Also, most of the submissions are showing a submit date within the last two or three days. I've seen the queue for Aswhinder reach the high seventies before, with all the submissions being only maybe, at most, three days in waiting.

Occlumency: Twenty plus submissions. As Occlumency is arguably our second busiest queue, this number is a bit weak for the norm. Again, most of the submission are pretty fresh.

These are are two busiest archives. But please note that we do have eight archives (not including Illusions) in total to work with, and each of our other archives usually house a handful of submissions (anywhere from a few to considerably more than a few).

Something else you need to consider is the rejection/validation rate. Just because you are not seeing submissions hit the Recently Added page does not mean that we are not working the queues. For every validated submission there are usually a handful of rejections. I absolutely will not get into the specifics of this issue because I, and SH, believe in maintaining author privacy.

Quote:
I have had absolutely no problem with Ashwinder in the past. Usually my story would be up within three days, even after I made corrections. Also, I've had a number of betas. I appreciate your search for perfection within stories and I just read a reader response that complained of some lower quality stories, but I'm finding it hard to find a beta that catches everything you guys require. In my latest chapter I asked for anyone interested in being a beta to email me, but if no one ever gets to see the chapter that's not going to do me a lot of good.

As I stated in my previous post, this is an extremely busy time for most of our admins. School has just started back, many of our admins have children (some having quite young children), many of us have full time jobs, some of our admins have children, full time jobs, and attend university, graduate school, or are enrolled in a Ph.D program.

Regarding the beta issue, you should be sending your stories to a beta reader before you upload your submission. They should not be directed to the site in order to get a sample of your work, you should be providing them a sample via email.

Quote:
For the details, I posted the original chapter on the sixth. Four days later I was sent a correction with nine comma errors. So, I fixed them up and sent them right out. It's been another six days and I still haven't heard back. I have another chapter written and ready to go out. People are emailing me and asking where the chapter is and I have to write them back that it's on the way.

I cannot speak with you about details here on an open forum. My best piece of advice is to email me privately (dbryant0001@hotmail.com) and I will look into the matter. I would need to know your author name, your story title and which archive you have submitted to in order to give you any kind of information anyway. You haven't provided any of that information here.

Four days from the submission date is absolutely acceptable under our current Submission Policies (again, read seven days). Was your original chapter rejected or accepted? It sounds to me that your submission was validated with conditions. Have you uploaded your second chapter yet? Again, I cannot look into the matter until you provide me with the details I've asked for above.

Quote:
I really don't mean to be hard to get along with. I like Ashwinder, a lot. I appreciate what you guys do here. I'm happy to fix my errors. Hopefully I'll get the hang of what you guys want and get my commas under control. It's just really frustrating to sit and wait for my chapter to go through and have to wonder if I'd done something wrong to make this long of a wait. Is there anything I can do to make sure it goes through faster? Other than catch all the errors, of course. I try my best to do that anyway.

Again, as I know nothing about your submission except that there is a submission, I really cannot give you any advice here. In order to help you we need less sketchy information. An email to the administrators always goes a long way. Any type of correspondence from us to you would have included a contact email address. You can email us at that address, or as I stated above, you can email me privately and I will be happy to look into the matter and give you as much feedback as I possibly can.

I would actually prefer that you email me with the matter so that I can look into the situation and get back to you. It is much quicker than going ten rounds here on a public forum where I am limited in what I can say due to author privacy.

Thank you,
Diana
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Wondering
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:31 pm Reply with quote
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Diana wrote:
Stories may be held up if an author has not completed their corrections on time. For example, if an author has corrections due on Chapter A, which is already posted to the archive, but Chapter B is now sitting in the queue, we will not work Chapter B until Chapter A has been handled.


Does this mean that if a chapter is in queue, and the author is not doing what they need to do to get it posted, that everyone behind them in the queue has to wait until they take care of the problem before you move on to the next person in the queue? I certainly hope not!


Diana wrote:
Finally, please note, as stated in our Submission Rules, which can be accessed from any SH archive, that admins are allowed up to seven days to completely work any given submission.


Understood. But when turnaround time suddenly gets much longer than it has been, authors and readers are going to wonder why, even if the time is still with the seven days. And frankly, as someone else has commented, many of the new stories that have gone up on Occlumency in the past few weeks are disappointingly bad. That, in combination with the slower turnaround time, really raises questions about what's going on with that archive lately.

I'm sure this isn't the sort of thing that the S-H admins want to hear about or deal with. But you should know that this is getting talked about by authors and readers, outside the confines of this forum. Occlumency has had, up to now, an extremely good reputation among Snape fans. The buzz that I'm hearing now suggests that it's beginning to lose that. If S-H chooses to close their eyes to that, it is certainly their right to do so. But please don't shoot those who dare to carry the message.


Wondering
Wondering
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:56 pm Reply with quote
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Diana wrote:
Finally, please note, as stated in our Submission Rules, which can be accessed from any SH archive, that admins are allowed up to seven days to completely work any given submission.


I was poking around for more data on this issue, and I would like to point out that Metamuse says the following in the FAQ:
Quote:
I uploaded a story/chapter and it's not appearing?
While Sycophant Hex has numerous Admins placed around the world and in different time zones, they have real life obligations and other online hobbies and they all volunteer their time, so please be patient. We endeavor to validate your story as soon as realistically possible. Please allow at least forty-eight (4Cool to ninety-six (96) hours for validation of a chapter. If you do not see your story validated or have not seen a rejection letter within this time, please email us so we may assess your story as soon as possible.



Wondering
Guest
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:08 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Does this mean that if a chapter is in queue, and the author is not doing what they need to do to get it posted, that everyone behind them in the queue has to wait until they take care of the problem before you move on to the next person in the queue? I certainly hope not!

No. The delay is author specific. In other words, it is only the author who has not made their corrections who may find themselves facing a delay in the next chapter of their story being submitted. Until they make their corrections, that is.

Quote:
Understood. But when turnaround time suddenly gets much longer than it has been, authors and readers are going to wonder why, even if the time is still with the seven days. And frankly, as someone else has commented, many of the new stories that have gone up on Occlumency in the past few weeks are disappointingly bad. That, in combination with the slower turnaround time, really raises questions about what's going on with that archive lately.

The why has been answered above. Twice. One, we are all busy from time to time. Two, just because you do not see things being added to the Recently Added page does not mean that the queues are not being worked. As I mentioned above, for every validation there are twice as many rejections. Many submissions, in other words, that you do not see.

Quote:
I'm sure this isn't the sort of thing that the S-H admins want to hear about or deal with. But you should know that this is getting talked about by authors and readers, outside the confines of this forum. Occlumency has had, up to now, an extremely good reputation among Snape fans. The buzz that I'm hearing now suggests that it's beginning to lose that. If S-H chooses to close their eyes to that, it is certainly their right to do so. But please don't shoot those who dare to carry the message.

With all due respect, if this was the sort of thing that we didn't want to 'hear' or 'deal' with I wouldn't even bother to take the time out of my day to answer your questions here.

As to the charge that 'this is getting talked about by authors and readers, outside the confines of this forum', well, quite frankly, I simply refuse to answer to that one. If there are numerous people who take exception with the way in which things are being handled, then they need to come to us...themselves. We cannot address a situation if we do not know about it. And slinging around 'loss of good reputation' threats isn't exactly conductive to getting much of anything accomplished.

As I've stated in my previous posts, you are all free to contact me via email. In addition, you are free to contact any member of the admin staff via email. You are free to post questions and comments here, but please understand that no matter how many ways in which you word the question, if the question is essentially the same, well then the answer will be the same as well. Clearly, I'm not giving you the answer you are looking for.

Thank you.
Diana
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:09 pm Reply with quote
Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116
Forgot to log in.

The above post is mine.

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Diana
Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 10:11 pm Reply with quote
Head Moderator Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 116
From the Submission Rules:

Validation Time: Time may vary for stories awaiting validation. Our maximum limit is 7 days. We will usually try for 3-5 days, but this sometimes cannot be achieved when the queues are backed up. We are hoping that these changes to our rules will help us to meet these standards.

http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/help.php#rules

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Metamuse
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:06 am Reply with quote
Site Admin Joined: 28 Nov 2004 Posts: 475 Location: USA
Hello,

I think Diana answered most of the questions with the answers she had available. I'll try to expand on them.

Wondering wrote:
When updates come in huge batches instead of a steady flow, a story can get bumped back to the second page of the "Recent Additions" within a very short time of being posted, meaning that readers may completely miss the update.


Readers can always go to the second page and still see which date a chapter was updated on. Yes, we do limit the number of updates per page and on the index page due to server load. But clicking to the next page should not be a problem for a reader if they choose to look at all the updates for a particular day.

sweet_torments wrote:
For the details, I posted the original chapter on the sixth. Four days later I was sent a correction with nine comma errors. So, I fixed them up and sent them right out. It's been another six days and I still haven't heard back. I have another chapter written and ready to go out.


You submitted a story, it was worked on by an admin within four days of being in queue and you were sent a letter asking for corrections. So, you fixed them (which I thank you for) and you filled out the Corrections Form that is in the 'Yes Letter' correct? Once filling out the Corrections Form, which lets us know you made the corrections, we don't contact an author about the same chapter unless the author had a question on one of the fixes. Once you made the corrections, you are more than welcome to submit another chapter of the same story or another chapter/one-shot from another story.

sweet_torments wrote:
I appreciate what you guys do here. I'm happy to fix my errors. Hopefully I'll get the hang of what you guys want and get my commas under control. It's just really frustrating to sit and wait for my chapter to go through and have to wonder if I'd done something wrong to make this long of a wait. Is there anything I can do to make sure it goes through faster? Other than catch all the errors, of course. I try my best to do that anyway.


I'm glad you like what we do here and are happy in fixing errors and wanting to learn. I'm going to provide a helpful link that the admins use as rule for commas:
http://www.sycophanthex.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=41>

As far as I can tell you have done nothing wrong and there should be no reason for wait in uploading a chapter (see the above response for more information.)

Chapters will never be perfect; authors, betas and admins will always miss errors but we try to catch most to make it a pleasant experience for all readers and authors involved.

Wondering wrote:
But when turnaround time suddenly gets much longer than it has been, authors and readers are going to wonder why, even if the time is still with the seven days.


Diana answered majority of this question but this is where I hope to expand on it.

Admins do have family (close and extended), school, and careers to focus on. This of late has been more prominent in our lives; it is a struggle to work the queues within the 7 day time limit we allow and we are also currently understaffed. We are taking applications for admins slowly and training several but we will not put them on the current archiving script we use because when we get Mage it will mean a complete retraining and we don't have the time or man power to do that. The new archiving script, Mage, will streamline the validation process quite a lot for the admins; thus, it will improve queue time.

Wondering wrote:
I'm sure this isn't the sort of thing that the S-H admins want to hear about or deal with. But you should know that this is getting talked about by authors and readers, outside the confines of this forum. Occlumency has had, up to now, an extremely good reputation among Snape fans. The buzz that I'm hearing now suggests that it's beginning to lose that. If S-H chooses to close their eyes to that, it is certainly their right to do so. But please don't shoot those who dare to carry the message.


I think Diana answered this as well as possible; I'm only going to add: Yes, we do want to hear the concerns of our authors and readers. But if they don't tell us, we can't address the problem. Talking about it off this forum and site we can't do anything about it.

Wondering wrote:
I was poking around for more data on this issue, and I would like to point out that Metamuse says the following in the FAQ:
Quote:
I uploaded a story/chapter and it's not appearing?
While Sycophant Hex has numerous Admins placed around the world and in different time zones, they have real life obligations and other online hobbies and they all volunteer their time, so please be patient. We endeavor to validate your story as soon as realistically possible. Please allow at least forty-eight (4Cool to ninety-six (96) hours for validation of a chapter. If you do not see your story validated or have not seen a rejection letter within this time, please email us so we may assess your story as soon as possible.


I'm not sure where you found this but it was true about a year ago. The current Help pages on all the archives and on the main SH site says:

Quote:
15. I uploaded a story/chapter and it's not appearing?
While Sycophant Hex has numerous Admins placed around the world and in different time zones, they have real life obligations and other online hobbies and they all volunteer their time, so please be patient. We endeavor to validate your story as soon as realistically possible. Please allow at least seven (7) days for validation of a chapter. If you do not see your story validated or have not seen a rejection letter within this time, please email us so we may assess your story as soon as possible.


I hope this clears up the questions that have arisen.

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Wondering
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:35 am Reply with quote
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Metamuse wrote:
Readers can always go to the second page and still see which date a chapter was updated on. Yes, we do limit the number of updates per page and on the index page due to server load. But clicking to the next page should not be a problem for a reader if they choose to look at all the updates for a particular day.


I agree with you that readers can check the next page if they want to. I'm not sure that they always do. Admittedly, this isn't something the admins can do anything about. But isn't quite as much of a problem when stories go up at a steady pace instead of in large batches.


Metamuse wrote:

Admins do have family (close and extended), school, and careers to focus on. This of late has been more prominent in our lives; it is a struggle to work the queues within the 7 day time limit we allow and we are also currently understaffed. We are taking applications for admins slowly and training several but we will not put them on the current archiving script we use because when we get Mage it will mean a complete retraining and we don't have the time or man power to do that. The new archiving script, Mage, will streamline the validation process quite a lot for the admins; thus, it will improve queue time.


This is the type of information I was looking for when I originally asked the question. It would be really nice if you could add a simple graphic (a red light? a dark mark?) to the main pages of the archives whenever the queues are moving slower than usual, for whatever reason. That would at least let authors and readers know that the admins are aware of the problem. A little information goes a long way toward helping people be patient.


Metamuse wrote:

Yes, we do want to hear the concerns of our authors and readers. But if they don't tell us, we can't address the problem. Talking about it off this forum and site we can't do anything about it.


I must admit that I found the initial reaction to my question (and questions others have recently posted on this section of the forum) a bit "prickly" and defensive. Which isn't something that encourages free expression of concerns. Why would readers and authors take the time or make the effort to comment about issues if admin responses suggest an unwillingness to address the problem? (This is definitely not the case with your response, Metamuse--you have been polite, informative and seem to be genuinely concerned about the situation.) That was the point I was trying to get across in my earlier comment on the subject, although apparently I didn't phrase it clearly enough.


Metamuse wrote:
I'm not sure where you found this but it was true about a year ago.


On the FAQ section of this forum, actually. Smile


Metamuse wrote:
I hope this clears up the questions that have arisen.


Yes, thank you!


Wondering
celisnebula
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:53 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 312 Location: USA
Wondering wrote:

I agree with you that readers can check the next page if they want to. I'm not sure that they always do. Admittedly, this isn't something the admins can do anything about. But isn't quite as much of a problem when stories go up at a steady pace instead of in large batches.


This may not be true in your case, but I think it is hardly fair to place all readers in that boat. I have no problem clicking back two, three, even four pages to see what has been recently updated. There is only a limited amount of space on the front page to post what has been recently updated, and I remember when only 5 or 6 stories were shown, instead of the 15 that are now accessible through the front page.

Wondering wrote:

This is the type of information I was looking for when I originally asked the question. It would be really nice if you could add a simple graphic (a red light? a dark mark?) to the main pages of the archives whenever the queues are moving slower than usual, for whatever reason. That would at least let authors and readers know that the admins are aware of the problem. A little information goes a long way toward helping people be patient.


I don't think that is currently available with the present system SH uses. Ashwinder will always move slowly because of the sheer volume submitted to it. Occlumency and Eros & Sappho follow quickly on its heels as large archives. An author should expect to have to wait the 7 days when uploading something to these archives because of their popularity.

I think it is unrealistic to expect a chapter to upload in a short amount of time -- it says in the author faqs to expect at least a 7-day validation time, in addition to however long it takes the author to actually make the corrections. I've had to wait 7 days, and while yes, waiting can be frustrating, I know that my chapter will go up (baring any problems with it) when its time has come in the queue.

When I get frustrated, I remind myself that the people who run SH are all volunteers -- they do this because they want to provide wonderful fan fiction to their readers. These people have real lives, real issues that come before being an SH Admin, and sometimes, even when they can devote time to the archives it is slow going simply because the sheer amount of updates and new stories being submitted.

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Owlbait
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 92
celisnebula wrote:


This may not be true in your case, but I think it is hardly fair to place all readers in that boat. I have no problem clicking back two, three, even four pages to see what has been recently updated. There is only a limited amount of space on the front page to post what has been recently updated, and I remember when only 5 or 6 stories were shown, instead of the 15 that are now accessible through the front page.


I find I lose track after two or three days, which updates I've read and which not. Especially when, as sometimes happens, a story is updated twice in that time - I see it and think I've read everything older, but I'm wrong. Maybe a line to mark dates would be helpful?

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