FanFiction.Net Rants

Fanfiction Server down?

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:28:13 GMT

So, I was just on FF.net until suddenly the page didn't load anymore... and then told me that firefox was unable to connect to the FF.net server...
So what, is the site temporarily down again or am I the only one experiencing the problem?

Okay, forget that, the server just magically reappeared.

Anyone else having this problem?

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:37:45 GMT

FFN has now begun to freeze on me. I could be reading a story and scroll down except it wouldn't scroll down. It'll scroll down 5 minutes later. This has begun since the new changes appeared. Seriously FFN...seriously. It's like you go 10 steps forward by leaving the website alone and BAM! you're back at start with all these spontaneous changes.

But anyway, anyone else having the freezing problem?

New Layout

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:03:08 GMT

I guess I never understood the reason to change something that worked (or mostly worked) just for the sake of change.

You used to be able to search by the story's ID # (something I found useful at times).

Had to look around for a bit to find where the "Search" feature had been moved to.

I thought they said you'd be able to search for stories with more than 2 characters, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

Still scratching my head over these changes.

Still can't sort in the login area

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:49:49 GMT

I can't sort my story stats (regular or legacy), documents, user stats... nothing. Why did they remove this feature?

What is WITH the new layout?

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 07:21:45 GMT

The font on the new layout is so bright that it actually hurts my eyes and is pretty hard to read. The worst is in the login area. It's like they looked at the old layout and scoffed, "Man, that is far too usable! Who would want a font color that contrasts with their screen enough to make out clearly? No, man, I'm telling you, having a pale as possible font color is the way to go. Also, make the font itself as ugly as possible. Come on guys, get with the program, no one wants a user-friendly scheme!"

As an added bonus, everything takes twice as long to load as it used to, and when I'm in the login area and I press one of the buttons on the sidebar (say "Community") it sends me back to the top of the page. And the arrows to sort things on the stats pages are disabled, and trying to view stats pages that aren't legacy stats makes Firefox lag like hell.

Some "improvement".

Stat - loading problems

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 19:53:46 GMT

Are they loading for you guys?

Every time I check my stats, they seemed to say "Loading chart. Please wait."

And they never load. This has been happening for the passed few days. Anyone experiencing the same thing?

Thanksies!

-J

Link fail.

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:37:10 GMT

Ok so today I finally managed to start reading a fic that I'd been ignoring forever -and to my surprise discovered I liked it.

I get to chapter 23. I read that.

I click next to go to chapter 24.

THEN ff.net takes me somewhere completely different, and I do really mean completely.

It takes me to the mobile site for fanfiction, to another story of another fandom and a different chapter number (16), leaving me completely confused. At first I think it's ad blocker that has failed and I'm seeing ads, but as I fail to spot the button that will bring me back to ff.net I realise that this is ff.net, the mobile version, ad that I'm not where I'm supposed to be. So I try to get to the proper chapter only to fail
repeatedly.

To add insult to injury, the address bar still displays where I actually wanted to go.

And now that I've finished ranting this out and go try to get the correct story again (more like the sixth time) it miraculously works.

I've heard much about the many glitches of this site (not having experienced that many of them) but this seemed like a pisstake, deliberately designed for the purpose of enraging readers everywhere

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this?

Having trouble publishing

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:28:54 GMT

It'll let me upload the story and put in all the information and so forth, but when I hit the button to publish, I just get this weird blank screen (well, blank except for a few sidebars and things) and the story doesn't publish. This happened in both Firefox and Chrome. Anyone else having difficulty?

Chapter not found message is back again

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:58:35 GMT

Three updated chapters in stories I'm following and not one will load, instead that damn not found, wait 15 minutes message. What does it take for FF.net to work properly?

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 01:25:24 GMT

I was in the mood to read a fanfic today, but that mood has been killed because the website is not displaying at all. You can't see the website's name in the blue banner or the icon there. The menu's are a complete mess that I can't even see the login button or tell if I am even login.

Using my other browsers, I found this was all on ff.net's end because all four of them display the exact same thing. GRRRRRRRRR.....

Italics

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:03:21 GMT

I love when I upload and update a chapter, FFnet decides to smash all letters of italics together (for no reason). It's not aggravating at all when people point that out to me, or that I have to always go back and fix that.

:(

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:19:23 GMT

I don't know if any of the people of this community have encountered this person or not, but I've heard about a troll that has only the word "occupy" in their story, summary, and title (to a degree with the title). The admins deleted his/her account, but now he has switched to another account.

Shouldn't the admins have a a way to IP block this troll?????????

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:31:32 GMT

... So is it just me, or have the devs suddenly decided to center every story on the site?

cos that's really ugly

What the hell is with the beta reading profiles?

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:48:14 GMT

I went to edit my beta reading profile, and noticed several annoying things.
1. The text at the end of my lines keeps getting cut.
2. Random /br things keep coming up. I know that </br> is the HTML way to insert a line break, but these keep showing up on my beta profile itself instead of on the form. Even when I try to erase them, they won't go away.
Is this site even trying with this section?

To be deleted 7227?

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:09:49 GMT

Has anyone else come across the category "To Be Deleted 7227"? When I click on the link, it tells me it's been disabled.

I googled it and the only things that came up seem to be stories that should be deleted. So, I'm thinking it's an 'oopsie' by the admins.

Abuse of Abuse Reporting/Anonymous Reviews

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:36:07 GMT

Forgive me if this type of entry is not welcome here but I am just fed UP with the FFnet system.

I'm involved in the Hawaii Five-O (the 1968 series) fandom on FFnet and never in the 8 years or so that I have been part of online fandom as a writer have I encountered such malevolent, spiteful individuals who frequently abuse the process set up to prevent bullying to bully.

1) Anonymous reviews. I would block anonymous reviews if I could but I have some writers who prefer to review anonymously and I figured why should I stop myself from getting reviews. I think it would be great if there was some system where we were able to at least see the ISP for the person posting the anonymous reviews and if they are just one person sh*t stirring. Anonymous reviews give writers no way to respond, especially when they are used to launch plagiarism accusations.

I've deleted them, but here are some examples of bullying reviews I have been receiving since I came back to FFnet:

To my very first story posted 'The Heaven Dragon'.

-------------------
A new guest review has been posted to your story. Please login to moderate

this review.

Story: The Heaven Dragon

Chapter: 1. Chapter 1

From: hello again (Guest)

-------------------

hello again:What a nasty first review.

Nickovetch, I do not mind that you are back. Welcome! All the best for your

stories. I love seeing this fandom lively and active :-)

I won't read your stories as for my taste their tenor is too dark and

negative.

I like slash connected with actual love and humor. So I like the stories that

tend more in this direction. And some nice ones are already posted by several

other writers. Their quality is nonobjectable!

Thanks!
-------------------

It's nice to know I had to have permission to post to a public website. Really, I'm flattered. And really, I am wondering why you felt the urge to have to tell me that you don't read my stories in a review to a story of mine? The story was posted wasn't slash or dark, it was angst h/c. And if you want to fanwhore over other writer's stories, then do so in their own stories, thanks!

To 'The Injection:'

-------------------

A new guest review has been posted to your story. Please login to moderate

this review.

Story: The Injection

Chapter: 1. Chapter 1

From: Guest

-------------------

:did you take this from another story?

-------------------

2) Abuse reporting. Today one of my stories was pulled because it was a type of story not allowed on FFNet. I read the guidelines, and double checked to make sure that none of them were one-liners. It was a collection of drabbles, which I said MAY be used in longer stories later. If FFnet really took their words seriously then they would get around to cleaning up the explicit NC-17 slash stories posted there not to mention the stories which flagrantly break their TOS with copyrighted material or the ones which are allegedly plagiarised.

I simply wish there was a way where we could identify the ISP addresses of anonymous reviews posted to our stories. It's not enough just to see which country they come from. Just because we can delete them doesn't stop them from being a serious allegation of plagiarism nor does it stop cyber bullying. The worst part is that there is no way to respond to these allegations in except in Author's Notes.

The idea of blocking an individual based on their ISP would work very well to stop such negativity in fandom. If we can do it based on username why can't we do it based on ISP? Lastly, there should be a special reporting mechanism for bullying/harassment/stalking on FFnet. Simply sending an email to the Admin is unlikely to work, if ever.

What happened to the characters?

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:50:41 GMT

I wanted an rss feed for abraham lincoln vampire hunter and was going to ask if someone could make one in syn_quest. When I went to the book section since there was no separate movie verse, I saw that there was no character field. I can't pick if I only want to see Henry/Abe stories or anything else. Is it just for this section or does this apply to all of ff.net?

http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Abraham-Lincoln-Vampire-Hunter/

Help

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:35:46 GMT

Today I decided to log onto the site to reread old stories, logged on and noticed ~75% of my favorites where gone; I really doubt that that many of my favorite author pulled their stories (could be wrong, but given I have already re-found one...). I couldn't say exactly when it happened, normally I only use the site list of favorites occasionally(about a month ago).

Any suggestions for getting the favs back and/or backing up them up to prevent a repeat? Sure there's always manually, but not the prime solution that.

Thanks.

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:00:17 GMT

I'm getting this charming message every time I try to post to a forum...

FanFiction.Net Error Type 1

An error has occurred while processing your request.

Please email this error message to support@fanfiction.com.

All errors are logged for administrative and security purposes.

172.219.199.29:70
/forum/reply.php?sub=1&userid=1095393&forumid=44309&topicid=58410257&threadid=73311910&ppage=37 2012-10-14 19:59:22

Anyone else?

Bowdlerisation of comment text

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 14:02:20 GMT

This isn't new, I know, but it's so frustrating! I just noticed that FF.net edited out the NAME 'Dick' in a PM I wrote to a fellow author.

How ridiculous can they get? Funnily enough, their bowdlerisation of content actually makes it seem dirtier than it would have been if they just left the words intact.

Talk about a slippery slope.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Fictionpress logins not working?

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 18:10:39 GMT

Anybody else getting the lovely Code 2 error?

No more Cut & Paste

Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:48:19 GMT

So, it might be me and not the site. But, I can't seem to paste into a story I'm editing before I post it. Has anyone else noticed this? I ask because it's kinda inconvenient for things like my disclaimers which are in legalese(ish) and always the same. Now I have to type it all out and make sure I don't leave anything out, like a comma. Thanks for any input!

Better FFNET

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:37:34 GMT

This is a quick fix to make your FFNET experience slightly better, because if we had to look at the site the way they wanted us to, we'd just get frustrated to no end.

Step one: Install Stylish (Firefox - Chrome)
Step two: Install this userstyle: http://userstyles.org/styles/66837/

Things the userstyle currently does: hide the avatar in story and forum summaries (avatars in profile, reviews and forum posts are left intact), increase the width of the site layout to make it easier to read.

Enjoy! And do leave a comment if you find anything not working or if the site updates with something else we'll have to fix ourselves.

Faves

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:11:19 GMT

Anyone else finding the favourite stories page exhausting? The author filter is just nonsense, at least the category filter makes sense.

Mystery of the Missing chapters

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:02:59 GMT

Hi,

I just tried to post chapter 21 for my FF.net story which is the best I ever wrote. Five hours later, it's showing up on my preview as the 21st chapter but chapter 21 isn't showing up on where my story is posted on the site which still shows only 20 chapters.

I couldn't find the damn blog but I found Twitters and the latest tweet was on how well the 10 minute system upgrade went this afternoon. But guess what, comments are appearing with people reporting missing chapters and the infamous Code I error which I assume shows up when you try to click the link on the "alert" email because the chapter doesn't exist.

I don't care about bells and whistles. I just want to post my damn chapter so people can read it because as I'd said, it's the best ever.

Folks, meet my latest error message when I click the update link on the "alerts".

FanFiction.Net Message Type 1

Chapter not found. Please check to see you are not using an outdated url.

New chapter/story can take up to 15 minutes to show up.