andead99 has just posted over 20 stories in one day

Thanks for investigating the issue so promptly and good to hear that the author did not intend to cause a problem and, even better news, that the stories are not AI.

Thanks for the update on finding a technical solution to limit postings, and I can appreciate that it is not straightforward. Perhaps, in the interim, a note could be included on the upload page to ask authors to voluntarily limit the number of stories they post each week to, perhaps, just 2 or 3?

After the previous issue with an individual posting many stories at once, I stopped posting to the site but continued writing. I have now built a small backlog – including four in the Draft folder of the web site ready to be published – but I would only post 1 or 2 a week to avoid dominating the home page. I believe that it is a joint responsibility for the authors to fair to each other, ensuring there is plenty of variety represented on the home page for every visitor.

Obviously, it is disappointing that other authors’ stories have been bumped from the home page after only a few days since being published. Yesterday morning one of my stories from over two weeks ago was still visible on the home page. Now, that and two of my more recent stories have all been bumped off. Furthermore, equally importantly, around ten other authors whose stories appeared on the home page yesterday, are no longer represented. I am sure it as disheartening for them as it is for me, not to have out stories exposed to a wider audience for a longer period.

Please let me emphasise that I do appreciate the situation is caused by the way the Home Page works, and I accept there is not a simple technical solution. However, perhaps it would not be unreasonable to ask the new author to delete all but three of their stories now that they are aware of the issue. And then upload the rest at the rate of a few a week until their supply is exhausted. They would benefit as all their stories would be seen on the home page in due course for greater exposure to readers. As it stands, 20 of the 23 they posted yesterday will never be seen there.

I believe the action I have proposed would be appreciated by all existing users of the site.

My suggestion was made in this thread some time ago in relation to a specific issue that I had raised, and one that was acknowledged by the moderators (in the same thread) and has since been resolved.

However, although I respect your views, I believe you have misunderstood my suggestion and the context in which it was made, and hence I find it necessary for me to provide clarification.

Firstly, I would never advocate deleting any stories that have been uploaded that meet the published community guidelines (“House Rules”). The only exception is when, due to an acknowledged limitation of the site’s implementation, excessive posting significantly impacts the ability for stories to appear on the home page of the site.

Secondly, my personal ideal for the home page would be to always see 25 stories from 25 different authors, to gain maximum exposure for the range of different interests presented by authors, and to provide the greatest variety of stories to the readers. I appreciate that ideal could never be achieved, if only because authors write at different rates.

Thirdly, there has always been easy access to a large number of stories for readers, following your suggestion, by simply clicking on “All Stories”. Furthermore, if you wish to read all stories by a single author then one can click on the author’s name.

The background to the issue, in greater detail and which you may be unaware of, was that earlier this year when some authors were posting 10, 20, or even more stories a day, the home page only displayed a handful from just a few authors if the default filters were enabled. At its worst, I saw a total of 5 stories from 3 authors displayed on the home page. This resulted from a limitation in the site, acknowledged by the moderators.

However, provided authors did not post too many in quick succession then the full complement of 25 stories from a wide variety of authors would appear. Unfortunately, either inadvertently, in the case of new authors, or through selfishness, the number of stories and authors appearing on the home page was dramatically reduced. I do not believe this is beneficial to authors or readers, particularly for new visitors to the site.

My suggestion on this thread was specifically to alleviate the existing issue at that time, until a software solution could be implemented.

I trust this explanation has provided you with sufficient clarification of the original problem that I appreciate you may have been unaware of.