Message Board

*NEW* Font Sizer

There is a new treat for all of you.  I found an excellent font sizer that works with Java and uses a cookie to remember your sizing/font family preference from page to page, as well as when you return the next time.  It took a while to find one that I was happy with.  You will all notice, however, that the old font sizer is still there.  This is because I found that the new one did not work well with the Opera browser.  I did not want to take away the option of sizing for those people.  Nor did I want to take away the sizing option for those who would rather not accept cookies on their system.  I hope you enjoy.

The front page may also look slightly different to some of you.  I took care to make sure the pages could size down smaller.  Some of you still like to use the 600 x 800 resolution.  The Poetess and GraphicLite skins work best with that size.  However, the others will work better than they did before.  1280x768 is the optimal size to use for all skins.  I just bought a widescreen laptop and use 1680x1050.  Let me just say, if any of you use that tight of a resolution, the Goblet skin looks really funky and is probably not the way to go.  Goblet was designed for the 1280x768 resolution.  (Just FYI.)

Queues

Hi, all! We've had lots of stories submitted to us over the past week, and we want to thank everyone for their patience. While we've been dealing with them in a timely fashion, the holidays have put us behind a little. Thanks for submitting with us, and rest assured that we'll have your chapters up shortly.

Remember, if you have any questions at all, please email either NotSoSaintly or me at any time.

Cheers! Southern Witch 69 

reporting login troubles

If anyone is having trouble logging in, I am more than happy to help, and I try to do so as quickly as possible.  However, in order to help as quickly as possible, I really need the penname, e-mail address, and password you are using (for verification purposes) to be included in the initial e-mail, so I know who you are.  I cannot do anything until I know that.

There have been two consistent errors popping up with members.  One is with AOL users and the other is with session errors appearing at the top of the page.  There are answers to both on the help page, so please take a look and try those before going to the Lost Password generator.  Thank you.

STORY RATINGS

My lovely admin was wonderful enough to post a poll on Potter Place. She and I were wondering whether or not story ratings were important to people.  This is an ongoing poll, but after seeing the overwhelming results and having heard from several others in the past, I have chosen to make a little change with the way stories are rated.

In the past, if you did not choose a rating--something many people would forget to do--it would automatically give a 10 (5 star) rating.  This padded the reviews to the point where an average was no longer truly reliable.  I have made a small change tonight where you may review but do not have to rate if you do not wish to.  If you forget, it will default at zero (0), and zeroes are not counted with the average because that really would work against an author.

Basically it will make things more fair. If you forget to rate, and you really wanted to, you can go back and leave a second review with a rating and you know that your first "0" rating won't count against it.  

I changed the Terms of Use slightly to reflect this change. I have to have some sort of rule in place to prevent abuse of the rating system, so everyone should have a look.

ADULT-RATED MATERIAL

As of 4:15 pm PST all adult-rated stories and their reviews will be restricted to members.  Members are required to agree to the Compliance Statement in order to view the adult-rated stories and reviews, so if you are logged in and confused as to why you cannot see an M(R) or MA(NC-17) story, this is why.  All Members: Please visit your Account Page to agree to the statement if you have not done so already.

To All Readers:  I had to do this.  Every quality archive I know of restricts adult-rated stories. To avoid legal action from various sources, including JK Rowling herself, this is something that needs to be done.  I love having my little archive.  It occupies all my free time and without it I would probably be watching Dora the Explorer with my kids (ouch).  So I would rather avoid any legal action requiring that I take down my site.  I hope you all understand.

A big welcome to all new members! 

UPDATES

1. 
   NOTICE:  The Terms of Use have been updated. It is mostly a rewording and further clarification of certain points. Nevertheless, please have a look.


2. 
   COMPLIANCE STATEMENT: In my quest to improve the site, I ask all members to look over the COPPA Compliance Statement that will appear upon login.  Members who are permanently logged in will receive notice of this on the front page.  Once the statement has been agreed to, you can access your Account Page and you will never see the notice again.  Thank you for taking time to do this.


3. 
   NEW REGISTRATION:  It came to my attention that new registrants were receiving their temporary password about 50% of the time and the other 50% needed to use the "Lost Password" link, which seems to be working 100% of the time.  Therefore, I have modified the registration process to allow new registrants to choose their own password.


4. 
   UPCOMING CHANGE: There will be another change coming in the next day or two, and I am giving a little warning in advance.  I tried once before to restrict the M(R) and MA(NC-17) ratings to members only.  There were a few glitches in the code, which I found upon close examination, that made it slightly unstable.  I weeded those out and have successfully implemented this change on the test site. So, I will be making the change either later today or tomorrow.  We have the "Remember Me" function now, so this should not be a headache for our members.  However, adult non-members will need to register in order to read the stories or the reviews (yes, those will be blocked, too) of adult-rated stories.

Personalizing ... a NEW LOOK!

Slowly... one page at a time, since I am a one-woman coding team, I am personalizing the eFiction program. I am not a genius, therefore I will not be creating a new program from scratch. eFiction had a lot of great things going for it. It is the most popularly used fiction archiving program around, and it is for good reason. However, since there will no longer be updates to the software, I have decided to make it official: I am making it "my own." Meaning, file by file I will be working out the bugs and fixing little annoyances and changing the appearance. This will take time, of course. I have been working on this for a few weeks now, and you will notice in the footer that this is no longer simply eFiction, but eFic Pandemonium.

So, I will stop chatting now and tell you all to look at your user account page, the page that you see when you log in. It now has a vastly different look to it. Every member's page will also look similar. I have organized the options for managing stories, reviews, favorites, etc. I hope everyone likes it and finds it easier to work with. I put in tiny little aesthetics (that most will probably not notice) and worked out things that just didn't make any sense. Enjoy. Oh, and comments are welcome! (They are sort of like reviews, and we all like those.) ;)

Oh, yes, that's another thing. Comments can now be made by anyone.

Request to Authors

All Authors::


Please do not use apostrophes in your first chapter titles. For some reason, the code hates them. In making my latest code manipulation (see following), it decided to ignore the story titles with apostrophes. So the three (including mine) that were affected, I had to remove the apostrophe from the first chapter title to make the code recognize it. (So, I hope the two of you aren't too upset with me.)

I have worked hard to get members' favorite stories and favorite authors to alphabetize. This took a bit of manipulation and several additions to the database. (The list of members who have chosen you as a favorite is also alphabetized.) Thank you to PotionsMistress, the lovely owner of OWL, who pushed me in the right direction in updating the database. :)


EDIT: Yes, as a matter of fact, if a title has an apostrophe, it will not allow you to add it as a favorite even. Do not ask me why. I shall play around with it a bit and ask around. ;) In the meantime, if you see an apostrophe missing, that is why.

REMEMBER ME

All right, girls and guys, I believe -- and I stress the "I believe" part -- that I have the RememberMe function working properly. It was a long process, involving the combination of three different ideas, and in the end, I discovered that simplicity is always the best policy. But, boy, do I learn a lot by doing all of this myself. So, please, take advantage of this feature. (Oh, like I'll have to twist your arm. *lol*) If you find a little glitch, which I highly doubt you will since I have this working on my test site just fine, e-mail me and let me know. Oh, and you must accept cookies on your browser in order for it to work. There is no need to open yourself way up, just accept first-party cookies and leave those pesky third-party ones blocked.

Site News and Prayers for SW

Those of you who have checked the box in your Profile Information to be notified of Alerts (reviews, responses and updates) have probably noticed some changes in the format of the e-mail. I have discovered where those little eFic bugs were that caused the links not to work. So, on the whole, you should notice the links now work.


Thanks to SouthernWitch, I have been able to concentrate a little on coding. A test database and archive has been created where I can test changes before I upload them to the actual archive. This will virtually eliminate any "down time" caused by malfunctioning code.


I want to ask everyone here to please send prayers and/or good thoughts to SouthernWitch who is now evacuating her home because of Katrina, which is now going to hit land as a category 5 hurricane. I pray that everything goes well for her and her family and that she still has a home when this is all over.