46 replies to this topic

[Kamina-Yoshi]

If you hate it so much, go talk around other artists and send in a complaint letter to Fanfiction.

[Wilson]

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I neva really use hyphens between scene changes.

[AchikaMiyu]

From FF.net:

March 22nd, 2008 -- Summary of upgrades/notes since the last update:

We have added Safari v3+ and Opera v9+ browser support for document and profile editing. We strongly advice all Apple/Mac users to upgrade to the Safari v3.1 web browser.

Online/Doc Editor: Spell-checking and preview accuracy have been improved.

We do not support dash or other character based section/scene markers. If you wish to create a separation in your chapter, please use the officially supported horizontal line feature in our document editor or in your favorite word program. Using unsupported section markers will only make your entries less compatible to future upgrades. You can create the horizontal lines in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice by typing 3 or 4 consecutive dash/hyphen keys and then hitting enter. The site will correctly recognize these scene breakers when you upload them.

I can see why some people are irritated by this, but I don't see how this upgrade prevents noobie fanfiction writers from using proper grammer. From what I can tell, it only removed hypens as scene change markers. If you hypenate a word, then that doesn't change.

I know that in some of my older stories, ff.net has removed by old scene change markers from before ff.net added the long horizontal bar. There are only one or two stories where I really needed a scene change marker to cause less confusion, but otherwise I'm leaving a few of them as is since the transition from one scene to another is either pretty obvious or I find that the flow between the two paragraphs isn't that bad all things considered.

That and it's a bit of laziness for going back to edit some older chapters (cause reading some of my old stuff makes me realize how much I've grown as a writer). This is probably the biggest thing, nobody really wants to go back to rework their old stories. It's tedious, we have better things to do in our spare times and it's kinda scary looking back at your old stories. Again, I can see the complaints, but I don't think it's such a big deal.

[blindeye]

What are alternative sites to FF.net then?

[Sakura Blossoms]

What are alternative sites to FF.net then?

Mediaminer.org is also a popular fanfiction site

And also LiveJournal.com is another good place to post fanfiction from absolutely any series, with absolutely any pairings

Naruto Fanfiction LiveJournal Communities

[TokehGecko]

Hmm, this really IS annoying.

I've gone and checked most of my stories and yup... it's totally screwed up.

Scene Dividers are needed and they're all gone, damn it! I just received a review of someone telling me I'm lacking those and now I understand!

Well, I'm off going to edit everything and using that horizontal line feature...

I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this problem... Thanks for making this thread!

[Sakura Blossoms]

I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this problem... Thanks for making this thread!

You're welcome

[psycho666]

*sigh* aren't people hard-pressed enough in finding decent stories on there already? FF.net is just destroying the already low percentage of good writers on their site and if they keep doing things like this it'll be completely dominated by the 1 page=a chapter newbs that you seem to find everywhere you go now. *sniff* even worse they're ridding them of ever learning proper punctuation and grammar on their own.

Edited by psycho666, 24 March 2008 - 11:57 PM.

[Denim88]

Um, I've noticed that using dividers like this--> -o-o-o-o-o- OR ones like this -ooOoo- in between story scene breaks do not seem to be a problem...at least it wasn't deleted on my stories. I guess I'm just throwing that out there for those who want to continue using fanficiton.net (I wouldn't mind checking out the other sites out of curiousity though)

Edited by Denim88, 25 March 2008 - 01:41 AM.

[PhantomCat]

I must ask, do Mediaminer and LiveJournal allow for reviews? Do they allow you to filter what characters you want to focus on? Do they have a stat count? I don't deny that FF screwed up pretty big, but I don't think this error warrants giving up on it. Because of the reasons I have listed, I still think FF.net is the best thing around. I suggest for anyone who's upset to send in a complaint letter instead, because they need to realize how badly they're treating their writers.

For those who have lost your documents: Highlight each chapter and select copy. Then open Microsoft word and click "paste". Finally, upload the new document onto your account, and use the correct scene breaks. It took some time, but my story is finally back to normal.

True most of the stories I read on Mediaminer have a ton of Crossovers . Sometimes the search is useless but that's not the point.The point is if something gets you mad do something about it. Don't call it quits when something as bad as grammer and punction bring you down.

Yeah Fanficton.net did big mess ups ( from what I heared) but it's sadly one of the best fanfiction sites so far.

I checked my story and it's still the way it was and I'm a new writer. Not a Newbie I had an account along time ago.I just never post stories as much.

Edited by PhantomCat, 25 March 2008 - 04:18 AM.

[blindeye]

Can someone please explain why this prevents new writers from using proper grammer?

[Onionhead Attacks]

I haven't been using mediaminer in a long time, but I still consider it rather difficult to search for stories. They have a ton of category filters, but no character filter. Also, their search engine makes finding stories based on summary and titles a little frustrating to say the least. I don't know if they have improved this feature but last I was on there, I just gave up searching entirely.

Fanfiction.net while has ease of use for searching, has totally upset many authors by performing these changes without prior warning or explanation as to why they were doing it. Also, jeans mentioned something about using oOOo as scene breaks and were left alone. I suppose that fanfiction.net's primary concern is using "-------" only and not characters such as the alphabets. I have yet to try to see if characters like !@#$%^&[]{}=+\ work as scene dividers. All I know of is that they seem to despise asterisks. I do not see why they feel the need to do away with half the characters on our keyboard, but I assume that it has something to do with their future upgrades and such to the site. If you ask me, I would suggest improving and working around those upgrades to bring back our beloved characters. But alas, we're just a mere penniless minority that writes for free on a site dominated by the giants who run the site.

I know Kodachi Claws has mentioned how to fix your stories by copy&pasting with the scene dividers fixed, but you can also use the story export feature. It will send your story document straight to the documents folder and then you can edit it. Just skim your stories from your copy on your hard drive/flash drive and then insert them where they belong. If not, I'm afraid you'll have to look/read through your work and insert them that way. But if you happen to be like me, who has miraculously has her scene dividers changed for her without her knowing how that happened or lifting a finger for that matter, well, then it's your lucky day.

[Leney]

I wouldn't start pulling fanfics from FF.net just yet.

All my scene dividers work perfectly. All the formatting in my fics are fine. What is that person talking about?

Also, yes, FF.net strips dividers and messes with the formatting when you upload stories into it's document reader. (It'd be a feat of programming if they could fix that, but it's hard).

I personally always go into the document reader and fix whatever spacing/character issues pop up before I update/post a fic. It takes like...two minutes, to go into the document reader and stick those <hr> dividers in there.

Big whoop. If you have time to write fanfiction, then you have time for the formatting issues that come with posting it on the internet. I have to do the same if I want to post in the NaruSaku library and sometimes it's even worse here with spacing. If you move all your fics to somewhere else you're going to have to do the same thing. Doesn't make sense if you're worried about efficiency.

Personally I feel the OP @ FFrants and everyone who is like "OMGmyfics are RUINED RUINED!" are overreacting. (Then again it is FFrants)

Also I personally think an <hr> divider looks better than:

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

or o-o-o-o-o-o

or $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

or whatever the makeshift dividers people come up with. If FF.net is going in and swapping the latter for the former, that's a GOOD thing. It's a lot neater.

Also regarding grammar, the hell does this have to do with grammar? Except for those long '--' dashes, and I checked...yep still there.

Much ado about absolutely nothing.

Edited by Leney, 25 March 2008 - 09:25 AM.

[AchikaMiyu]

Can someone please explain why this prevents new writers from using proper grammer?

I'm trying to figure that out myself.

I may not be a programing genius or have much knowledge of programing, but the weird symbols: i.e. #$*&@^Q%)@$(*${}[] were probably all removed because they screw with the program. It's sort of like how you use [function] [/function] to make text bold, underlined, spoiler tags on forums, I think that same sort of concept applies with how FF.net uploads their stories. Also, I would think all those funky symbols promote poor grammer. When would you ever really need all of those symbols when writing a story? If you're using it in place of someone using an expletive, then up your rating and put the expetive down instead. Otherwise, I see no instance where you would use those symbols unless you were writing all in Kryptonian or something along those lines.

Mediaminer, like FF.net, is a good respository for stories. My biggest beef with the site is uploading your stories without having it condense into one huge paragraph is tricky at times. Sometimes I can get it, sometimes I can't. That's where FF.net has a one-up on mediaminer since there is the in system editing feature (which is great for making quick fixes you didn't catch before you uploaded your story).

Noobie writers are always going to write like noobies no matter what sort of formating/text options they have. The only way they can improve is with practice and constructive criticism from other readers. Though I think the biggest problem with noobie writers is that they're not willing to listen to constructive criticism and instead flame the reviewer for disagreeing with their close friends who think that they wrote the best story on the net. FF.net has that new beta reader section which will probably help a bit. Of course, if the beta reader is a pre-teen who doesn't know how to write a proper story even if it hit them in the face, then there is only so much the beta reader will help.

[jim1982]

I can see why to can the "odd" symbols because most are used in HTML programming.

That is why i tend to spell out words like percent instead of useing %.

grammer can be hard cause english does have weird usages like "had had" and now days schools teach less grammer and more reading comprehension.

[Sakura Blossoms]

I should also add that Mediaminer's search engine and filters are hopelessly broken. I try to filter it to no yaoi, a few pop up anyway. I try to search for "Training for the Job" and it CAN'T FIND IT! Also, if you want to find a fic that focuses on a specific character, if not pairing...you're screwed with mediaminer.

Besides, most of the fics there didn't look like high quality to me.

:rolleyes:

A question was asked about where to find other places to post fanfics...an answer was given...no need to keep on wailing on and on about the different issues of each site.

Also this was an issue with FFnet that a lot of people didn't know about...now they do...and it's up to them to decide what they want to do with this newly gained information. Honestly, if those of you who don't have multiple stories, and tons of chapters to have to go and edit now, have no problems them just let it be...this topic was made for those who might not have known about the changes, and have to now go do some clean-up.

So just let it go, and move on :rolleyes:

[Eagle8819]

Oh, hell no. Mediaminer is even worse of a pit compared to ffnet. Don't go there.

Big whoop. If you have time to write fanfiction, then you have time for the formatting issues that come with posting it on the internet. I have to do the same if I want to post in the NaruSaku library and sometimes it's even worse here with spacing. If you move all your fics to somewhere else you're going to have to do the same thing. Doesn't make sense if you're worried about efficiency.

Personally I feel the OP @ FFrants and everyone who is like "OMGmyfics are RUINED RUINED!" are overreacting. (Then again it is FFrants)

Also I personally think an <hr> divider looks better than:

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

or o-o-o-o-o-o

or $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

or whatever the makeshift dividers people come up with. If FF.net is going in and swapping the latter for the former, that's a GOOD thing. It's a lot neater.

Also regarding grammar, the hell does this have to do with grammar? Except for those long '--' dashes, and I checked...yep still there.

Much ado about absolutely nothing.

Not to burst your bubble here but...hyphens aren't the only thing taken out. Hundreds of thousands of old, ancient, awesome fics that contain asterisks and etc have ALL been taken out, leaving those fics a jumble of words and basically rendering them unreadable.

Now, do you think those VERY old fics will be fixed? Perhaps if the authors are still around, yes, but otherwise? No.

That is my beef with ffnet, which is enough to piss me off, along with a good number of writers out there. Nevermind the fact they took out hyphens (though I can't for the life of me see how hyphens would affect the programming?), the fact they actually went all the way to revert fics into mush when they did not do that LAST TIME is the problem.

Also, if some of you have recently read old fictions - you may notice that "I'm" and "it's" are now without their apostrophes. I wonder why?

Why, pit? Was it entirely necessary to destroy fics that has long been left alone with their history and awesomeness? Nevermind the fact you implement new stuff, but was it really necessary to ruin all the old fictions?

Of course, there are also crapload of bad fics around, but that's beside the point. The point is they ruined a lot of fictions, and worst of all, I don't think I will even see half of them getting fixed.

In fact, I cannot be bothered to go back and fix my own, nor did I try to check if they took out apostrophes from my fics. I am that annoyed. I may fix them later, granted, but that's only if I figured out a nice scene breaker. And no, I'm afraid not all of us have the time to fix the formatting. In the past, yes, probably, but it's not always that way.

I've some odd twenty fics waiting to be fixed, and I'm already balking and losing patience. What of those with some fifty, hundred fics?

I absolutely refuse to use that black line provided by ffnet. Perhaps between author notes and the fic, yes, but scenes and scenes?

Hell no.