AHG!

[athersgeo]

This is a general announcement to anyone looking at this journal who uploads to ff.net.

As from now (and actually, they started doing it about two or three weeks ago), characters such as ~ and * will be stripped out of your work on upload.

Yep. FF.net are banning all non-language-relevant text characters.

Yep. FF.net are, in effect, getting rid of scene breaks.

Nope. I can't defend Xing over this one.

See what I mean?

Comments

[redjacket.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it bites, but you can go through and stick lines where you want a scene break using the edit/preview function thingy so scene break aren't being eliminated all together it's just another step to put them in which is rather annoying.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

1) That assumes you use Internet Exporer (which I don't).
2) Why should I have to take an extra step when I have a perfectly servicable scene break before upload?
3) If you've got a long document, the odds are you'll miss one or two.
4) What the hell is wrong with using ~*~ as a scene break in the first place?
5) I really, REALLY don't like the threat that using characters like that will get your story pulled.

[redjacket.livejournal.com]

Yeah, as I said, annoying. And rather unnecessary.

I didn't know you have to have IE to use it. And the threat well, that's just fucking stupid.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

Yep, it actually says that QuickEdit is only working in IE. Given that in Netscape it displays all the HTML in one, long, horizontally scrolling string, I'd go along with that.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I'm also one of those people who actually like to make their stories look tidy on upload and I *tend* to like actually having a whole story look the same way.

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

was there some sort of rampant abuse of astrices that prompted swift and immediate attention from the Society to Prevent Cruelty to Astricies and Maybe Tildas as Well?

very strange and arbitrary if you ask me.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly.

[honorh.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's annoying. However, you can do scene breaks using "relevant" characters. I've taken to using dashes, myself.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I guess. For that matter, you can (I know cos I experimented this afternoon) get round it by putting the 'non relevant' characters in as ASCII code (don't tell a web developer you can't do something; they find ways round it). It's the juvenility of "if you use these characters your story will be deleted" that really annoys the hell out of me.

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

This really sucks big time - the heavy-handedness of it, never mind the extreme inconvenience. Many writers have such a hard time with Quick Edit they won't be able to use it to put in scene breaks - plus not everyone likes the look of a line of dashes or a horizontal rule.

And what's the point, anyway? Is it going to destroy the world of fan fiction if a few writers stick 'not language relevant' characters in there? I mean, we already have the review function removing repeated characters (Reviewers mentioning the year 7000 in one of my stories had it changed to the year 70, I referred to Batgirl III once only to have her magically transformed into Batgirl I, making me sound like a moron); this is just too much.

I submitted a service ticket protesting this - somehow their site messed up and it was submitted twice. Now they'll probably remove my account.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I do hope not.

I sent an email to info@fanfiction.net yesterday protesting about it (and enquiring what they wanted us to do about scene breaks). So far, perhaps needless to state, I haven't heard anything back at all.

As I've mentioned in a response somewhere above: Quickedit only works if you use IE, so anyone using anything else (eg Netscape/Mozilla, browsers that are by far and away more secure and proof against viruses) can't use the damn thing anyway. (And yes, the removal of repeated characters in reviews is extremely bugging - I've had 10,000 turned into 10,0, which, considering I was attempting to make a point about 10,000 words of nothing, made me look utterly moronic.)

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

The other thing that bugs the heck out of me is that this, unlike the HTML which is well stated what they will/won't strip out, is virtually unstated until you go wandering through their help text. And dang it, even the HTML isn't actually THAT well stated, come to think of it - seeing as they say nothing about stripping out of the alignment attribute from paragraph tags (though they do and have been doing for over two years).

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

Yes - I found out that they remove the attributes from the few HTML tags they take years ago, but only by trial and error. And yes, hiding what really is a major change in a new, hard-to-find feature where many/most people probably won't see it (I took a look this morning, but didn't see the special characters part) is rather irresponsible - especially when they're threatening to remove stories for breaking this lame-ass new rule.

Have you also run into the 'no double spacing' thing? I think it doesn't look good to have a horizontal rule scene separator with no blank line before or after it - and have been wasting time in Quick Edit to get them in after Doc Man filters them out. I'd be very curious to see if they tell you just how they expect us to do scene changes.

Professional novels usually use some form of asterisks and squigglies. But it't not good enough for us...

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I have run into the no double spacing - but that has actually been kicking around for a while now (I think it came in at the same time as blank lines went out of reviews). And yes, I'm definitely with you on the HR without any spacing.

I suppose I can always go with my review spacer - and do three periods, each with its own individual paragraph tag...

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

BTW, love (and am curious about) the new icon.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

Rachel + Funky Create-an-icon-website + boredom = new LJ icon that actually looks somewhat like me. (Though my glasses are purple,not black.)

[cmar-wingnut.livejournal.com]

I got an answer to my support ticket (if you can call it an answer). They told me to go read the knowlegebase.

(&&$#^%*%(^*^(*_)*)(*&^*=+!#!!~~~~#@#$%$(*^&$%$+I)(*(*&*&^+==[]-+)_*((*&*^

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

I think we can all agree that was sadly predictable.

*still hasn't received a response herself*