How tragic, that my first post on here isn't a fun or whimsical one! *stamping foot*

Today, I have the honor of sharing with you a few updates and changes to the site rules, plus a few friendly reminders. Not very entertaining, but still quite valuable information to know.


(1) Resubmitting ToS Violations. No doubt you've noticed that we've refined and changed the validation system. Should you be unlucky enough to have a chapter rejected, rather than receiving an email, you can access your original chapter and a note from the validating staff explaining why your story was rejected.

Please know, that if you continue to resubmit a ToS violating chapter repeatedly, without fixing the offense, you are risking story deletion and/or account suspension. This might sound harsh, but we're not trying to be mean. With the new validation system, there's absolutely no chance of an author not receiving an email explaining the reason for the rejection. When an author continues to resubmit a ToS violation, without fixing it or asking for clarification, we can only assume that they are blatantly disregarding the site rules and abusing the staff. We're very busy and trying our best to make this site run smoothly for all of us. So please, take those validator notes seriously, and if you're confused, ask for help.

If your chapter is rejected and you don't understand the reason why, please fill out a Trouble Ticket and ask for clarification. Be sure to include your pen name, and the title of your story and chapter. The next available member of staff will be along as soon as possible to help clarify the violation and, if necessary, offer guidance or suggestions on how it might be fixed.

(2) The dreaded "Brick Fic". You might have heard the term "brick fic" and be wondering what on earth it means. Bricks are stories that are improperly formatted, without paragraphs and line breaks, where the text is all smooshed together . . . like a brick or sometimes a column.

Trying to read and validate brick fics is guaranteed to give the validating staff a migraine headache, blurred vision, and possibly an infestation of nargles. Trying to decipher a brick really slows us down when we're validating (in addition to the aforementioned headaches and eye strain), so we no longer accept improperly formatted, brick-fics. Cookies and doughnuts, however, we accept gladly.

(3) The preview button is your friend. Please, please, please, save us all some time and hassle, and use the "Preview" button when adding or editing a chapter. As the name suggests, this will let you preview your text, and you can verify that you have formatted your story properly, that your banner is displaying properly, and that you have closed all your formatting tags. We have to reject a lot of chapters for being improperly formatted or having open formatting tags, and we shouldn't have to - it's so quick and easy to check for open tags with the preview button!

(4) Image violations. This is a friendly reminder, as we've had a lot of image violations lately. Banners may not be placed in the Chapter Summary. Banners may only be placed in the Story Summary. Additionally, banners may not be links. And, as always, banners may not exceed 700 x 110 pixels. You can doublecheck your banner size by right-clicking on it and selecting "properties".

I cannot begin to tell you how much it makes our jobs easier, if y'all follow the Terms of Service and remember that the Preview Button is your best friend. (We don't want another infestation of nargles or doxies, poor Star Bucky just finished cleaning the staff room and it took days to get rid of the doxycide odor.)

Happy Writing!