Instead of having what our connections are reading and have published at the bottom why don't you highlight new member's writing? Or at least tag the first posting with new writer and give extra points for the first three reviews. Remove them from list as soon as they get three reviews. Also have a buttom at the end the way you do on the other lists we could click to see more new writers.
I've received some reports of pages not loading quickly and hanging for up to 70 seconds. Is anyone else experiencing this? How is the site loading for you?
Thanks,
Sol
Yes, I get site timed out messages on my Kindle all the time but I thought the trouble was on my end. Once I refresh my Wi-Fi they load fine.
Spell check isn't the only thing that helped me spell better. I lurked in a literary chat room for ten years where the median IQ was 120 and those people would never let you live down a spelling mistake or let you blame it on a typographical error. They also jumped on word misuse. You haven't experienced true shame until you've been laughed at by 50 people, all at once and in type. There's no spell check in chat rooms, so I found if I typed the word I couldn't spell in the search engine on my tool bar, a drop down menu would appear with the correct spelling. It also worked great for looking up the precise meaning of words I was uncertain about. It was time consuming, but I didn't get laughed at. Being in a chat room also helped me to edit my writing, if you typed more than three lines, no one read the post. When Twitter came along I was ready. I learned to condense my ideas down to a sentence or two, taking out useless words.
As for English, I am still ignorant, I know more about the splitting of an atom than I do an infinitive and wouldn't know a dangling participle if it bit me on the ass.
Being one of the worst spellers on the face of the earth, I have to defend spell check. It transformed my writing. I went from using half of my vocabulary to using all of it, making my writing much easier to understand. Also, after hitting the same word over and over again I finally learned to spell it. I think it's not the tool being used here that's at fault but the person that uses it.
Check this out: 30 Copy Editors Tell Us Their Pet Peeves
http://www.buzzfeed.com/emmyf/impact-as … .juXayOO09
I hope ya'll notice they all agree on a singular pronoun they...
Hey Sol,
Finally, I get back to writing, exploring possibilities here and using this site and I realize how powerful this application is. I've used most of the writing sites on the web and I think you now have the best one for motivated, mature, adult writers.youThanks! max
I have to agree. I joined two other sites and it was like getting a bill through congress just to post. One site required five credits to post anything, then you waited days even weeks to get your work visible, THEN after it had been up three months they LOCKED it meaning you had to come up with five more credits to get unlocked if someone saw it in your portfolio and wanted to read it. The other site put your work on a que, meaning it would be visible to the rest of the site as soon as the other work on the list got three reviews. To post a novel on this site required watching a video.
What I really like about this site is that my work will be seen as soon as I post it and will stay active until I decide to deactivate it. I also like all the controls over our content this site provides, that of dumping rude and unhelpful reviews, (on the old site a rude review would stay attached to your work forever unless you deleted it and republished or asked SolN to remove it), and that you can block those people who live to ridicule work from reading and reviewing yours.
I feel like I am in control here whereas at the other sites I felt I was being controlled.
Thanks, Vern. Also a great idea.
Norm,
(Don't worry this is on topic!)
I like the GOO name, might I suggest putting 'super' in front of it?
dags 
(and you didn't think I was paying attention.) 
I understand that NJC, I am a curious person, too. I just think this conversation is full of rabbit trails that have nothing to do with the original question and should probably be moved.
I don't think getting your readers to suspend their disbelief is the same as convincing them to change their beliefs.
I agree with Mirkira, though, this conversation belongs in her group.
I apologize to Norm for hijacking his thread, it was not my intent.
Actually, and technically, we're all world famous, right? TNBW writers live in Europe, Africa, the Americas, Australia, and Asia. We got the six continents covered, and I think that qualifies for being world famous! So I better change it to "critically acclaimed." One can be "famous," after all, without being "acclaimed."
Well...and I never thought I'd say this...you can add about to be PUBLISHED critically acclaimed author...Ronan got accepted...and I had a good joke ready for when they turned me down..."My novel's so bad, I can't pay anyone to publish it!"
I'm teasing...you're so nice to put my pen name, I really can't ask you for more. And thanks for all the help with Ronan, the editing, encouragement, and the talking down when I was about to trash it. I know I could put this in a private message, but I want everyone to know that not only are you a great author, you're a pretty nice human being. (and I'm not just saying that because we're both progressives...)
NO...um, I mean, no, world famous is good...
You have my name just make sure 'critically acclaimed author' goes in front of it....
Dirk, I don't know a lot about syfy writing, I don't read it, but I do watch a lot of syfy movies. And what I am wondering is this: in the year 4017 wouldn't technology have progressed passed acid as the way to get rid of a car? Like particle beam technology that would reduce it down to its basic elements? Is there a reason you chose acid?
Just a thought.
dags
I didn't know you could dump a review. How empowering is that? Authors, you no longer need to fear critics! JP
JP---this is about the best addition to the site. I am so glad SolN decided to give us more control over our content. In the old days people weren't likely to dump reviews so that they could make the top ten list. Now that there's no list, no reason to keep a review that was meant to make you feel like shit. Also, now that you can block people, and I do, reviewers are going to be more careful with their caustic remarks. You should have seen some of the reviews I got when I first joined.
Someone told me they wouldn't buy Ronan if it got published. I told them I didn't ask them to buy it and if they didn't like it that was okay. They went on to read the whole book and told me they didn't want to read the end because they were so emotionally attached to the characters...lol...I think some reviewers say things like they wouldn't buy your book just to get a negative reaction from you. When you don't give them one, it kinda ruins the fun.
Someone told me early on that if I got a bad review to go to the person's page and read something of theirs before I considered their suggestions. This is good advice.
However, I do keep valid criticism, I don't want you to think I just keep the reviews that tell me what a brilliant writer I am.
dags 
Well, I might as well add my two cents and join the club. I, too, am a born-again Christian. I consider myself to be moderate/independent. I imagine we could have some lively debates here.
I knew there was something about you I liked! I went right from Evangelical literalist to liberal Christian and skipped moderate. Which means you're probably a lot more balanced than I am. I don't know that I would give you much of a debate, I've also become more tolerant of other people's beliefs and respect religions other than my own, seeing them as being as valid as mine. I am not out to save the world, just to make sure of my own salvation.
You want to piss a atheist off? Just tell them you don't care what they believe.
Always good to see you Sycamore...I hope you had a good St. Paddy's Day!! dags
Just read your piece. I gotta say...
BWAAHAHAHAHA!
Talk about having a bad day. I suppose she could have been "Republican Scum" so identified by the BSticker, but, is it possible, even remotely, it wasn't her car and she was trying not to bump her boyfriend/daddy's/child's precious? Probably not, but sometimes I try to be the devil's advocate.
Are my horns showing?
JL--I try to be fair minded, but she reeked elitism. And what's really funny about this incident is I was in my patient's car, she and I were depositing some checks, a 2008 Cadillac worth about fifty grand when new, and even now is worth more than a restored Corvette. I should have been the one keeping cars away from me. Also, it wasn't even a cute little Corvette Prince sang about but the model that looks like a formula one car. It was boxy and ugly. You should have seen her when I pulled right behind her...her hands went up in the air, and she was about to turn around and let me know what she thought...then saw my smile and knew I was messing with her. That didn't stop her from screeching her tires when she pulled away from the ATM.
You can play the devil's advocate anytime, buddy....WHERE'S THE NEXT MCSHANE????
Actually, dagnee, I think we're talking about the same bug. On the Send a Message tab, there is a scrollable list that cuts off too soon and you can't see all of your connections. When you click on the list to see the names, right above the first name, a text field appears that you can type into. If you type in the first few letters of the connection name, it automatically filters the list as you type. It's a workaround, but it should make it manageable.
Dirk
Okay, I see what you mean. But I still want to scroll through all of my contacts.
dagnee, if you click on the list of names, there is a text field at the top of the list where you can type in the names of the people you are trying to message. It automatically filters the list even as you begin to type the names.
Dirk
Dirk,
I am referring to the drop down menu on the send a message page. The scrolling bar will not go all the way through the list, leaving off names, the number of which will increase as I acquire more contacts. If I am messaging a contact below where the bar stops for the first time I can't message that contact.
What are you are describing is the search engine of your message archive. It doesn't work if there are no messages from that person to tack my new message on to.
WPA chiming in here. Not only am I Without Party Affiliation, I also am very vocal as to my born-again Christian status. I've set myself up for hate speech on so many occasions. But, alas, the only one who took the bait (once) ended up having a cyberspace drink with me as we bellied up to the bar and ordered a round. Although, he hasn't spoken to me much since. So be it.
My point is, if you put something out there like that, you may have been (inadvertently) looking for trouble. You shouldn't complain when it found you. You should brag. Well, just a little.
JL Mo...
You know that I am also unashamed of being a Christian, but that hasn't riled up as many people as being a proud progressive liberal Christian. And I would agree with you if this had been an editorial piece. But it wasn't. It was me expressing my feelings about meeting an elitist republican scum. These are the armchair warriors that championed an invasion of another country that hadn't attacked us, using a dead hero's words as their war cry.
The United States destabilized the whole middle east because republican scum wanted a war with Iraq. We lost over 4000 men and women, not to mention the 32,000 brain-damaged, missing limb and ptsd soldiers returning to plead for help from a broken VA system. Now republican scum have decided to grant the next item on Netanyahu's 'Wishlist: Countries I Want The US To Fight', and are trying their damnedest to get us into a war with IRAN.
Politicians, left, right and center, who see war as the only solution, to me will always be SCUM.
Not all Republicans are scum. I have friends who are moderate Republicans whose main interest is holding the Government accountable for wasteful spending and for a common sense approach to domestic and foreign polices.
When I saw that woman disrupting an ATM line just because she was in a classic car, and then saw her 'Let's Roll' bumper sticker, I not only reacted immaturially but was inspired to write a poem about it entitled, "My Moment of Immaturity" acknowledging I may have acted childishly. So, after admitting it wasn't my best hour, why did I then need a reviewer, most likely a republican, to tell me what I already knew in hateful language?
I'm just glad I could get rid of the review.
dags
I just have time to bitch a little...A reviewer, whom from the fiery rhetoric of his review is a republican, used his inline reviewing platform to let me know despicable I was, instead of simply reviewing my poem. I admit I call some republicans, republican scum in the poem and that probably pissed him off...but it was a poem, not an editorial piece and his opinion was not asked for.
On the old site this sort of vitriol would have been attached to my work unless I deleted it and republished it as a new piece. In the past nasty reviewers counted on the fact that people didn't want the loss of reviews deleting or disabling the work would cause. They also depended on the author not having enough credits to republish. This meant the whole site could view how they felt about another member until the author got rid of their review.
Thank God those days are over. On this site we can dump hateful reviews and block those reviewers with two clicks. YAY!!!!
So to that reviewer who wasted his time telling me how immature my poem, 'My Moment of Immaturity' was, buddy, you kinda proved my point about republicans. Even if you spell it out for them, they still don't get it.
Rant over...I'm glad I provided a safe place for bitching.
dags
I don't think the person...thing...that controls the forum and time/date is in America. If you notice the date is displayed yyyy mm dd. In the US we do mm dd yyyy. That would explain the time and date discrepancies.
SolN--
Remember when Jack the Knife couldn't access all the names on his connection message menu? I have 34 connections and only 32 names show up on that menu. Of course the two I can't access are the two I want to leave a message for.
dags
janet reid wrote:dagnee wrote:I am so glad to know you got it fixed! However, because you said you got a virus I started a thread in the main forum about using remote tech companies, I use a good one, who could fix your computer just by taking it over. It's a subscription like an anti virus program, only along with the anti virus software you get tech support anytime you need it. That means less trips to the computer guy.
Boy, did I get blow back on that!! Even though the company I recommended has 3 million customers and is used world wide, people warned me about letting just anyone remotely control my computer. I shrugged it off, I got the same kind of advice when I started to buy stuff online: What? You gave your debit card number to Amazon??? ARE YOU CRAZY?? Don't you know what will happen? Nothing happened and as time passed those who objected found out how easy it was to shop, pay bills and monitor your bank account online was.
Remote control techs are the future...we'll just have to deal with it!
I still have to reply on that one. I get calls from "Microsoft" every other day to help my "fix" my problems and I'm not subscribed to any remote control tech support, so that happening to Jack I think was just coincidence in my opinion.
But hey Dags, everyone has an opinion, so we just have to deal with it! LOL
They call me too and I don't own a PC. All MAC BABY!
CJ
If they call me I wouldn't know. I don't have a land line and I don't answer numbers I don't recognize or aren't assigned a name. If they really want to talk to me, they can leave a voice mail. I learned that from my son and daughter. They both said, "You don't have to answer EVERY call, mom!"
What about adding a read flag, you can flag it when you've finished reading and replying.
I wrote a short story/memoir in which I described a nice man I met before I was married and how I pretty much rejected him because he was so nice. A reviewer, who shall remain nameless, told me in their review that I was too mean and that's why I had trouble keeping a boyfriend. This reviewer didn't even know my real name, knew nothing about my past except what I shared with them, yet they felt qualified to diagnosis my problems with men. The only problems I had with men was picking the right one which is what the short story was about.
I had SolN remove the review. It was attached to a blog I wrote and while I didn't require reviews of the writing of those entries, I did request opinions about the subjects which this reviewer took full advantage of to let me know what a rotten person I was.
This is another reason I am so glad we can dump reviews, we don't have to go through SolN to get it pulled.
