'Your Stories' needs editorial control
The 'Your Stories' section attracts some interesting, informative and amuusing tales: it also attracts misplaced reviews and complaints. Unfortunately, it's also vulnerable to
unedited 'copy and paste' stories from contributors own sites. Again in a new story, a contributor uses the word s**t and its derivatives - it's a common feature of his past stories - and no one seems to notice or complain. Again, he has used a
vile expression which we have to assume he thinks is smart or funny. A moderator expunged it from a previous 'story'
A case could be made for contributions to be submitted for publication before posting - that would be a bit tedious, and who would do it?
Have a look for the offending phrase. is it suitable for use in this forum?
I've complained to the Community Manager, but I guess he's busy right now plugging holes and mending fuses!
Comments
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Hi Chasncath,
Without even looking I know exactly who you're talking about and I have, in the past, edited 'stories' from this contributor.
I'll go and check and remove any offensive language.
Many thanks for highlighting this issue.
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Still stalking me Chas n Cath?
You don't like my writing style so why click to open them. You find my stories too long winded and boring, but read the full story to pick out the phrase "ape s@@t".
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Chas
I have long argued for stories should be vetted before submission, or at the very least to have the ability to move stories to the discussion area but I suspect the Club see that as imposing too much work on their own staff when in reality the mods are perfectly capable of doing the job but the system does not really allow for that to happen. Its not as though there are so many stories submitted that it would cause a massive amount of work. I have also spent a lot of time editing out unacceptable phrasing from a certain poster and have reported such stories in the past but I am not sure anyone is listening?
David
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Rather than waste your valuable time, just bin it under advice to resubmit in an acceptable format.
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i womder if the reason 'items' are placed there rather than as a discussion, is that they attract more 'star points' as a new story , don't they?
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i womder if the reason 'items' are placed there rather than as a discussion, is that they attract more 'star points' as a new story , don't they?
BB
Just doesn't add up I am afraid. As an example 'The Meeks' the most prolific story section contributors with 247 stories to their credit only have four red stars. BTW have we seen any stories of your trips as you seem to get around a bit? Could be a useful source of information for others.
David
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start a discussion 15 points, post a story 50 points
i rarely start discussion and i dont 'do' stories, if someone asks a question that i can can help with, ill gladly respond.
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There's a case for 'Stories' to be submitted for publication, as they would for a newspaper or magazine. There's also a case to be made that submissions should be unique and exclusive to CT to avoid syndication or 'copy and dump' from those promoting their
own websites. Editors could also remove obscentities, delete vile phrases, and correct errors.Unfortunately, we'll not be contributing any stories this summer as Catherine, previously thought to have pneumonia, has contracted Cryptogenic Organising Pneumonitis ( COP) and we're grounded until further notice.
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There's a case for 'Stories' to be submitted for publication, as they would for a newspaper or magazine. There's also a case to be made that submissions should be unique and exclusive to CT to avoid syndication or 'copy and dump' from those promoting their
own websites. Editors could also remove obscentities, delete vile phrases, and correct errors.Unfortunately, we'll not be contributing any stories this summer as Catherine, previously thought to have pneumonia, has contracted Cryptogenic Organising Pneumonitis ( COP) and we're grounded until further notice.
So sorry to hear that news. I'll miss reading your stories, but not as much as you'll miss your travelling. Hopefully you'll be able to get out and about in this country if not further afield, there's plenty of portable equipment available I believe. Thinking
of you both.0 -
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Chas
Sorry to hear that Cath is still unwell and best wishes to her.
David
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There's a case for 'Stories' to be submitted for publication, as they would for a newspaper or magazine. There's also a case to be made that submissions should be unique and exclusive to CT to avoid syndication or 'copy and dump' from those promoting their
own websites. Editors could also remove obscentities, delete vile phrases, and correct errors.Unfortunately, we'll not be contributing any stories this summer as Catherine, previously thought to have pneumonia, has contracted Cryptogenic Organising Pneumonitis ( COP) and we're grounded until further notice.
Completely agree with what you've said, ideas from here can be "lifted" as copy and make it easier for article production elsewhere.
More importantly, very best wishes to you and Catherine, do hope she makes a good recovery.
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There's a case for 'Stories' to be submitted for publication, as they would for a newspaper or magazine. There's also a case to be made that submissions should be unique and exclusive to CT to avoid syndication or 'copy and dump' from those promoting their
own websites. Editors could also remove obscentities, delete vile phrases, and correct errors.Unfortunately, we'll not be contributing any stories this summer as Catherine, previously thought to have pneumonia, has contracted Cryptogenic Organising Pneumonitis ( COP) and we're grounded until further notice.
Sorry to hear that your better half is unwell and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
For what it's worth, I do not copy and dump in order to promote my own web site. I write up on my travels and publish them on my own blog page. Like one of the moderators on here, David Klyne, I also publish the story in the My Stories section.
I do this because I have received messages from many who enjoy reading them on CT. They do not read my Blog.
Best wishes
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I tend to write stories specifially for Club Together, rather than cut and past, however I do link to my website if we have been abroad as it allows people to see the whole blog, rather than a shortened version, if they are interested and also to see lots
of pictures which you can't really see in their full glory in the story section.David
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It's silly season again on Your Stories section! We've had misplaced site reviews, requests for touring advice, sparse entries about wildlife, and now a whinge about wifi! DK has done his best to sort out the errors, but the recent surge has swept his and
others' stories off the lead pages.0 -
I've done a bit of clearing of posts which don't belong in there.
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I have raised this issue with Rochelle. Apparently someone at the Club was encouraging wardens to contribute stories about bioviversity on Club sites but that person has since left the Club which has left everything in limbo without,clearly, explaining what
is require. In the absense of a PM system I think everyone who contributes a story should get automatic notification when someone comments on their story as most never seem to return to look at comments. I know the Story Section is not for everyone but there
are a few of us who put a lot of work into that section and it is very galling to have that section constantly undermined by stuff that should be elsewhere.David
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On the "submit your story here" page maybe there should be a pre-check question...eg before submitting please consider whether you have a story to tell or a question to ask, questions and comments should only be submitted in the discussion area......please
go to the main discussion area... (Something like that?)0 -
Yes, I agree as David Klyne's interesting post has now gone from view with a repeat of a previous story. I presume the repeat is to add photos but it might be better if some of these lengthy travelogues from the same family just had a link and a brief story.
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I am not sure I fully understand what the Club wants to achieve from from the Story Section. It is clearly not part of the forum. Firstly we have no idea how popular it is as unlike forum threads there is no means to see how many views each story has. This information must be available as there is a list of the most popular stories listed by views although this does not seem to have been updated. If stories are shown a minimal interest from members it would be good to know as it might influence us regulars on whether there is any point in spending ages putting stories together with photographs. It would be useful if more than three stories could be viewed automatically on the main page rather than just three. It seems that the Meeks are employed by the Club to write stories of their travels and as they are always on the road I suppose they contribute as and when which might mean adding more than one story at a time. Recently the Club have encouraged wardens to make contributions to the story section about biodiversity on Club sites but it seems did not really give them any help in how this could be achieved. We continue to have discussion topics posted in the story section but as mods we can't move them which I thought would be an essential part of the tool kit if we want the Story Section to be meaningful.
David
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You prompted me too look at the story section a while ago, David. Aren't the Meeks tiresome?
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I have wondered previously if there was a way of separating out the commercially based stories from our non commercial ones. I think all the stories are valid in their different ways but if they have any sort of financial or publicity gain the CC should acknowledge an involvement. I may be well off the beam with this but it would be good to see a clarification..
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i don't have any trouble posting a story because it is simply a copy of what I publish on my >website< The stories section of CT is so badly controlled, I wouldn't bother with the effort if there wasn't another reason to do so. It does put me off reading that section which is a shame.
peedee
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The only way of knowing how successful any particular story is depends on any comments or likes it gets and given that some of the non stories seem to get more attention than stories that people have spent some time compiling it does make you wonder if its
not all a waste of time? I tend not to cut and paste complete blogs from my website because unless you can include all the photos it could lack a bit of interest so I write a shorter version for CT.David
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You prompted me too look at the story section a while ago, David. Aren't the Meeks tiresome?
I rarely visit the story section nowadays for this reason.
A section in the magazine and effectively a section of the website because they won a competition? They sell copy to other magazines as well. Enough please or give us an ignore member button
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I've no objection to their stories as long as they aren't en masse which they are at the moment and any commercial aspects are ackowledged eg the CC and Elddis. Unfortunately they seem to be cobbled together using different fonts and sizes so they aren't at all easy to read, this gives a "flung" together appearance, maybe pasted from elsewhere and by different family members?
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