De-Listed or Censored

[bulmabriefs144]

I updated my book with the new Superhero tag, and suddenly it doesn't seem to show up in the search engine for books. Nor in the updates.

At least I think that's what happened. Maybe someone got offended enough by it to report it? Anyway.

Yeah, it seems to have happened to someone else relating to reasons based on content. Sorry, Envy. I'm sad now.

 

[Corty]

All your stories show up in the search I just checked.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

I decided the last one (A Hero Unmasked) was probably reported by the same jerk who gave me complete grief over my first and second chapter.

I had a transphobic character (they were a villain ffs), I mentioned slavery (as a bad thing), and the main character decided they were non-op genderfluid rather than transgender (not that it matters as they are full-time as a woman). But because it didn't perfectly fit the mold of what they thought was acceptable, yeah it more than likely got hidden. Eventually, I just scrapped it.

Unless someone from mod land tells me that it really was just the new tag, I'm not re-uploading. If they do, I might.
Anyone who does want to read it, drop me a line, I'll send a link. But it's not publicly visible now, until I'm actually sure it was just the tag. Can someone ask one of the mods about this? Cuz I dunno for sure either way, and I'm making assumptions.

 

[AliceShiki]

Unless someone from mod land tells me that it really was just the new tag, I'm not re-uploading. If they do, I might.

If the story was suddenly hidden, it was probably because the story was reported, and Tony decided that the story broke some of Scribblehub guidelines after reading the report, so he removed the story from public view.

What I can tell you for sure is:

1) A new tag has 0% chance of having any impact on your story's visibility.

2) A report by itself will never have any impact on your story. All reports are manually checked by Tony and are only acted upon if Tony deems the report to be legit and the story to be breaking the site's guidelines.

It's fundamentally up to you if you want your story to remain out of the site, but if you feel like it was unjustly removed and want to bring it back, you can always send an e-mail or a PM to Tony to try asking what guidelines you were breaking, and to try explaining why you weren't breaking said guidelines in case you weren't and the report was not truthful to your story.

I honestly don't know the exact process Tony goes through when handling reports. I know he doesn't have the time to read an entire story to check a report, but I also know he doesn't take those things lightly and does his job in checking things out properly before taking any action... But that doesn't mean he can't make mistakes.

Like I said before though, it's fundamentally up to you if you want to keep the story out of the site or not, but just keep in mind that Tony does handle those things seriously and doesn't blindly believe any report he receives... But he also can make mistakes in judging things, so there is nothing wrong with trying to appeal a moderating action that you feel is unjust.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

See the description above. I am pretty sure that it passed the initial review stage (I had three readers, one who had read, two who planned to read, and three who dropped). It was pretty squarely on love or hate territory. Then midway through, I got a few nasty comments about the book. I told the commentor that my obligation was to write my story no matter how rough it is, and he didn't have to read. This was when had finished about five chapters or so. Obviously, he didn't take it well, and the book was subsequently hidden. What I have a problem with is not being able to know this before I wrote seven more chapters or so. I would rather the book be openly removed, than... I'm gonna write a feature change.

 

[AliceShiki]

I would rather the book be openly removed

Well, that's just the way Tony handles things in Scribblehub. Stuff that breaks guidelines tends to just be hidden from searches and from the homepage.

I dunno if there are cases where he actually deletes the story altogether, but I guess it might happen if the story is actually doing something illegal that could get Scribblehub in trouble.

So uhn... Well, I guess I understand your frustration, but that's just how things work here.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

Well, that's just the way Tony handles things in Scribblehub. Stuff that breaks guidelines tends to just be hidden from searches and from the homepage.

I dunno if there are cases where he actually deletes the story altogether, but I guess it might happen if the story is actually doing something illegal that could get Scribblehub in trouble.

So uhn... Well, I guess I understand your frustration, but that's just how things work here.

Which is why I suggested a forum addition. More transparency, so people in the future are notified that the book has been muted, and can actually resolve the issue (like putting sisclaimers up, revising the section, or as directed by the mods). "Kinda glad this got reported lol" @Lloyd, and suppose we did that to your books? Suppose Isekai Tower Defense has some stuff in it that's unpopular, but real to you. It's something you went through. You tell your story about... oh I don't know, how priest molested you or something. It's written in a way that makes them out to be a villain, but you mention how you've dealt with it and moved on. Someone decides though, that you should NEVER move on, and that you're too soft on priests. Do you see where I'm coming from? When your story doesn't even get a heads up "This chapter/entire story was muted, contact the mods for a reason," then you feel like the sort of shadowbanning that goes on in THOSE forums ( reddit, Twitter, and 4chan). It undermines the entire feel of being published, because you never know when someone might have an object to just chapter 52, and the entire book is hidden as a result. And you write potentially 52 more chapters before discovering that youe book doesn't show up. If you can't relate to the content of my book, you ought to at least empathize with the feeling of without warning blocking of a book.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Which is why I suggested a forum addition. More transparency, so people in the future are notified that the book has been muted, and can actually resolve the issue (like putting sisclaimers up, revising the section, or as directed by the mods). "Kinda glad this got reported lol" @Lloyd, and suppose we did that to your books? Suppose Isekai Tower Defense has some stuff in it that's unpopular, but real to you. It's something you went through. You tell your story about... oh I don't know, how priest molested you or something. It's written in a way that makes them out to be a villain, but you mention how you've dealt with it and moved on. Someone decides though, that you should NEVER move on, and that you're too soft on priests. Do you see where I'm coming from? When your story doesn't even get a heads up "This chapter/entire story was muted, contact the mods for a reason," then you feel like the sort of shadowbanning that goes on in THOSE forums ( reddit, Twitter, and 4chan). It undermines the entire feel of being published, because you never know when someone might have an object to just chapter 52, and the entire book is hidden as a result. And you write potentially 52 more chapters before discovering that youe book doesn't show up. If you can't relate to the content of my book, you ought to at least empathize with the feeling of without warning blocking of a book.

There isn't a shadowbanning on site. Just message Tony, and ignore the saltman. Tony is too busy to be shadowbanning people. I don't like that you're making a hit piece after I told you to message Tony.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Which is why I suggested a forum addition. More transparency, so people in the future are notified that the book has been muted, and can actually resolve the issue (like putting sisclaimers up, revising the section, or as directed by the mods). "Kinda glad this got reported lol" @Lloyd, and suppose we did that to your books? Suppose Isekai Tower Defense has some stuff in it that's unpopular, but real to you. It's something you went through. You tell your story about... oh I don't know, how priest molested you or something. It's written in a way that makes them out to be a villain, but you mention how you've dealt with it and moved on. Someone decides though, that you should NEVER move on, and that you're too soft on priests. Do you see where I'm coming from? When your story doesn't even get a heads up "This chapter/entire story was muted, contact the mods for a reason," then you feel like the sort of shadowbanning that goes on in THOSE forums ( reddit, Twitter, and 4chan). It undermines the entire feel of being published, because you never know when someone might have an object to just chapter 52, and the entire book is hidden as a result. And you write potentially 52 more chapters before discovering that youe book doesn't show up. If you can't relate to the content of my book, you ought to at least empathize with the feeling of without warning blocking of a book.

Lloyd is a local troll. Ignore him.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

@SailusGebel Okay. @RepresentingEnvy I already deleted the story. Sorry I'm venting so much. It's just that contacting Tony wouldn't do anything after the book was deleted. I also can guess why it was muted so no need there.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

@SailusGebel Okay. @RepresentingEnvy I already deleted the story. Sorry I'm venting so much. It's just that contacting Tony wouldn't do anything after the book was deleted. I also can guess why it was muted so no need there.

I know you are frustrated, but it could take Tony a while to respond. He is managing two sites SH and NU as a one man army.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

@SailusGebel Okay. @RepresentingEnvy I already deleted the story. Sorry I'm venting so much. It's just that contacting Tony wouldn't do anything after the book was deleted. What is more important to me was making a forum addition, so muted books are maybe a little visible to the author, and they can decide what to do next (continue work after edit or delete the sucker). But no, it's too late for me .

It's not the best course of action to act hastily on SH. Tony does everything alone, literally everything. And there might be all kind of bugs. A couple days ago servers acted up and you couldn't post anything on the forums without VPN, and even posting new chapters was impossible. It lasted for a couple hours since Tony isn't online 24\7. So, what I want to say with this is, in future, if you plan to keep writing on SH, don't be hasty. You can't undo what you already did, but in future be patient. All kinds of bugs can happen, and it takes time to fix them. And good luck with your writing.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

Oh my. Okay, okay, I'll contact him.

It's not the best course of action to act hastily on SH. Tony does everything alone, literally everything. And there might be all kind of bugs. A couple days ago servers acted up and you couldn't post anything on the forums without VPN, and even posting new chapters was impossible. It lasted for a couple hours since Tony isn't online 24\7. So, what I want to say with this is, in future, if you plan to keep writing on SH, don't be hasty. You can't undo what you already did, but in future be patient. All kinds of bugs can happen, and it takes time to fix them. And good luck with your writing.

Well, I could always repost the story if he tells me indeed there has been a mistake.
...His name is just Tony, right? There are like 8 Tony addresses on this site.

 

[AliceShiki]

He is managing two sites SH and NU as a one man army.

For the record, mods do a lot of work handling stuff on NU actually.

SH is the one that Tony handles alone because it's a bit more complicated to delegate duties to other people here.

On NU, stuff like handling tags, approving stories and whatnot can all be handled by the mods without much issue due to the site just linking to translations.

On SH due to all being originals, the process isn't as clear-cut. You don't simply need to check if it's an actual translation done by a human, but need to make sure it properly meets the guidelines and stuff, so... Tony handles it all by himself.

 

[Tony]

I updated my book with the new Superhero tag, and suddenly it doesn't seem to show up in the search engine for books. Nor in the updates.

At least I think that's what happened. Maybe someone got offended enough by it to report it? Anyway.

Yeah, it seems to have happened to someone else relating to reasons based on content. Sorry, Envy. I'm sad now.

I decided the last one (A Hero Unmasked) was probably reported by the same jerk who gave me complete grief over my first and second chapter.

I had a transphobic character (they were a villain ffs), I mentioned slavery (as a bad thing), and the main character decided they were non-op genderfluid rather than transgender (not that it matters as they are full-time as a woman). But because it didn't perfectly fit the mold of what they thought was acceptable, yeah it more than likely got hidden. Eventually, I just scrapped it.

Unless someone from mod land tells me that it really was just the new tag, I'm not re-uploading. If they do, I might.
Anyone who does want to read it, drop me a line, I'll send a link. But it's not publicly visible now, until I'm actually sure it was just the tag. Can someone ask one of the mods about this? Cuz I dunno for sure either way, and I'm making assumptions.

@SailusGebel Okay. @RepresentingEnvy I already deleted the story. Sorry I'm venting so much. It's just that contacting Tony wouldn't do anything after the book was deleted. I also can guess why it was muted so no need there.

Adding a new tag doesn't do anything to the story. At this time, I'm not sure what happened as it's a bit hard to look into what happened because you deleted the story.

Sorry but I don't really have an answer because the story was deleted.

 

[bulmabriefs144]

Urgh... Impulsivity ruins everything. I'll rewrite it. I figure if you actually hated it enough to mute it, then you would have read at least a few chapters and be like "I remember that! Yeah it sucked."

Okay, it's back up (I always have hard copy when writing). You can see if it has issues or not, @Tony

Yay! It's relisted again!

 

[Sabruness]

As others have said, impulsivity is the bane. Tony's a one-man show working SH with a life so things can sometimes be a little slow.

 

[ItsOnlyForFiction]

I think I've had the same thing happen to all of my stories (3). On the first one I uploaded, I was gaining new readers for 4 days until it stopped on August 22nd. I haven't gained a single reader ever since. I've DM'd Tony about it on August 26th, but haven't heard back from him yet. Is there anything I can do besides being patient? Some of my readers write me every day to ask me to keep uploading chapters, but it's a lot of work and if in the end my work will be hidden, I'm not sure it's worth it. I would also love to understand why my work has been hidden.

 

[AliceShiki]

I think I've had the same thing happen to all of my stories (3). On the first one I uploaded, I was gaining new readers for 4 days until it stopped on August 22nd. I haven't gained a single reader ever since. I've DM'd Tony about it on August 26th, but haven't heard back from him yet. Is there anything I can do besides being patient? Some of my readers write me every day to ask me to keep uploading chapters, but it's a lot of work and if in the end my work will be hidden, I'm not sure it's worth it. I would also love to understand why my work has been hidden.

Try sending him an e-mail? Maybe he missed your PM.

Not much we can do for you on the forums.

You can also take a look at the guidelines and see if you broke any.

 

[ItsOnlyForFiction]

Thanks, I will try the email.

I don't see how I could have broken a guideline, but who knows? Maybe I'm missing something. My stories have adult content, but I don't think it's any worse than other stories I have read here.