Okay, by popular demand I have turned the alerts back on.

BUT, I will tell you why they went off in the first place.

Some months ago, it seemed that every time some of the most popular stories got chapters submitted for validation (those who would be sending the most alerts out) something crazy would happen with the script that runs the site.  We would set it to validate, the script sent those emails out to everyone, and yet the story or chapter validation would not fully process and it continued to sit in our validation queue.

So we would hit validate again, and again you guys got the emails, but the chapter would not go through.  In fact, it would take several tries sometimes, on several different browsers, often by more than one admin, to get the chapter to go through. We later found out that by turning the alerts off, the problem would be remedied.

Now, I do not mind turning this alert setting on and off to get a chapter through. No, no.  It was the emails that I'd get of people annoyed because they had received two to three to four chapter  update emails, and UGH, couldn't I just FIX IT?  Well yes, I fixed it: I turned it off.

So, the point of my rant is, the alerts are on.  So yay!alerts.  I love my alerts, and I've missed them (though really, I already get ALL alerts, so I don't miss them like the rest of you do).  BUT, if you ever receive more than just one email letting you know that a story was updated, chances are I know you got more than one email because that was me trying to get a chapter through for you.  So do not email me, cause if you do I will cut a bitch and turn the alerts off again.

Happy reading everyone!  And Happy New Year!

Much Love,

Katie

Okay, I've been pondering on this for some time now, and I've tried to hint around it as nicely as possible.  And I'm sorry if I'm going to come off as not-so-nice right now.

But DUDE!  Don't you people read the rules?  It gets highly annoying to go from one post to another where you see that no one listens or reads what you had to say.

The post below from Nicole requested nominations only.  And it's been asked before to not nominate twice.  It's not VOTING.  Nominating more than once isn't going to get that fic or author a higher vote count on the poll.  It just irritates the admins when we see that a simple instruction can't be followed.  Same thing when you send us an email requesting help.  How are we supposed to help you when we don't know who you are?  Or when you submit your story but you didn't take care to submit with the proper punctuation and spelling or capitalization.

Don't get us wrong.  We love that so many of you came forward to nominate.  But it would be even more useful if you'd nominate other authors or fics that are otherwise not mentioned, since it widens the selection, and its nice for other authors and fics to get a little recognition.

This is the last month that I'm going to let readers nominate.  It's the reason I stopped running them in the first place.  Nicole was nice enough to run it this month.  Next month we're going to start selecting them by admin vote only.  I refrained from doing it this way because I though it was nice for both the readers and the writers.  This is a really fun hobby to have, but it shouldn't at any point become a chore.  All of us do this in our free time for pure enjoyment.  But could you PLEASE follow the simple requests and rules?

*gets off soap box, takes a deep breath, and goes back to being nice* 

I've seen it happen to a few people now, so I'm going to post this notice up here.  And brace yourself, because I'm nothing, if not long-winded.

A couple of people now have complained that they either don't get their email with a new password to reset, or that they don't get an email back from us when they ask for help.

To solve both matters, I'm going to ask you to look inside your spam folder.  I know that a few of you have found the email in there, either from me trying to help, or from the automated reply to your request for a new password.

Secondly, and I know I've posted this before somewhere below.  What makes you think that I can guess your username, huh?  Please, please! Give me your username in your request for help.  It's annoying to try to help someone ho doesn't give me their information.  I always think of NOT responding to those emails, but when I think of you not being able to read, and then I think of my own frustration if I were in your shoes, so I always reply back.

From now on, if you don't hear back from us soon enough, please drop us a line on the FAQ board at the forum.  There's a lot of times that I can get to emails within minutes of getting one and I reply back fairly quickly, other times it takes me longer.  And other times you're not getting my email reply because its in your spam folder, OR you might be using a work email that's isn't letting me through, which has also happened.

Authors, could you (pretty-please) submit your fics in 10pt Arial font, and nothing else?  It's such a pain for us to change them and we won't be validating them otherwise from now on.  Thank you. :-)

Congratulations to cuppa joe for being this months Featured Author and Stories for Ode to the Avocado and Lorelai's Heart.

You can read her interview in our forum and reply by clicking here.  We are posting the interviews there from now on so they don't get lost in the mass that can look like our news section.  Enjoy everyone!  If you want to, I might post this months interview here as well.

The Featured Author and Story of the Month feature are back.  Please nominate for both here.  Also, keep in mind that if someone else nominated someone you wanted to mention, it's not necessary to nominate them again.

Next month though, keep an eye for a thread in the forum, where the nominations will be moved to.  The poll however, will continue in the main page.