I'm pleased to announce that Teann will be taking over the running of the plaza, Teann has previously generously offered to help with the redesign of the plaza and has also written stories for the plaza. Teann has plenty of experience as a web developer, so please welcome her to the plaza. ;D
Teann:
Thank you for stepping up and taking over!
Ron
Quote from: rmcingle on October 23, 2019, 06:22:06 AM
Teann:
Thank you for stepping up and taking over!
Ron
I'm joining in, in saying welcome. ;D
<waves to all>
Thank you to Gromet, for having confidence in me to take things over, and for putting in so much effort over the years to make this place what it is. Most folks probably aren't aware of me as I have been rather quiet here until now, but I'll put up a proper introduction post in the next day or two, once I've sorted through some stuff.
In the near term you can expect using my new found power to crush my enemies, see them driven before me and to hear the lamentation of their women/men/rubber slaves pretty much no changes at all. :P While I've some ideas about what to do with the site in the longer term, I'm not intending any major shifts in direction. There'll be some faff involved in transferring the site over, then I'll be able to make a start on the story queue and get some lovely new tales into everyone's eager hands.
T
Welcome to the helm moi capitan!
Gromet; thank you for your many years of dedication to this site and our stories, I hope you will still be around to be a part of this community you have founded even if you are stepping away from the management of it.
A really big Thank You Gromet. You've given many of us enjoyment over the years. i hope that we will continue to "see" you here.
A big welcome to Teann as well. You have some big shoes to fill, but I'm confident you can do so. Best wishes to both of you.
Gromet, think it's about time for a nice long cruise.
Thanks everyone, Teann will make a very good replacement for me, so please welcome her.
@ Dianag: No cruises for me, bought this instead...
Welcome to the helm of the ship Teann. I'm sure you'll settle in and do fine. I'm glad to hear that the Plaza will continue running.
Teann, Welcome to the MadHouse! sounds like you already know what you are in for!
Gromet, looks like you have that retirement idea well sorted out with that rig, PLEASE DON'T BE A STRANGER! I do wish you Safe Travels wherever the road may take you.
I also know I speak for more than just myself when I say Thank You for All the Years of Blood Sweat and Tears You have given to this "Hobby" that started back in what 1997!!! I imagine there is a story or two that would be interesting to hear of the behind the scenes during all that time ;)
Thank You Thank You Thank You
Ace
Teaann welcome as new boss of gromet plaza hope to see lots of updats and news
also Gromet hope you won't leave for good
Thanks for the years of running this place Gromet, and welcome and good luck to Teann.
Also, I hope you still enjoy writing some stories Gromet so we'll still see your name popping up
Woot! Thanks for taking it on Teann!
And thank you, Gromet, for keeping this space running for so many years. It has been quite important to me for a number of reasons. Safe and wondrous travels!
First I would like to say Gromet thank you for all your years of keeping this site going.
Second I would like to say Teann I would like to welcome you and your gentle mercies.
Lastly despite Gormet handing over control to the site to a new handler/owner are you still going to be writing stories?
Teann Daorsa? I believe that's Scottish Gaelic for "Tight Bondage".
Fàilte!
A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh?
Yes I'll write more stories in the future and they will be posted here.
That makes me very happy to read and thank you Gromet. I look forward to your next story.
Welcome Teann and a good start managing this lovely source of enjoyment.
Thanks Gromet for your work and dedication to this project over the many years!
Quote from: Steve Spandex on October 27, 2019, 07:09:01 AM
Teann Daorsa? I believe that's Scottish Gaelic for "Tight Bondage".
Fàilte!
A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh?
Chan eil gu dearbh :-) Ach tha e a 'coimhead math.
Yes a big thank you to Teann for keeping the Plaza going and also a big thanks to Gromet for running this beautiful community for so long. We all here are in your debt and appreciate your efforts. Thanks.
Welcome aboard, Teann.
hi just want to know
what is your Offical email address
Quote from: dpgsm on October 29, 2019, 03:28:21 PM
hi just want to know
what is your Offical email address
teann@grometsplaza.net is the best address to use, though at this point all of the stories@ and feedback@ addresses come to me, and all of those are good to use when submitting a story or wanting to give feedback to a particular author.
thanks
will send story messages soon
Yes, thank you Gromet for years of running this site!!!
Thanks Teann for taking over. This is one of the very few good story sites I know of left.
Big thanks to all including authors the post here!!!
Gromet, a huge huge tanks for your work all these years, it has been a pleasure visiting your site and get fuel for my imagination :)
Teann, a huge welcoming HUG, look forward to see how the plaza evolve, and even more fuel for my dreams. ;D
Gromet, thank you for all those years,
Teann, welcome
Gromet I hope you get to enjoy things away from here. I do hope you get the time in retirement to continue a few of the stories you have ongoing and write more as well. However I'm sure you'll be happily distracted other things to do plenty of times. Enjoy and thank you for everything you have done here over the years to bring this wonderful site to us.
To Teann I wish you luck and hopefully many years of running this place that we all enjoy. Thank you for stepping up and keeping this place going.
Firstly a big thank you to Gromet for all his years of hard work.
Secondly welcome Teann.
Maybe our paths will cross, for if you are bonny lass living in Scotland, it is easier to get to, than Brisbane, Oz !
Polythenewrappedme.
x
Big thanks to Gromet for everything you've done, the Plaza has brought much joy to many, many of us.
Thank you Teann for taking over, it will be well appreciated by us all.
Thank you Teann for stepping up and agreeing to manage the Plaza and forum. I promise to get off my lazy tush and write some stories.
Lost Cause
Thanks for taking the job :)
Love how Teann is posting stories every four days and I appreciate their variety so much. She's a great editor!
Ha, don't hold me to that four days thing. It's mostly because that's a good cadence for me right now, alternating between sessions of editing and then the cleanup for posting.
The rate of 4-5 stories every 4 days is also about the rate at which new stories come in, so that keeps the backlog relatively constant. As for the variety, for that you have to thank the authors, there's a wide variation in themes, but mostly I'm editing in the order they arrive. Occasionally I space out stories if there's too many similar themes in quick succession, because I recognise that it can be disappointing for the readers if they come to the site and can't find at least one recent story catering to their sort of kinks.
Thank you, authors 😊 The variety is amazing!
I don't know which work is actually needed to pass stories between the queues. You will need to read it, decide it's appropriate for the site and then.....?
My point is: Is any format easier to handle than others? Would e.g. a story in html be easier to handle than a story in word? The few stories I've written was delivered as html, but any other format could be prefered? markup / markdown? latex? nroff?
TeaSer
Well, there's certainly a non-trivial amount of work to get stories up on the site, but by and large the format it's delivered in is the least of my problems. I pretty much strip out most formatting and pare it down to simple, clean HTML. Italic and bold is preserved, everything else, indentation, double spacing, etc. gets taken out, deliberately. So you could deliver a plain text file, or raw text in an email, and it ends up looking pretty much the same as someone who's sent a Microsoft Word document. After they're emailed to me, they all end up in Google Docs, but that's the easy part of the process! When the editing is done, I convert them using a capable converter that generates most of the final HTML, but that part takes only a minute or so to copy/paste around.
The overwhelming proportion of the time spent on a story is the editing. I'm in the midst of writing up the process of what I do, including the readability rules I hold the text to, as a guide for potential volunteer editors to help me out with the workload. I'll make that public, in the hope that it acts as a guide to the authors too, because the biggest time saving for me would be if the submitted work already adhered to those basic rules. Some authors submit really clean, well-formatted text, and all it takes is a quick skim through to a) check it's not breaching a submission guideline, b) get a sense of the story so I can put the right codes on it. Those sorts of submissions can send me a 10,000 word story chapter and I can get it converted to nice clean HTML with story codes in 5-10 minutes.
Other authors send me text which is all over the place, missing or broken punctuation, weirdly formatted, big wall of text paragraphs that need to be broken up to be readable, sentences that run on for line after line, random capitalisation, parentheses everywhere, and many other issue. If I were to publish it verbatim, the readers would be left scratching their heads, or re-reading the same paragraph over and over again trying to figure out who did what to whom and what got stuck into where. Those can make a 2,000 word story take 30-45 minutes to edit, and are the main reason why publishing moves at the pace it does. Some are bad enough I'm forced to send them back to the authors and ask them to try and tackle the worst things, but most I simply take on the work myself. Because the ideas behind the stories are fun, and interesting, and technical issues really shouldn't get in the way of these things finding their way to the readers. I really love that you all submit your work here, I do appreciate it, and I'm not trying to hold people to professional writer standards, but there's a middle ground.
In the absence of a more complete guide though, the following would be a great start:
- Put it in Google Docs or a similar modern editor. Don't fuss about the formatting, just make sure the text is all in there in proper paragraphs.
- Turn on both spelling and grammar check. Fix every single one of the things that get underlined, or if you really, really know what you're doing, mark the things it complains about as ignored.
- Make sure your story adheres to the rules of dialogue punctuation (https://www.authorlearningcenter.com/writing/fiction/w/character-development/6491/8-essential-rules-for-punctuating-dialogue---article). All of them. There's only eight, they're really simple, and all of them are there for a reason. They are not a style choice, they are how English is written.
- Split your paragraphs sensibly. Not just a new paragraph for each speaker, but no 50 line paragraphs, and no 1 line paragraphs. Both extremes are a sign that something has gone wrong.
- Don't Just capitalise Random words. Capitalise names like Sheila, China, RubberTech Incorporated, and the DildoMaster 3000 fucking machine. Don't capitalise words just because you think they're Important. That's what bold is for.
Exceptions to the above apply, of course, if you know what you're doing. Be sure you do.
Do all those things, and you've cut out like 90% of the effort I'll have to put in to edit your story. Submitting in a sensible format saves me like 2%. Unless you save it in WordPerfect format. Seriously. The 90s called and they want their word processor back. Don't use WordPerfect.
Thanks for your full reply. Not that I have any stories in process right now, but I do hope writes will adhere to your suggestions/rules and this way make your task easier.
TeaSer
Welcome to the grind!!!