Ask a Moderator - Part 20

[coolh5000]

It does appear to have affected everyone, and we're not really sure why at the moment. If you want to make sure you're seeing the right time, go to the edit options part of your profile and select a timezone that is +2 of yours. For example, I've selected GMT + 2 at the moment, and even though that means I've selected the wrong zone, it's actually put the time right for now.

[Russia Snow]

Yellow, Moddlies!

This might have been asked before, it was mentioned by Jess just further up this page.

When posting reviews on the site, I am finding that over half the review is being cut off. This is incredibly frustrating because I need to be able to post the entire thing in order to complete my SPEW membership requirements.

It isn't happening on all my reviews, only some of them but is there any way of stopping it?

Thankyou muchly!

~Russia xxxxx

[Roxy Black]

Russia - we haven't set a limit on review size. I can only assume there is one hard coded into the site but I have no idea how to change that. I don't know why it would cut you off half way through a review but the only thing I can suggest is that when you think your review is getting too large, stop and continue in a second. I don't like suggesting this as it would make a fiction look like it has more reviews than it actually has, but I can't think of anything else other than asking you to keep your reviews shorter.

Are you the only one that has this problem? I haven't heard of it before.

[Equinox Chick]

Roxy,

My review to Jess was cut short. I didn't write a particularly long review, but it didn't all come out. What I did was copy what had taken, deleted the review, pasted again and then finished the review. It worked the second time.

I've seen it happen before to people reviewing me, where the reviews are deleted then added again. I've always assumed it's a sporadic glitch.

~Carole~

[Iguanarwhal]

Hi! So I know that in the submission guidelines there's a list of things MNFF does not accept and this includes "stories that use real living people as characters." That's the exact wording you use (hence the quotes, of course.). I think the inclusion of the word living implies that dead people are allowed to appear as characters (as long as, I imagine, you don't commit character assassination). But it isn't clear so I just want to make sure if I'd be allowed to, for example, write a story in which Winston Churchill learns of the existence of the magical world, as the Muggle prime minister did in Half-Blood Prince. I can't see why not, considering that historical fiction that features real people is a huge genre in published fiction.

My second question concerns the submission system. I don't quite get it. After I have submitted my story how will I know if it is accepted/rejected? I read the FAQ and it doesn't really say how that works. Do we receive an e-mail telling us that it has been accepted (or--hopefully not--rejected)?

Thanks for your help.

[voldy]

Hiya Mods

I've been a member of the Beta Boards for ages, but I havent used my account in a bit because of some RL issues. Now everytime I log in and try to visit a page, it logs me out, and rarely lets me log back in. I dont know why this is happening

Can you help please?
Sorry for any inconviniences, and thanks <3

Farwa x

[luinrina]

Carole, I remember that I had that problem once or twice. It was caused by an icky tag. I don't remember what tag exactly caused the cut-off, but I went through my review (prewritten in MSW) and double-checked that I had all italic tags etc. closed. After that, it posted all right.

Iguanarwhal, I'm not exactly sure about the already-dead-but-once-real-life-people idea. I'll have to ask the other mods and come back to you about that. Regarding the submission, yes, you will receive either a rejection or validation email, as long as you followed the general submission rules and aren't an auto-reject.

voldy, my only suggestion would be to clear all cookies, then try to log in again. Check the "remember me" box next to the log in. It always works for me.

[Roxy Black]

Iguanarwhal, Winston Churchill would be an acceptable character to use in your fiction as long as you use an AU warning.

For historical characters we generally follow the rules of copyright and public domain. In most countries, this means that 50 years (sometimes 70) after the death of the last rights owner, the item enters public domain. This is why Shakespeare plays are so widely printed for example, as they are now public domain and have been for a long time.

In the case of people, 50 years is seen as a sensitive amount of time between death and recreation. Any less than this and it is just polite to get permission from the dead person's estate. When writing these people as characters, you must remember that they were once living people and must be dealt with sensitively as they have no power to protect themselves from what you write. In the case of Churchill, it has been 45 years since his death but he is such a widely known figure that I think this would be acceptable. I hope that makes sense.

[Iguanarwhal]

More questions! Thanks for answering my last ones. Although I don't quite understand why writing a story about Churchill finding out about the wizarding world upon becoming Prime Minister would require an AU warning. It seems like a logical extension from canon to me. Mind explaining that?

I'm having trouble with sorting. I can't seem to find a member called SortingHat, who I'm supposed to PM. I checked the member list and there's someone called sortinghat13, but not just plain SortingHat. Help? Am I not looking in the right place? Maybe someone could give me a link?

Also, I haven't found anywhere that explicitly states this, but am I correct in assuming that once I am sorted I'll be able to see parts of the forum that are currently blocked to me, such as Skele-Gro Plot Potion? Or do I do that some other way?

[Inverarity]

I just noticed that under "My statistics" in the account management screen in the archives, there is one for "series." I assume that's for including multiple stories you have written in a series. However, I cannot find any feature in the story management screen to create or add a book to a series. Is this an unimplemented feature, or just a mysterious, undocumented one?