Does RoyalRoad Suck?

[lambenttyto]

I-
Actually have a lot to say, but it's true that I shouldn't involve myself too deeply into this in my position.
But I have a question.
In the example I quoted from RR forum, do you think you were being polite and do you think the people responding there might have been annoyed by your response?

It doesn't matter what I was on Royal Road. Your job is not to moderate Royale Road. Also, that thread is not the thread here. My thread was anonymous. My complaint was anonymous, the names were anonymous and the thread was anonymous. Had that user not chased me over here, this would have remained a quiet thread here on Scribble Hub. Instead you've both resorted to name calling and harassment.

I've had a lot of run-ins with that user that chased me over here, so I brushed him off when it was clear he wanted to start another argument with me, which you can see (assuming you're not the same person or his close friend) he's a real piece of work that won't let things rest.

I shouldn't have to be called "crazy" or "Idiotic" or "stupid" for an opinion, even if it is a dumb opinion. Refuse the opinion and move on. Instead they they treated me like a lunatic, but not before getting a dig in on me by calling it a "skill issue." It may very well be a skill issue (which I can argue against) but to simply say "skill issue" while treating me like a lunatic is, at best, antagonistic.

So what if I was arrogant in my refusal to tango with him. Do you see what I have to put up with here? He already laughed at me once, which is fine. I actually laughed with him when he first jumped into this thread, then he got vicious again, and here we are. I don't care if people poke fun at me for my opinions, but being chased around for a week so that each of my threads are derailed because he brings it up in every thread to cause an intentional firestorm, is harassment and stalker behavior.

As a mod, you need to lock this thread. Your job is not to take sides from some conversation a week ago on another forum. This thread is not even about that topic.

What's more, the person following me here is remaining completely anonymous, ensuring that his bad behavior won't come back to him. That enough should reveal the true intentions of this person. He's a vicious, hateful, spiteful little narcissist.

Now lock the thread or I'm reporting you to the owners of the site.

 

[Racosharko]

LT

Un related, but how the fuck did you know that's an "L" and not an "i"?

 

[MutantJumper]

Lmao ah yes! Threaten the mods. Always the smart move. Keep blaming everyone but yourself, that's how we learn!

Is there anything in the rules about threatening mods and being a whiny prima donna that can't stop lashing out? No idea why anyone would capitulate to such behavior or seeing the people in charge caring. Just going to encourage him to keep whining about how people are persecuting him cause he's a white man.

Which is still fucking hilarious.

Un related, but how the fuck did you know that's an "L" and not an "i"?

It's way more obvious on the other site. I would've assumed lambent over iambent anyways.

 

[lambenttyto]

Write what they want to or write what sells. The sad reality is that to be successful on royal road the story needs to appeal to an audience that acts like teenage boys.

For traditional publication one has to make a choice.

Write what they want to or write what sells.

Indeed. But in order to stay true to myself and my art, I refuse to further political and other aims that I don't believe in by putting them in my stories that would promote those things. In the light of the clear DEI entitative and my lack of pushing for "progressive values" in my writing, mainstream publishing is an uphill battle. I've used submission grinder extensively to look at the top short fiction markets and many of them state explicitly in their submission guidelines that they're searching for underrepresented writers and stories on progressive themes. A few explicitly say if you don't fall under that alignment you need not submit.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies doesn't state in their submission guidelines the content that they want other than that it should be literary fantasy with a strong emphasis on tight viewpoints, but upon reading their stories, they're all LGBTQ themed. That excludes me. They're nice enough when I submit stories. I always get fast responses from the editors because I let them know I'm a Writers of the Future Silver Honorable Mention contestant, which puts me at the top of their slush pile.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

I don't know what kind of tangent this thread got into, and I'm not going to get involved with it. So in regards to OP...

A few years ago, a group of unknown authors on RR figured out how to manipulate the ranking system and get their stories more attention. They were all banned because gaming the system is a major no-no on RR. A few weeks ago, a bunch of authors who had mid- to large followings (some of them were using alt accounts) released a bunch of stories on the same day, all with similar [blank]-girl evolution gimmicks, in order to flood the Rising Stars list. They were only able to do this because they had a lot of followers to shower their new books with votes and reviews the minute they went live, and anyone else who happened to release a book around that time and didn't have an army of followers to do their bidding just had to watch the stories they worked so hard on get pushed off the board by a bunch of people who didn't need the extra publicity in the first place. In short, they gamed the system. These authors didn't get banned, however. Why? Because they're popular. Being popular means you're bringing the site ad revenue, and bringing in ad revenue means the rules don't apply to you because the people in charge will never do anything to hurt their source of income.

It's also worth noting that I got banned about a year ago for saying that it should be illegal to market books with explicit sex in them to underage audiences, like a bunch of YA series these days are doing. That offended a few of the more popular forum members (huh, I wonder why?) and that meant that the admins were offended too. I woke up the next day and found that my whole account had been deleted, and when I tried to appeal it, the mods weren't able to tell me which rule I'd broken. They just said I was "too argumentative."

All that to say...yes, Royal Road does suck. But it's also the biggest and most profitable webserial site on the internet, so if you want to strike it big as an online author, you pretty much have to be on there. That's why once my WIP is ready to go, I'm going to make a new account and publish it on there under a different name.

 

[lambenttyto]

Is there anything in the rules about threatening mods and being a whiny prima donna that can't stop lashing out? No idea why anyone would capitulate to such behavior or seeing the people in charge caring. Just going to encourage him to keep whining about how people are persecuting him cause he's a white man.

Which is still fucking hilarious.

I'm sorry you feel you have more to grieve about, and that my mild complaint in a one-off line in a make-your-unpopular-opinion-and-move-on thread insults you so deeply. Just because you feel yourself, or some other group has more to complain about than me, makes my complaint in any way invalid, is illogical, and that's not even considering the basis of my complaint, which has merit whether or not you agree. The large corporate traditional publishers are clear on the ESGs.

But you've chosen to chase me around and bring this up in separate threads, not just separate threads on Royal Road, but a completely separate thread on another website.

It's time to move on from this.

A few years ago, a group of unknown authors on RR figured out how to manipulate the ranking system and get their stories more attention. They were all banned because gaming the system is a major no-no on RR. A few weeks ago, a bunch of authors who had mid- to large followings (some of them were using alt accounts) released a bunch of stories on the same day, all with similar [blank]-girl evolution gimmicks, in order to flood the Rising Stars list. They were only able to do this because they had a lot of followers to shower their new books with votes and reviews the minute they went live, and anyone else who happened to release a book around that time and didn't have an army of followers to do their bidding just had to watch the stories they worked so hard on get pushed off the board by a bunch of people who didn't need the extra publicity in the first place. In short, they games the system. These authors didn't get banned, however. Why? Because they're popular. Being popular means you're bringing the site ad revenue, and bringing in ad revenue means the rules don't apply to you because the people in charge will never do anything to hurt their source of income.

It's also worth noting that I got banned about a year ago for saying that it should be illegal to market books with explicit sex in them to underage audiences, like a bunch of YA series these days are doing. That offended a few of the more popular forum members (huh, I wonder why?) and that meant that the admins were offended too. I woke up the next day and found that my whole account had been deleted, and when I tried to appeal it, the mods weren't able to tell me which rule I'd broken. They just said I was "too argumentative."

All that to say...yes, Royal Road does suck. But it's also the biggest and most profitable webserial site on the internet, so if you want to strike it big as an online author, you pretty much have to be on there. That's why once my WIP is ready to go, I'm going to make a new account and publish it on there under a different name.

I'm sorry to hear it. But that doesn't sound cool. Obviously I don't know the full history of this stunt, but I keep hearing about it.

Well, you don't need to get involved. I'll just give you the super skinny. I made a one-liner statement on RoyalRoad and some keyboard warrior got real mad and starting making fun of me and calling me names. Then he chased me to different threads so he could bring up the argument and derail and smear me some more. Then he went the extra mile and chased me to a separate forum (this now SH) to do the exact same thing.

Normally I'd let the disagreement rest, but he keeps causing new firestorms everywhere I go. He's unhinged and angry on some deep emotional level that I can't even speak to and he's never going to stop, and he even got a mod buddy on this site to come over and help with the firestorm and continue to call me names.

There it is in a nutshell.

Maybe RR needs some help with moderation, because this is way out of hand and if these people are this bad, then there's firestorms all over the place we don't even know about.

Anyway, I hope you find success on Royal Road when you're ready to get back on there. It seems maybe the forums might be a good place to avoid entirely. There are vipers in there looking for trouble.

 

[MutantJumper]

In the light of the clear DEI entitative and my lack of pushing for "progressive values" in my writing, mainstream publishing is an uphill battle. I've used submission grinder extensively to look at the top short fiction markets and many of them state explicitly in their submission guidelines that they're searching for underrepresented writers and stories on progressive themes. A few explicitly say if you don't fall under that alignment you need not submit.

Lmfao there it is. You refused to say it outright before now, and for good reason. It's pretty hard to shout "I can't get published because of DEI!" from the rooftops and have anyone take you seriously.

Oh and you're not anonymous, actually. You have a pen name that you consistently use to show off your stories, while also foolishly saying something incredibly fucking stupid. Don't shit where you eat.

If you want to be anonymous, you have to make a burner account. Like I did. Because I don't want my story getting caught up in the drama of calling out some whiny bitch that claims he's getting persecuted because he can't get published as a white man.

DEI isn't stopping you from getting published, you manchild. Your writing skill is.

 

[lambenttyto]

Me thinks he doth protest too much.

Good day, Mr. Six-Accounts.

 

[MutantJumper]

I know English isn't your first language, but lmao. That's not how that phrase works.

You say that for someone that's being defensive. Not for someone accusing you and mocking you

I'm sure this mastery of idioms nothing to do with your publishing issues. Definitely DEI.

 

[Rezcore]

Still better that AO3. Sick site that

 

[Tony]

Well, you know why it's getting locked. I actually came out of retirement to lock this thread