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Technology Archive

Some Site Stats in 2022 So Far

As we work to fill up our queue of features and what not, I thought I'd drop some stats information about some of things going on at the site. Reactions For the Last 6 Months: Note, that the percentage is vs the previous 6 months.  Very clearly, the most positive reactions are the most popular.   Chapter Comments For the Last 6 Months:   Age Ranges Claimed by Members:   Device Usage:    
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Technology Archive

Big Changes for Authors Posting Stories

We have a pretty big Story Archive change arriving very soon.  We have separated Adding a story to the system and publishing.  This should finally address the issues related to setting a publishing time. First up.  You now add all the story meta data first.  If you are still in the moderation queue and the story is not yet publicly published, editing the story will remove Moderation approval if you have it. These steps are the same, except you no longer enter Prologue or Chapter
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Technology Archive

Story Filter Bar Change

We have updated the Story Filter Bar on the Story Archive. (As well as the reading stats filter bar) We have added an FAQ entry for details on the symbols.  This is linked directly on the story filter bar under the help "?" button.  
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Technology Archive

Story Archive Update November 5, 2021 - Genres

The upgrade to our latest version of our Story Archive software is complete.  This is a pretty big change under the hood on how we handle Genres.  First thing first.  Definitions. Primary Genre - This is the top level genre and consists mostly the old genres we used along with some new ones. Sub-Genre - These are more narrowly scoped genre under a primary genre.  For example Comic Fantasy is a sub-genre of Comedy. Why the change?  With the advent of epublishing, the number
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Technology Archive

Story Archive Update - 9/19/2021

Greetings all!  We have once again made some updates to our Story Archive.  There are two big ones that affect readers.  We have added "Highest Chapter Read" to the "My Reading History" page.  (For those of you that have opted-in to reading history.) There is also now a note in the reading History description, blue box as of this writing, that tells you how many stories and how long the stories will stay in the Reading History.  I also added some notes to the image as some helpfu
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Technology Archive

Changes Coming to Profiles

As the schedule currently sits, we are planning on upgrading the forum software to the newest version in the next couple of weeks depending on how the software patching process for the Stories Archive software goes.  As part of that roll out, I'll be changing how we handle new member registration as well as the information available in the profile.  One of the more visible changes is that we are going to remove the birthday and Age in Years fields and replace it with the Age Range demographic op
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Technology Archive

Stories System Updated 4/15

We have patched the site with the latest update.  There are a handful of requested changes in this update. Story System Reputation First up, on the Authors listing, we can now sort by "Highest Story Reputation" Under an author's icon, you'll now see 2 numbers.  The Green number is the Site Reputation Total.  (The likes across the entire site).  The number in the gray box is the Story Reputation. (This is the likes from just the stories/chapters/comments in the story system)
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Technology Archive

New Stories Update Mar 5, 2020

By now, you have probably noticed that we have upgraded the Stories software on the site.  There are a bunch of what I would call quality of life updates and a major new feature. There is now an easy way to update your Author Profile area: For promoted author, you can now update your logo here yourself.  Banners need to be 848x121 pixels. All authors will be able to add their website link and author bio.  This is also where future Author Profile fields will show up, if/when
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Technology Archive

Traditional Forum View VS Fluid Forum View

Now that the forums are consolidated, one of the features added to the system years ago is a LOT more useful.  You can now select Fluid View and see all topics in a single list, instead of having to go to different forums to see the most recent topics.  You can see them all in one go and filter to see only the forums you are interested in. If you are not a fan, you can still use the Traditional view, which is the button next to the one with the giant red arrow, shown above.  
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Technology Archive

2020, A Look Ahead

In our last blog post here in news, we looked back at 2019. This week will look forward to 2020.  The year has already started off with plenty of drama out in the real world and it promises to be an even crazier roller coaster for the rest of year.  Let's make Gay Authors a bastion of peace where we can all relax, shall we?  Read, Write, Enjoy! Anthologies The four themes have been selected.  Get a good start and try to have an entry for all of them this year.   I know I'm going
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Technology Archive

Reading History

We have added a new feature on the site... Reading History. This is a special collection that you have to opt-in to use.  It shows you the last 50 stories you've read for 30 days. (stories will drop off the list if they are there over 30 days.  The oldest will drop off if you have more than 50).  The history is not public. Only you and staff can see it.  As you can see from my screen shot, it also shows you the last chapter you've viewed and gives you a link to it. The plus sign
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Technology Archive

Story Archive Updated

We've updated Stories again! Story Collections All members will now have the ability to create a list of stories List can be public or private List can be ordered or unordered. The feature also allows for Curated lists of stories to be created by the staff.  For example, we can create a "Gay Author's Classics" collection of stories.  Or any number of other options. Review link added to Last Chapter of Complet
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Technology Archive

Stories Archive Software Update

Hello everyone!  It is that time again.  The Stories Archive software on Gay Authors has been updated.  We've had a whole lot of bug fixes and a couple of new features added. IMPORTANT NOTE: Stat's are Rebuilding for the next few days.  You'll know when it's done because not every story will be ranked #1 with 0 views. New Features Site level Story view statistics are now available.  We have been collecting timestamped story/chapter views since Jan of 2018.  That is just shy of
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Technology Archive

Bug Fixes and New Goals Widget

We have posted a new version of Stories on the site.  Things are going well so far. It correct a number of small issues.  We've also added the ability to put up a goal box for feedback items. You'll see it on various points on the site. Be sure to do your part in hitting our goals to give Authors more feedback! 
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Technology Archive

Forum Consolidation and Club Clean Up

As part of keeping up with changing times, we have done a consolidation of forums and clubs and have removed stuff that was not getting enough use.  This will hopefully consolidate our active content into less places as well as making the "Fluid View" of the the forums more useful. The changes we've made: Clubs o    Closed Fanfiction Club and moved topics to Writer's Circle - Specialized Fiction Forum o    Closed Sci-Fi Writers Club and moved topics to Writer's Circle -
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Technology Archive

Stories Software Update

First thing this morning, I applied a new Stories Archive software update.  This was a minor update that was mostly focused on bugs. Added new feature on forum posts that shows how many Stories you have reviewed and how many story/chapter comments you have made Added "Story Review Guidelines", "Story Comment Guidelines" and "Chapter Comment Guidelines" feature that pops up a box when clicked that can offer general site guidelines for posting comments and reviews.  If you click on
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Technology Archive

Editor behavior change

We have changed the way the editor behaves due to the difficulty in maintaining the code for it.  It used to work that when you hit "return" it would go to a new line.  Now when you hit "return" it goes to a new paragraph. Example: This is a new line from Example This is a new paragraph. If you would like a new line, instead of new paragraph, hit shift-return. This was part of what caused the double space error you see in some stories.  Now, some posts will seem oddly space
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Technology Archive

Forums 4.4.2 and other changes

Today, we are upgrading the site to the latest version of the forum software.  While there are not going to be a lot of visible changes, there was a ton of things changed under the hood that is geared towards making the site faster loading and to operate better on mobile devices.  It is going to take a few days to sort through the various settings and getting things operating properly. I'm going to post here several times as we go through this process. Some changes that have occurred p
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Technology Archive

Server Update, Authors, Delayed Notifications

We had to do a server update earlier today and I had a small configuration issue.  The background task was not processing the last few hours and I've corrected that issue. There was a glut of notifications that were off by several hours.   We also had an odd incident where an Author group expired.  If this happens to you, you can just go back to the store and select author again. (In theory)  If there is an issue, just send us a support request from the help menu.  
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Technology Archive

Server Software Updates

I have done some updates on the underlying server software today.  If you were around while I was doing this, the site was going up and down like a yo-yo.   A reboot and a couple of services restart later and I think we are up and running. Everything I tested seems to be working and all the big red warning flags I was getting have cleared.   (for the technically inclined, we went from PHP 7.0 end of life version to PHP7.1.  I had to get the extensions right and update the caching system. bl
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Technology Archive

Streamlining Help Menu

As mentioned in previous announcements, we are undergoing clean up and consolidation.  As part of this, some of the temporary links that were on the forums have been removed and placed in the newly streamlined "Help" menu.   Help -FAQ = a list of common questions with links to the answers. Help Topics = a database of common questions and answers Step-by-Step Guide to Authors = How to become an Author on the site. Support = Open a support ticket if you
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Technology Archive

Writing Resources Page

We have consolidated and removed two different forums that were dedicated to Writing Resources.  We have instead replaced them with a single Writing Resources page. This page will be a constant work in progress as we update and make better ways to organize it.  There are already a ton of resources linked on the page.  If you're writing and stuck on something, there is probably a resource there for you. https://gayauthors.org/writingresources/  
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