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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Story Reviews

Writing reviews is hard.  That's the honest truth.  Writing the first review is even harder.  Humans are social creatures and tend to have a herd mentality.  Most people will wait for others to go first.  It is part of human nature.  However, writing those reviews is important for the same reason.  A lot of people don't like to go and read something unless it's been reviewed.  There are other factors people look to like number of views, number of likes, and number of follows when the reviews are
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Series Feature in Stories

This week's blog was triggered by the observation that some authors and members seem to be unaware of a built-in feature of our Stories system.  This is the Series function.  First, for the readers, you can find Series easiest by using the right-side menu on the main stories page. See below:   If the Longest Series is not your thing, you can easily adjust it by selecting "Sort By" and choosing a different option:   When you click on a Series Title, say "Gone From
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Starting off 2018 Secure

I thought I'd start off 2018 with a reminder to everyone about computer security.  In the past year, we've seen major security breaches that gave away pretty much everyone's personal financial information and worse.  It was bad, to put it mildly.  So, first, I'm not a security expert but I'm offering some common sense items for everyone. Use different passwords on all of your accounts. Use Strong passwords( 8+ characters, mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special
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Critique

Improve & Encourage #8: Puppy Love

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - 2017 Year in Review

There seems to be an unwritten rule out there for websites and publications everywhere that the last week of the year is the time to do a year in review wrap-up sort of post.  This is the one for Gay Authors. 2017.  What a year!  This was the year we jumped 50 versions of software to finally break free of the 3.4 version of the forum software and break into the world of 4.1 and then 4.2 versions of the software.  We've had hundreds of Stories archive software updates in the same timeframe a
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Chapter Text Controls

One of the most important aspects to our Stories software is allowing members to make the reading window fit their need for reading.  Whether that is to adjust the text size, the contrast, the indents or the width of the text window.  Here are the controls:   Text size should be obvious here.  The green highlight, as shown here, means that the current text is larger than the default text.  If you have no highlight, then you have default text size.  If you have A- highlighted, then
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Premium Content and Gift Cards

Greetings everyone!  It occurred to me that since this is the gift-giving season, we should share with you that GA does have a built-in Gift Card system that you can use to gift Premium Content (or credit for eBooks).     But first, let me get to the why Premium?   Everyone who has been on the Internet for awhile and is familiar with the other story sites like Gay Authors knows that there are basically 4 business options out there: A private or small group that covers
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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Letter and IM/Texting Formatting.

As I mentioned last week, it is my plan to post short feature highlights as well as other tech-related items here each Tuesday.  This week it is about our Letter format and IM/texting formatting. This feature is available across the site, and the buttons are displayed in desktop/laptop-sized windows and tablet-sized windows.  The buttons are not in the mobile browser due to space limitations.   There are two ways you can use this feature: You can type everything you wa
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Critique

Improve & Encourage #7: Genie in Flames

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Tech Tuesday - Spoiler Tags

Hello!  Welcome back to Tech Tuesdays!   Starting today, we are planning on bringing this feature back for you every Tuesday.  Most of them will be short but will highlight either existing features or coming features.     Today, we will be going over the use of the spoiler tags.  These are built right into the editor and should be used to hide information that would otherwise spoil someone's enjoyment.  This often applies to the big twists you see in books, movies, tv shows, games, etc
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Fun Stuff

Halloween Winners & Reveal

I'd like to thank all of the authors who participated in the Halloween Short Story Contest! There were a lot of great entries and I'm sure it was hard to choose who to vote for. Thank you everyone who voted for your favorite story and a big Thank You to Reader1810 for collecting the votes. Stories will be properly attributed to the correct authors very soon. Congratulations to the winners: @aditus @Mikiesboy and @Dodger!!!!         The first place winne
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Fun Stuff

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #6: Little Man

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

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Fun Stuff

Halloween Guess Who!

Have you been inwardly guessing which Halloween Contest entries were written by which author. With the voting for the contest over, it's time for the GA members to try and guess who wrote what! The "reveal" will occur on October 31st, so try and get your guesses in before then. The only prize for this game is bragging rights, if you guess more right then anyone else. Remember, only one story was allowed per author.   Author List Puppilull Craftingmom Comicfan Dodger
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Fun Stuff

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Technology Archive

Clubs!

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!  With so much going on around Gay Authors, sometimes it's easy to miss when something new happens. Lately we have been adding some new clubs to the site, and moving appropriate forums into those clubs. Wondering where your favorite topic went? Check out clubs!  Clubs allow us to put all the stuff that belongs together in one place.  Writing Sci-Fiction?  Then the Sci-Fi club has fellow sci-fi writers, resource links, inspiring images, etc. Want to tal
Fun Stuff

Halloween Short Story Contest *Voting Open*

It's time!!! For everyone that has been waiting, we've got 11 brand new stories for you to sink your teeth into. After you've read all the stories, make sure to vote for your favorite. The winners will be announced on October 31st, 2017. The top three stories will receive not only the recognition, but the following prizes:   1st Place 6 month Premium access   2nd Place 3 month Premium access   3rd Place 1 Month Premium acce
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Fun Stuff

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News Archive

GA's Newest Signature Author: Headstall

Please join the Author Promotion Team in congratulating Headstall as GA's newest Signature Author! Headstall has been a member of GA for about three and a half years and was first promoted to Promising in November of 2015. Since joining, Headstall has written a total of 19 stories, including Cards on the Table. If you want to check out Headstall's other stories, you can visit his author page and while you're there, you can check out his updated banner!   Please join us in congratulatin
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in News Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #5: W.A.R. Part 1 & 2

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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News Archive

Plagiarism Strikes Again

We hate making these types of blog posts as we generally do not share moderation issues with the site membership. There are very few exceptions to this rule, and plagiarism is one of them. Plagiarism comes in many forms, and to make our position perfectly clear: STEALING OTHER PEOPLES WORK WILL NOT BE TOLERATED ON GAY AUTHORS!! Posting plagiarized content on GA is an immediate banning offense. Generally, when plagiarism strikes GA, it involves stories, but not always. In this case,
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in News Archive

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News Archive

Gay Authors Officially 15 Years Old on 9/13

Gay Authors 15th Anniversary September 13, 2017   Gay Authors has a big date now upon us.  On September 13, 2002, Gay Authors was officially started.  It is our official 15th Anniversary.  We started off with just Comicality's and my stories hosted. We didn't really start building the community until July 31, 2003.  In order to celebrate this remarkable milestone, I've asked a bunch of authors and members to reflect upon their time here at Gay Authors.  I list Comicality first
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News Archive

GA's Newest Promising Author: Parker Owens

Please join the Author Promotion Team in congratulating Parker Owens as GA's newest promoted author! Parker has been a member of GA for two and a half years and during that time, he has written thirteen stories to share with the members here at GA and has written over 1,300 reviews! His latest story A Fall Observation is at just over 11,500 words. If you want to read more from Parker, you can visit his author page (and check out his new banner while you're there).   Please join us in c
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in News Archive

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Critique

Improve & Encourage #4: Hard Choices

I hope you all enjoyed the last Improve & Encourage feature, because it's time for another one. These features are meant to both provide feedback to authors and, similar to story reviews, point out stories that readers might not otherwise have found. It's similar to a review, in that the person doing the critique tells you what they liked about the story, but it differs in that they also provide constructive criticism. Each author signed up to participate, and sign up's are still open!  Thes
Renee Stevens

Renee Stevens in Critique

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Technology Archive

Updates and Feedback From Survey

Thanks and Introduction So, right up front, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to do the survey.  I would especially like to thank the kind words that many people left in the comments.  They meant more than you know.   In the rest of this blog, I'll go over some of the feedback and offer advice as well as covering the open bugs.   Bugs So, yes, there are still a few active bugs: Chapter comment notifications are not being sent.  We missed this one i
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Technology Archive

Site Improvement Survey

Hello everyone! I have been working behind the scenes on quite a few things lately and I wanted to get some feedback.  I would really appreciate it you took some time to fill out this survey. It is short, but it will help us focus on some of the things we need to focus on.   Thanks everyone!  The poll is now closed.  
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