So basically is that, I hope that it’s easier to view stories from a specific author. When I take a peek at someones profile, I wish we could see their stories or links to their stories, so that it’ll be much faster and easier. It’s kinda hard to use the search engine on this aspect. Sorry if I’m wrong or just ignorant, but I was just wondering.
There’s nothing wrong with asking 
The easiest way to get all stories of a given author is to click his name (in the table of stories or anywhere else stories are listed).
And you can also look for them using the main menu: Under “Stories → Authors” you’ll get a list of all authors. Narrow down the list by selecting the first letter of the author’s name.
Having said that: Adding a profile where he can write about himself (any maybe optionally add a picture) is high on my list!
4 Likes
All I remembered was the authors name and couldn’t find any of his story, and I didn’t even knew of this
So thanks!
1 Like
I’m sorry to dredge up a year-old thread, but this felt like the right topic to ask this. I was wondering if there’s a way to claim stories I wrote under my same pen name before I made an account. They’re all there under Curiosity when you do an All Authors search, but I’d like to link them to my profile if there’s a way to do that. Thanks!
Just write me a PM with the details and I’ll fix that for you!
1 Like
In general finding an author on GSS bothers me.
I have had DM’s in the past saying “I tried looking for you on GSS and couldn’t find you” and this is due to a number of ‘holes in the net’ that really, needn’t be there.
For one, my Author name is ‘The Dirty Spiders’ and this confuses the search algorithm. Yes, yes, my fault; how dare I express myself in a way that inconveniences a search algorithm.
If you type nothing except for [The Dirty Spiders] into the GSS search bar, I don’t show up even in the first 100 hits.
you need to type [“The Dirty Spiders”] i.e., you need to know to type it in quotation marks.
Then, on iOS (i.e., my iPhone) [“The Dirty Spiders”] doesn’t function at all because there is some weird glitch with how the (“”) marks are tapped in on some deeper programming level or something, basically, quotation marks when typed in with certain devices, don’t get clocked as functional-quotation-marks-for-searching.
Meaning on certain random devices, I am unfindable.
On my PC [“The Dirty Spiders”] bam, it’s a hit. I go to GSS on my iPhone [“The Dirty Spiders”]… no results, I don’t exist.
then you’d think “ahh, but go to the author page then”, but then the author/users tab doesn’t have a search function. You gotta scrawl through lists like it’s a forum webpage from 18 years ago.
and, will I be under 'The Dirty Spiders’? (so ‘T’?) or is it 'Dirty Spiders, the’ (so ‘D’?). Before you long eventually gonna lose people to “you know what? who cares!, I’m just gonna go watch a YouTube video. Fuck this guy and his obscure website I can’t find him on.”
There should either be;
A search function under the authors/users tab (that works consistently without the quotation bug the normal search function has)
or
The search function should automatically favor author names when the search parameters closely resembles an author name, or, is spelled with capitols (indicating a proper noun/title), for example.
or
You should be able to select “I am specifically searching for an author/story/title/tag switch on the search page”.
or
A double checking to make sure the quotation function works no matter what device your on but I feel this is the least forward thinking solution, because it’s still a very un-modern way of having to search for an author, and this is a web site with hundreds of authors.
tDS is not famous, but google finds me just fine [The Dirty Spiders] gets my twitter account first hit, and [The Dirty Spiders gay spiral stories] gets me to my page on GSS, first hit. No quotation marks needed (this is not helped by cookies or search algorithms, I used a freshly opened incog window, with ‘detect location’ switched off).
As of right now, today, not 30 seconds ago, I am completely unfindable on this website on my own iPhone, and unfindable without know the quotation function on my PC. On iPhone, I can only find myself by logging in first (no use to new readers) or, scrawling though discord, looking for the last story I posted (i.e., finding a link to my profile or story) or, scrawling through the ever-growing list of authors/users to find my name by hand.
Actually, I’m (not just a bit) mad at Apple. That quotation mark thing is a serious fuck up on their part. They seem to expect that the whole world is revolving around them.
The quotation mark has a special meaning, not only on GSS, but also on so irrelevant sites as Google. You can use it there for the same purpose, to enclose a phrase. I don’t know if Google or Apple have applied special processing to cover that, so that IOS devices work properly if you enter a quotation mark in the Google search field, but regardless, it’s beyond stupid that sth like this is even required.
This totally brain dead functionality can be turned off, by the way, in
Settings | General | Keyboard | Smart Punctuation.
However, I don’t see the issue with finding you. If you look on the page “T” on “Author & User profiles” you’re there on the very first page. You don’t even have to switch pages. And adding a special processing for “The” is not a good idea, if you ask me.
I could add some code to switch those pesky typographic " IOS uses to real ones, i.e. your last suggestion. Part of me, however, just wants to scream “fuck of” to Tim and also to Steve’s grave. Or who ever was brain dead enough to make their developer adding such a functionality to their devices!
I’m gonna say, officially, I do not accept “you can also find yourself in the list of authors under ‘T’” an appropriate response.
You can also find the authors that do show up in the search function there, but you can also find them by searching for them in the site’s search page.
if you type [Martin] into search, it finds you.
if you type [Max Potter] into search, it finds him.
if you type [absman420] into search, it finds him.
if you type [Cockatrice] into search, it finds him.
Why are [Mr. Knight], [The Dirty Spiders], [Canadian Cowboy] Second class citizens?
Some authors are not being serviced by this site’s search engine, others are, and the issue is known, and nothing has been done. This is literally inequality. Mild admittedly, but it is literally inequality. The answer “but you can find yourself under the user list” comes across as dismissive and privileged; Yes you can find your name there, but I’m not taking about the user list; I’m taking about the search engine. It. Should. Function, and it currently does not.
Change your author name to ‘Cat on a Rug’ and see how you like not being searchable.
Is this satire?
Martin has always been tremendously responsive to feedback and suggestions. He is also continuously striving to improve the functionality of the GSS site. If this is something he can rectify, he will. If he can’t, it’s not because you are being deliberately discriminated against…
Hi guys.
Remind me never to be a professional service provider for you, @thedirtyspiders … you’re certainly not one to restrain yourself with criticism.
For what it’s worth, it did its job in this case. Because as I read your text, I wondered why the search engine is not putting your stories at the top of the results when searching for The Dirty Spiders (without quotes). Because technically it should put the best hits on top…
Then it occurred to me. I was simply too brain-dead. I enforced a default sorting order (the publishing date) which of course overwrote the default order.
So I’ve just fixed that. The default order when entering the search is now always the natural order of hits, which shows the best matching hits first. You can still manually change the order by clicking the table headers, as usual.
So just searching for The Dirty Spiders (or Dirty Spiders) without quotes will list his stories first now, by default.
I’ve also used that opportunity to auto-convert all types of quotation marks into the correct one (with the expception of the standard single quote: ’ as that could be part of a name or title). So IOS users should have it easier, too.
And I’ve updated the hints on the search page (which no one reads anyway), to explain the quotes thing as well as the prefix. There are actually two useful prefixes: “author” and “title”. Should be self-explanatory, if not, click the hint button …
Spiders is still typing as I’m writing this, it seems this posting comes in before his does. Oh well.
Just one final thing: Don’t think that using strong language will usually help you with getting anything done any faster. In this case, I just happened to have an epiphany and I wanted to implement it right away.
You won’t get a search field on the author-page, though. Unless you come to my place and suck me off 5 times in a row. And clean my apartment. And my car.
[deletes long message]
My response was mostly address @Swizz and his question of satire. I explained some of my various foibles as a person, and, how yes of course I know how amazing Martin is and how he knows I know he knows I know (and so on).
@Corin whatever you’ve done, it seems you have completely fixed the issue.
When reasonably accurately inputting an authors name, it now gives a hit for that author.
Problem utterly solved:
Equality for Authors who’s Names are Capitalized Common Nouns (AwNaCCN) achieved.
…and we didn’t even need lobbying and a referendum.
… I still insist on the sucking and cleaning thing, though!
1 Like
Please Cap’n… I need to get the Covid vaccine first! or they wont let me book flights!
Don’t make me watch the strange TV again… It makes me forget things.