Ffnet update!

[physicssquid]

The latest update is really annoying me. I used to like looking through the archive lists of stories with certain pairings, but with the fact that they've added two more characters to the filters, I can't find them as easily. If only they could add a filter for pairings, rather than the four main characters for each story.

Does anyone else find this update really stupid?

[Miss Wings]

Eugh I hate it!

[unbeastly]

It's awful. Why do sites always seem to confuse the words 'update' and 'ruin'.

[blackroses77]

I hate it!!!! It is so incredibly frustrating not being able to see the filters at the top of the page anymore but to have to hit that button to get the filters up, and yes it does make it harder to search for a particular pairing. I find myself spending more and more time on AO3 and only go back to ffn to check on a few select stories.

[Kitty279]

The new filters messed my old bookmarked links up, too. I've had the proper filters for certain searches bookmarked so I didn't have to change the age restriction and all that every time, but now there were suddenly lots of stories that shouldn't be in there (wrong language, seeing that I only want English, and the like), and I had to start over.

They seem to have now added a 'without' function, which would at least make it easier for me to cut all the Draco stories out, but I haven't tested it yet.

[monkeymail]

The 'without' button is good but the way that they've hidden all the filters completely annoys me sooooooo much!

[Kitty279]

It's rather confusing, it took me a bit to figure out how to do that sort of search now. Oh well, it's not as if we can do anything about it, sadly.

[teehee100]

I know. At one point I couldn't see the apply button no matter how much I scrolled down. I refreshed the page a few times before it worked.

[Kitty279]

Really annoying You end up searching for stuff you usually did basically asleep. And when you have finally gotten used to everything, they are probebly going to change it again.

[physicssquid]

They've brought out a new update, only this one is getting rid of the ad-blocker! Why the hell would they do something so stupid?

[unbeastly]

I know it was my absolute favourite feature, I remember before I found that button I kept getting interrupted by those god awful full page ads that take forever to get rid off and I'm pretty sure were responsible for at least one virus my computer got.

[Kitty279]

Full page ads? The only ones I see are the small ones in the header, and I can live with them. But of course, my computer blocks these ads on principle, not limited to any website.

[unbeastly]

That was a couple of years ago, it happened when you click to go to the next chapter and part way through loading it would suddenly instead switch to a full paged add with a button on the top that said back to site.

[Kitty279]

Ugh, that has to be annoying, but I have never noticed that in over four years, thankfully. Either that was even longer ago, or it doesn't happen with my laptop or work PC.

[blackroses77]

I've never had that happen either Kitty but I still hate the new updates since it makes it harder to search by pairing since you have to weed through every story that has those two people in it.

Speaking of ffn, since you can no longer search by pairing I have basically abandoned the site, there are now only two stories that I am following and one of them has been targeted but a critics united wannabe so it is only a matter of time before the actual CU get's involved. So I went to CU to see if the story has come to their attention yet and I found these two very interesting posts by CU Admin;

I want to thank you all for the good wishes, it has certainly been a great experience for all of us and we're going to keep doing what we're doing for as long as we can.
Critics United has grown and evolved during these three years, we've had great times together, talked and met good friends during these time. We've also met with difficulties, like the false flag attack from a person who used photoshop to edit our reviews and tried to make us look bad, it was hard but we survived that, and we're still here, with the same desire to help FFN be a better place that we had when we started.
We've even inspired other users to start their own forums and that is great, because in the end it means more of us will work towards the goal of helping this amazing fanfiction archive improve. It is because of this that I like to think we've made a difference, maybe it's a small one but it is a start, and a good one.
Thank you everybody, we really appreciate your support!
And fear not, Critics United will go on. August 21

Just a quick note asking our members to please go to the Proboards forum so that we can let you know about an important issue that we feel you all must know.
Make sure to drop by when you can, thank you. August 21.

I suppose I'm getting my hopes up that the forum is in trouble and might be going down before one of my stories is removed and I'm down to one measly story left to follow on ffn.

[Kitty279]

Wow, thanks for posting this! Really sounds as if they have a problem. For some reason, I hope they are wrong about going on. They have annoyed me too much to feel charitable after having nearly all good RtB stories deleted.

To be honest, I barely search by way of pairings any more. I was too tired of digging through all the rubbish. Now I am mostly looking through the favourites of authors I like, that way I have found a good number of readable fics.

[physicssquid]

I do the same thing. I do occasionally still browse through the lists of stories that feature my favourite characters, since in among the rubbish, there may be one or two decent stories.

[unbeastly]

It's awful what they've done to it. Finding anything decent on there is twice as hard and I'm kind of stuck because it's the only place that a couple of my fandoms get a consistent stream of new fics.

[Kitty279]

They mean well, no doubt, but I am beginning to get the feeling that they are driving their users away instead of helping them. Sad, really.

[Miss Wings]

I'm just sick of having to click English every time.

[Kitty279]

You could try the following: type in everything you need - characters, language, age limit, whatever. Then start the search. And wheny you have the result, bookmark it. When you then use the bookmark, the list builds up to the latest status anew every time. Much less bother, as you have to do the choices only once. It's how I did - and do - it.

[blackroses77]

That's what I do Kitty, makes things much easier so I don't always have to repeatedly key in English and All Ratings.

They mean well, no doubt, but I am beginning to get the feeling that they are driving their users away instead of helping them. Sad, really.

I don't know if it's just us that see things clearly or if ffn is full of it because they stated on the home page that they had a very positive response to the updates they've done. When I read that I wanted to facepalm as all I could think was if that's true then the 'positive response' must of come from the same people that leave glowing reviews on horrible stories. Seriously how has it come to the point that those people are the ones with the most influence over the admins?

[Kitty279]

Yeah, seeing that there's no way to change my settings to always show English and All Ratings - I am an adult, for heavens sake, I don't need my reading limited to children's stories! - it's the fastest way. Plus, one can do that for different pairings, keep all of them bookmarked and get to them with one click.

*snort* Positive response? Well, mine was certainly not there!
Are you really surprised? They are the ones who are calling every rubbish 'great' - of course the admins would rather listen to them than to the critics who complain about stuff.