kazesenken "bothering them every single time the system flags your novel"
Do you think I am bothering them on purpose? What else can you do when your novel gets flagged? Solve it by yourself?
"It's not their responsibility..."
Then whose responsibility is it to fix it? Am I supposed to know that? If they tell me to contact A then I'll contact A, if they tell me to contact B I'll contact B. If that is not their responsibility then they should have directed me to someone who is responsible for it. If even they don't know who is supposed to be responsible for then how can I?
And can it even be that not one of the 8 different webnovel staff I've spoken to knows whose responsibility it is to fix it? (Yes, I've actually stopped to count.)
That can't be right? For a problem that apparently happens all the time, surely it can't be that no one knows who is supposed to be dealing with it?
So then, what you are saying here is that not one of the webnovel staff holds the responsibility to fix an error caused by their own system? Then who is responsible for fixing it, God?
Or, perhaps, are you saying that it isn't an error? That it was their intention all along to cause legit novels to get blocked due to an anti-spam algorithm? Seems kinda counterproductive if you ask me.
Then, since it is clearly an error and someone should be responsible for it, the responsibility could only fall at the novel's author, right? So then, what you are really saying is that every author is at fault here for not possessing omniscient powers of future prediction? And for even possessing basic reasoning abilities that would dare assume that things that work for other non-premium novels would work for theirs too?
"knowingly trying to walk a fine line" you say.
At first, I wasn't even aware there WAS a line. Would you have figured out that there was a line if you clearly saw many other novels using emojis just fine?
Got blacklisted.
Then after getting whitelisted, no one mentioned that the novel would get blacklisted again if I continue using emoji, and judging by what everyone was saying on the forums about "once you are whitelisted you can use whatever characters you want", I naturally continued using the emojis.
Blacklisted again. At that point, I asked, what characters are causing the error? Since I've seen kaomoji being used just fine then there is clearly something I'm doing wrong that others are doing right.
And all I have gotten back is "we have no idea but we assure you that we do, so just use only characters found on an English keyboard."
At this point, I was getting genuinely concerned. I can't just use "characters found on an English keyboard" as they put it. What if the next time I copy-paste my text from Microsoft Word there is some kind of character in it that webnovel deems as blacklist-worthy? Am I supposed to remember to check for every mention of fiancé to remove that é that word automatically puts?
I needed to test this out, but since I couldn't test it out on my actual novel, I had to play it safe. So, I went through another novel that wasn't premium that uses kaomoji without any issue, just so I can check what characters actually work. Then I thought, oh, so it must be just emojis like this that don't work: 😒 because that novel was using all kinds of kaomoji just fine.
So I removed everything that I didn't confirm that novel using with my own two eyes. And what happened? That's right, I still got blacklisted.
At this point, I was sick and tired of it all. I went through my every chapter and removed every single character that "wasn't found on the English keyboard".
Still got blacklisted. Why? Because I missed one! I missed one single 🤔
So, right, yeah, I deserved everything I got because I "knowingly tried to walk the fine line" and damn, those poor, poor webnovel workers that had to whitelist me four times due to the oh so clearly explained problem in the system.
Frankly, if even one person straight up went and told me "look, we can unblock you now, but that's only temporary, the next time you use something that the system doesn't like, you'll get flagged again. What is it that system doesn't like? I don't know, I'll ask the tech deparment. But in the meanwhile, using just the things found on a normal english keyboard should work? Why can others use it? I don't know, let me check and I'll get back at you." (and then ofc, got back to me)
I would have been perfectly satisfied. But not a single one did that. Not a single one out of 8.
There were some that were nice about it, and even said that they aren't familiar with the procedure and directed me elsewhere, but then there were others that treated me like I owe them money, pretending to be an authoritative figure whose words are law while clearly contradicting themselves every other sentence.
And then, after the entire fiasco, I come to the forums to post a suggestion to do something about this algorithm, which would clearly be beneficial for all parties involved, and the response? Poor content editors.
Yeah, you are right. Thank you. Can you now direct even half of that empathy to other people involved as well? Or maybe, I don't know, concentrate on the core issues of the discussion which is a problem with the system so that perhaps someone might fix it in the future?
And no, I am not attacking you or anyone else personally, I am just getting very fed up with the general response I've been receiving to what should have been a helpful suggestion, so my words are getting edgy.
because that novel was using all kinds of kaomoji just fine.
