Google + account suspended

[amalthia]

Well, it was bound to happen. My account was suspended...I'm still not changing my name because I don't want my real name online at all! But I did add a fake last name that's sort of generic. Google + is smoking crack if they think their service is going to be successful when people can't pick which names they are known by online. My real name doesn't mean anything to the people I interact with online and why would I want to interact over the internet with people I already know if I can't trust them with my online pen name?

I hate that people think everyone wants a Facebook account.

Comments

[garryowen]

Man, I am with you on this one. I have stubbornly refused to get a facebook account, and people yell at me all the time! Most of them don't know shit about facebook or tech or online life outside of fb. I think I'm right to stick to my guns. :)

Also: totally unrelated, in my new story, I have this symbol: <

It appears in the story with its counterpart, which I forced to show on the page by using the html code for the symbols. But when AO3 makes the epubs, the symbols are gone. Do you know what I can do to make them appear in the epub?

[amalthia]

I have a Facebook account...but I don't use it.

Now as for the < symbol I think you may be able to insert these two codes into your epub html code where it needs to be. I'd use Calibre Tweak function to fix the epub. I don't know why A03 stripes the code (and it's the main reason I rarely use the epub download option) instead I make the epubs myself.

(okay I figured you already know the codes you need for > and < they just need to be inserted into the epub directly.

[garryowen]

That's the code I used when I posted to AO3...

Urgh. The problem is that I want AO3 downloaders to get correct epubs. I think it's a flaw in the AO3 conversion, and there's probably nothing I can do about it. Well, it was worth asking. If you don't know, then it's probably really obscure and hard and I don't want to bother. Because you know a lot!

[amalthia]

I think the only thing to do at this point is to write to the support team and let them know about this bug so they can add it to the list of things to fix. I'm still waiting for the epubs to no space between paragraphs and indents, but so far no dice. Plus I'm getting the impression that I may the only one that actually cares about that.

However, your coding problem will probably get bumped to the head of the line. (have you tried using >> ?? maybe that'll make a difference?

[garryowen]

Thanks for your help and suggestions. I should write to them!

Sigh. I suppose I could <<, but the shape of the symbol is important, and << doesn't seem as right to me. Grr. Fuck. Right now, in the epub, the whole point of the sentence is lost because of the issue, and that pisses me off, as I'm such a fussbudget writer. :)

[amalthia]

Sometimes the A03 team is able to make quick fixes if the problem isn't a huge one. :) With any luck they'll know why your > aren't working in the epub output.

"the whole point of the sentence is lost because of the issue, and that pisses me off, as I'm such a fussbudget writer. :)"

I'm the same way about formatting stories so I get what you mean. Sometimes substitutes just aren't as good...

[garryowen]

So. Um. When I wrote to them...my message got messed up because of the bracket. At least in my confirmation email. Sigh. But I think they'll get the idea.

[amalthia]

If not, they may write to you for clarification.

btw, LOVE your icon. :)

[elf]

I would prefer indents and no spaces, but can cope with spaces-between; it's common enough online that a lot of people prefer it. (Also, fics created with paragraph breaks could switch to indents; fics created with double-line-breaks couldn't. And which one is happening often depends on the formatting on the site imported from.)

[amalthia]

You have a good point about the double line-breaks. It does seem safer to go with the space because depending on how the story is imported...it seems like a lot could go wrong.

I'm sort of curious to know how Smashwords does their file imports because they somehow manage to sell ebooks that all have indents and no spaces. Though I suspect everyone is supposed to read their guide before uploading...

[elf]

Smashwords has the Meatgrinder which converts MS Word .doc files, with style settings, to the various ebook types. (Their RTF output sucks. You'd think the m'grinder could just *skip* processing the docs & save-as-rtf instead, but no; rtf is the worst of their export formats; it shows even on their official support docs.) Smashwords ebooks get spaces-between or indents depending on how the original .doc was set up. AO3 is never going to be able to say, "send us your fic formatted [like this] and we'll make it into a pretty ebook!"; they're always going to deal with "here's the fic with as little formatting as we can tolerate for maximum flexibility for the reader; and we're willing to throw it into an ebook format."

AO3 doesn't convert styles; it does a very basic epub framework wrapped around the body text of the fic. It doesn't *change* anything. Support for things like < symbols should be dependent on the ebook software, not the export--the character's probably in the export file in some way or another.

I do think the basic-ebook-framework could be a little more careful or complicated--and possibly, could allow authors to upload a .css stylesheet for their ebooks (or have a standard one available). That's part of why I want to start building epubs from scratch; I want to be able to suggest changes to AO3's system that they could actually do, rather than saying "and you should shove the fics through Calibre," because I gather that's not likely to work. (I dunno, though; maybe it's possible to install a Calibre-based converter on the site. The nonprofit status & opensource license should be compatible.)

[amalthia]

I think the css stylesheet may have a good chance of working...but again I don't know enough about how the coding is done on the site to really give more than an opinion.

And yeah, Meatgrinder doesn't sound very good. That could explain why some Smashwords ebooks don't look as good as others.

It's been a crazy Sunday, otherwise I would have wrote more in response to your post. You would by any chance be an expert in routers and port forwarding would you?

[elf]

A router is... the thingie connected to my modem that lets my laptop get wifi?

If port forwarding doesn't involve changing the address label on a bottle of wine, I can't help you.

[amalthia]

lol, sadly no this has nothing to do with wine.

The truly sad part of all of my hassles today is that port forwarding should be easy! I've done it a million times. But for some reason the connection site I'm going to keeps saying my connection is blocked. It's driving me up the wall. I suspect it has to do with the wireless router...or that my dsl modem also has router like functions.

[blnchflr]

Sorry for butting in, but I'm intrigued by your problem, and what the solution might be. I don't think I have the solution, either, but might

<code>&gt;</code>

or

<pre>&gt;</pre>

work?

[amalthia]

I'd be curious to know if either of those makes a difference! :) And for the record help is always welcome at my journal, especially if I can't answer a question. I really appreciate you taking the time to chime in with these suggestions.

[garryowen]

Thank you for these suggestions!

Sadly, the same problem occurred. On the web page, the brackets looked fine, but in the epub...gone. Mofo! My fault for writing stories with complicated formatting, but...still!

[blnchflr]

Yeah, it sounds like the epup takes the html output, in which case I don't know what can be done. Hopefully someone at AO3 does.

[elf]

Can you give me a link? I can poke at the epubs and see if I can sort out what the problem is, and might be able to suggest a fix.

[garryowen]

Hi there.

The problem is that I can't fix the epub myself. It's AO3 stripping the code out when it makes the epubs... I wrote to them because it's actually become a serious issue with the series I'm writing. There are tons of symbols and punctuation. My ampersands go missing in the epubs. So do my angled brackets (the things around html). It wasn't that big a deal until the most recent story, where the sentences are completely different in meaning without the symbols.

Urgh.

Here's the story in case there's something I'm not understanding and you're able to figure out a fix. http://archiveofourown.org/works/238556

Thanks!

[elf]

Urk. Yes, not working.

The AO3 story has the brackets tagged as "code," (<code>&lt;</code>) and apparently ePub conversion strips those out. They're present in the mobi, html & pdf downloads.

The ampersands aren't tagged as anything and they're not listed as &amp; they're just the symbol in the original story and gone in the ePub, but present in the other formats.

I don't have enough brain yet (I'm pre-coffee) to sort out possible solutions (which seem to be of the "send bug report" variety; if I were *really* coherent, I might come up with fix-it ideas).

[garryowen]

Originally, I posted with just plain html code for the brackets, and then someone (above) suggested trying the "code" fix. Both had the same result.

The ampersand thing is weird, yeah? I mean, it's just a normal key on my keyboard! I guess the converter thinks it's the start of some html.

I'm hoping AO3 will write back to me, and then we can get into the details of the bug and fix it.

Thanks for offering your brain!

[waketosleep]

Sucks, dude. My last name on my google account is a period but at the moment I still have an account. I'll just give them ten kinds of shit if they suspend me, I think; I'm protecting my internet privacy by not putting my last name (or all of my first name) on G+ because when you google my first name and last name together, you get... me. And only me. Ugh.

[amalthia]

Yeah, my name is rather unique too.

[waketosleep]

Let's both change our names to Jane Smith. Then we can use them on Google Pl--wait, probably Jane Smith is TAKEN, and we couldn't use it ANYWAY. Oh Google, you'll figure it out sooner or later.

[amalthia]

You know that's a good point, what do people with the exact same name do??? I've looked in phone books and even Terminator killed two other Sarah Conners before he found the right one.

[elf]

G+'s coverage of people with the same names sucks. Apparently (I'll have to scrounge up a link later), one woman was friended by a friend-of-her-husband's, "Joe Smith" (not the actual name, but it was something common like that), and she couldn't find him to friend him back--she looked for "Joe Smith" and got the first five out of a couple-hundred, chosen at random; had no way to send a message to the specific one who'd friended her. (I gather she got an email notice or something like that, rather than a direct link to his profile.)

[amalthia]

Oh man, that's not good, but not at all shocking!

Insane Journal

[grey853]

That's one of the main reasons I don't have a Google plus account.

On a different note, is Insane Journal down? You're the only one I have on a flist both here and there.

Re: Insane Journal

[amalthia]

I'm not sure about InsaneJournal's status. I haven't visited the site in a long time. I'm automatically cross posting through Dreamwidth.

Re: Insane Journal

[grey853]

Thanks.
Must have been a temporary thing because it's up now.

[astridv]

Honestly, I'm kind of glad that google+ thusly becomes effectively unsuitable for fandom. I hadn't liked the idea of fandom splintering even more than it already is.

[amalthia]

I sort of feel the same way every time LJ goes down and more authors post their fic to the A03. :)

[jb_slasher]

I hate that people think everyone wants a Facebook account.
Me, too. I will not be getting one, no matter how many people say how easy it is to keep track of what's happening with other people. Maybe I'm just being stupid but isn't that why phones were invented?

By the way, hi. Thanks for adding me back. I was mostly intrigued by the Avengers recs but I also love SG1 and SGA and SPN (though atm I'm stuck at the beginning of season six) and Angel and Buffy :)

[amalthia]

I'm mostly reading avengers and dcu fic lately. :) So there should be more recs in that direction in the near future. :) I tend to read in multiple fandoms.