FAQ

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions
(well, not really, I'm assuming you want these answers.)

The Archive
General

 

Where on Earth am I and what exactly are you doing?
Can I join?
Do I have to join? Can I read and review without registering?
In my profile it says skin and it has a few choices between Pretender1, Pretender2 etc. What are these things?


Registration


Okay, I signed up, but do I have to put in a website and real name?
Can I have anything as my username?
Hey! Why won't it let me have my username?
Right. I put in my email, but will you spam me?

User Info

What is 'carry over chapter information'?
The 'contact' button in my profile... will it be picked up by spam bots?
Can I get rid of the contact feature?
When contacting an author do you have to put in the email and subject?

Reviews

How do I review?
How come when I leave a review it keeps squishing up all my line breaks?
How do I get a notice sent to my email about a review?
Why am I not getting my review notices?
How does the 'Rating' system work? It says to give a rating out of ten but then it only gives up to 5 stars, how come?
Do I have to rate the story?
How do I delete a review?
This review gave me a really bad rating! Can you remove it?
When will you remove a review?
What will you do if someone does leave a review that has to be deleted?
How do I reply to a review?
Can I delete a reply?

 

Uploading

I'm not sure what category it goes into. What do I do?
What can I edit once I've uploaded my story?
How much can you [the admins] change?
I think a chunk of my story is missing, what gives?
I want to delete a story. How do I do this?
How do I change my story from uncompleted to completed?
What's 'reads' in the Edit/Delete area?
Why do some have more than others?

 

Archiving from Pretender.de

Are the stories changed at all during your archiving from the old archive?
What does 'this author has been lost in pursuit of the Centre' mean? are you trying to be funny?
Isn't it wrong to post their stories without permission?
What do you have against fanfiction.net? I heard you were trying to lure authors away from it and to here. You're just mad with power!
Why didn't I get an email asking to archive my stories here? You hate me, don't you?

 

Drabbles

What's a drabble?
Oh, okay, what's with all the random categories that they're divided into?
Wow, turns out I wrote one of those. Where do I put it?
Some of those stories aren't 100 words. Some of them are way over. Like that one! That one is 800! Why is this?
Okay but this one isn't a'series' and it's more than 100! Ha! Why's that?
I heard these drabbles are other places as well and now I'm confused. Explain.
Who decides the challenges?
When is a new category for them put up?

 

Search

What's the difference between simple search and advanced?
I used the simple search and it said' No Result Found' but I know that author exists! Why is it doing this to me?
I fixed that, but now it's saying,'More than 50 results found. Please try searching again, with more limiters chosen.'
How does the advanced search work?
Is there any way to make your story unable to be found in the search?


Favourites


How do I add a story to my favourites?
How do I add an author to my favourites?
How do I remove someone from my favourites?

 

Miscellaneous


Who decides the featured story?
Can one of mine be the featured story, please?
The story 'featured' sucks. I could write better. Take it down. Now!
Someone uploaded a story and now the'latest' links say that my story is the sequel to theirs! How come?
When I upload does the story get checked over or something? Is it judged and can it be rejected?
Why aren't the stories in alphabetical order under their categories?
I don't understand what the 'non fiction' section is. Help?
Why are the story counters off? Some of the drabble categories say there are no stories but you go in there and there is a story!
Can I link to the site? Or an individual story?
The webmistress email is bouncing and I need to contact someone! Who do I call?

 

General

 

Where on Earth am I and what exactly are you doing?

You're at the Missing Pieces fanfiction archive. Congrats. Here's we're archiving Pretender fanfiction of all shapes sizes and types, in particular the lost stories from the old archive Pretender.de.


Can I join?

Yes, registration is free and quick.


Do I have to join? Can I read and review without registering?

Yes, you can still read and enjoy all aspects of the website including reviews. The only difference will be that you will leave'anonymous' reviews, rather than signed in reviews. It works in the same manner of fanfiction.net, but people cannot choose not to have anonymous reviews here.


In my profile it says Skin and it has a few choices such as PretenderCentre, Pretender 2 etc etc. What are these things?

The PretenderCentre or Pretender2, Fallen Angel etc skina are the themes for the website, the page display etc. Before you login the skin you see will be the current defaulted one. They all do the same things but just have different appearances. You can change the skin as often as you like and you can default to your favourite by going into Account Info, edit preferences, and then the skin will always be on your fav while you are logged in.

Registration

Okay, I signed up, but do I have to put in a website and real name?

No. The only required fields are your nickname and email.


Can I have anything as my username?

Within limits, yes. Obviously the name must be G rated. The site is also, it appears, hungry for symbols. It will truncate *~+~Angel Wingzzzzz~+~* all the way down to Angel Wingzzzzz so be aware of that.

Hey! Why won't it let me have my username?

Two options:
1. Someone else has already taken it. Go to the Authors page and check.
2. Your name may be too small, but don't worry because you don't have to change it. When registering add on a space, for example if you want your name to be JD (pretending that underscores are spaces) JD____. Once you're registered you no longer have to add those spaces, but for the registration process you do.

Right. I put in my email, but will you spam me?

Absolutely not. We do not and will not ever sell/lend/buy/borrow whatever jargon they're using nowadays to give people your address. In the event of a site shutdown for maintainence we may send out a sitewide notice, or if there is a particular issue with your account or stories. Otherwise, there should never be a time where your emial is used except to contact you regarding site related events.

 

 

User Info

What is 'carry over chapter information'?

This is for when you have a multi chapter story. Instead of having to enter all the data about characters and summary etc, you select this and it carries what was entered in the first chapter over. You'll still need to change the Chapter Title and maybe some details, but it can save a lot of time.

The'contact' button in my profile... will it be picked up by spam bots?

No, clicking the contact dialogue box brings up a form similar in nature to the review feature. Nowhere on the page, or even in the source code, is your email and thus it cannot be picked up by spam bots. You're safe.

Can I get rid of the contact feature?

Only Admins can do that. We do it at special request only. To do this we have to remove your email field which you cannot do. You have to have a good reason for it (as we've said you won't get spammed), and if you do then you will not receive review alerts.

When contacting an author do you have to put in the email and subject?

You don't have to have a subject, but do need to put in your email. Otherwise the message will not send.

 

Reviews

How do I review?

To review a story use one of the links to the review page of that story. There is one next to the story listing, one at the top of the story page, and one at the bottom. This takes you to the reviews, which will be blank if the story has received none. Select the'Would you like to submit a review?' and it will take you to a review box.

How come when I leave a review it keeps squishing up all my line breaks?

If you make sure tinyMCE is enabled in your Edit Preferences in Account Info and make sure it is ticked in the review box, then you should be able to enter and format in a similar way to a basic word processor. If you prefer not to use the tinyMCE format function and have it turned off in your preferences, then you need to code your comments like the example below.

Unlike when uploading a story in the reviews you need to use html to get line and paragraph breaks. You can't just push enter.

To get line breaks and paragraph breaks use something like this (removing spaces from the tags of course):

Hi,< br>
I really loved your story [insert name here]. I particularly loved [insert bit here]. < p>

My favourite quote was < i>Your Quote Here< /i>, which was really funny. < p>

Thank you for the great read. < p>

[Name here]

The effect is:

Hi,
I really loved your story [insert name here]. I particularly loved [insert bit here].

My favourite quote was Your Quote Here, which was really funny.

Thank you for the great read.

[Name here]

For more information on html and tags you can check the uploading guide or tutorials all around the web.

 

How do I get a notice sent to my email about a review?

Simple. Login and go to Account Info, edit preferences and tick the box next to'Contact for new reviews'. From then on you will receive an email when you get a review with a link to the board.   You can also select to have a notification when an author responds to one of the reviews you left for them.

Why am I not getting my review notices?

Check that you have done the above step and that your email is correct. If this is correct then check your email's junkmail filter and make sure that missingpiecesteam@gmail.com is on your safe list. Instructions on adding someone to your safe list can be found in the help guide of your email. If you've performed the above steps and still aren't getting notices please let us know.

How does the'Rating' system work? It says to give a rating out of ten but then it only gives up to 5 stars, how come?

This is going to get mathematical. [Ed note: I freely admit to being useless at maths, if the equations here make your head explode please let me know].

The rating out of ten is so that the site can figure out that out of five rating. Being the only reviewer and giving it 10 guarantees a five star rating. But if there are two people reviewing the site takes the scores given and divides it by the number of reviews. Thus:

(Review One) Rating of 10 + (Review Two) Rating of 5.

Site goes: 10+5=15/2=7.5

Score is now 7.5 which relates to 3 half stars. (It seems to round up)

The basics are:
1 = half star
2 = half star
3 = 1 star
4 = 1 & half stars
5 = 2 stars
6 = 2 & half stars
7 = 3 stars
8 = 3 & half stars
9 = 4 stars
10 = 5 stars
or guns, as the case may be in some skins now.

Do I have to rate the story?

No, but it is nice. If you're indifferent we suggest a 5.

How do I delete a review?

Reviews cannot be deleted by anyone other than an Admin. This includes anonymous reviews and reviews you've made yourself. To get a review deleted contact the webmistress and we will take a look, but unless we find good reason the review will not be deleted.

This review gave me a really bad rating! Can you remove it?

No. We will not be censors for other people's opinions.

When will you remove a review?

If the content of the review is offensive and/or harassing of the author themselves. Criticism of the story will not fall under these guidelines. For instance:

'You are a worthless human being and deserve to die. I hate you' will be deleted as it is directly offensive to the author as a person.

'This story sucks, I didn't enjoy any of it. I hate it' will not be deleted. There is no threat or content directly offensive to the author. The author may not like it and it's not very nice, but this is criticism, and thus will not be removed.

What will you do if someone does leave a review that has to be deleted?

It depends. Obviously, if the person has done it anonymously there isn't all that much we can do other than delete the review. If they are a member then we will warn them of the guidelines and the difference between criticism and personal attack. If they continue then they will be banned.

Also, if you notice spammers are using the site, let us know and that will be deleted imediatley. Reveiws can sometimes be used for spammers and we have a zero tolerance policy on that.

How do I reply to a review?

While logged in go to the'Your Account' (https://www.pretendercentre.com/missingpieces//user.php) link on the toolbar. There you will see View Reviews (https://www.pretendercentre.com/missingpieces//user.php?action=viewreviews) On each page (if you have enough stories to warrant multiple pages) will be 4 stories. The pages are organised in the order you added the stories, not alphabetically. The reviews for each piece show up under their respective titles. To respond to the review click the r0;Respondr1; link and you will be sent to a new page with a response box. Be polite and thank people for the time they've given to review you.

Can I delete a reply?

No. The reply becomes a part of the review on the whole, so even the Admins do not have the option to delete a reply.

 

Uploading

I'm not sure what category it goes into. What do I do?

Rule of thumb is that if you're not sure then put it in Indefinite Timeline.. That covers all your bases. An in-depth guide to what the categories are is available in the upload guide.


What can I edit once I've uploaded my story?

Everything is editable but the author.


How much can you [the admins] change?

We can change everything except the author also. We have ultimate power. BAWAHAHAHA or something.


I think a chunk of my story is missing, what gives?

During uploading try not to use the'preview' feature too many times. If you do then it can confuse the script and it will get itself in a sort of cycle and may cut out a little bit. We suggest that you use the preview twice, then make corrections and add the story. Check it and if there are still formatting problem go through the'edit story' option at the top of the story. It's just safer.


I want to delete a story. How do I do this?

Use the Manage Stories/Series console in Account Info once logged in.


How do I change my story from uncompleted to completed?

Go to the Edit/Delete story console and check the completed box whisch is right next to the rating field'. Now your story will wear the'completed' tag.


What's 'reads' in the Edit/Delete area?

That's how many hits your story has.


Why do some have more than others?

Depends on a lot of things. How long your story was in the'recently added' menu for one. We've also discovered that statistically you'll probably get more hits if you're under the Plot? What Plot? Category or have labelled your story with a higher rating. Also, when we did the upgrade from version 1 to version 2, we lost the read count altogether (grrrr) but now we have put in version 3, it is back.

 

Archiving from Pretender.de

Are the stories changed at all during your archiving from the old archive?

No. They are copied straight from the old site without modification. Occasionally an error will be made in title or summary or something, (more often that not this is an accidental 'fixing') but other than that, no.


What does'this author has been lost in pursuit of the Centre' mean? are you trying to be funny?

Not really, no. What it means is that we've been unable to find the author. We've posted up the list of 'lost' authors and the Pretender community hasn't got any information either, so we're putting up the stories with that notice to say that we haven't managed to track them down yet.

Isn't it wrong to post their stories without permission?

The stories were online and the archive died. They didn't pull them from the archive, so it's not as bad as it could be. Think of us as a type of 'mirror' site if it helps. We know it's not ideal but it's the only way to can save these stories. We have removed stories when requested by an author.


What do you have against fanfiction.net? I heard you were trying to lure authors away from it and to here. You're just mad with power!

A lot of people have problems with fanfiction.net, and a lot of archives have been created to get away from it, but this isn't one of them. We were originally designed and started to retrieve the old pretender archive. During the process, however, fanfiction.net implemented a number of daft rules, which include:

- no NC-17 (known as NC-18 here to avoid copyright issues)
- the replacement of traditional ratings with new 'K, K+, T, M' ratings which mean nothing to anyone and are totally confusing.
- no songfic (stories with lyrics in them)
- no second person stories (i.e'you')
- the removal of the following symbols: / * - and others

And various others. We have been 'luring' authors over here so that their stories will not be suddenly lost as many have already been.


Why didn't I get an email asking to archive my stories here? You hate me, don't you?

Yes, we're out to get you that's right you. I'm kidding. The process has been stalled currently now that we've started declaring authors'lost' and are putting up their stories. It's difficult to do two things at once, so the fanfiction.net email process has taken a back seat for the moment. We would have got around to you, really. If you have your email in your profile that is.

Drabbles


What's a drabble?

The definition of a drabble is a story exactly 100 words in length.

Oh, okay, what's with all the random categories that they're divided into?

They're previously held challenges on the pretender drabble group Pretender100 (http://www.livejournal.com/community/pretender100).

Wow, turns out I wrote one of those. Where do I put it?

If you'd like to put it in a category you think it fits, then go ahead. If you don't have a fitting category then put it in 'Anything/Miscellaneous.'

Some of those stories aren't 100 words. Some of them are way over. Like that one! That one is 800! Why is this?

Some of the stories are series of drabbles. Each 100 (or so) words long and all linked together. They could have been made into chapters but it seemed like a hassle to make people click next chapter just for another 100 words. Also it would have been more work.


Okay but this one isn't a'series' and it's more than 100! Ha! Why's that?

Ideally the drabble should be 100 words, but as mother always says: this isn't an ideal world. We accept drabbles as around 100 words, give or take. Sometimes that idea just keeps going.


I heard these drabbles are other places as well and now I'm confused. Explain.

The drabble group on livejournal (open to join if you have a lj) archives the drabbles in three places:

Livejournal
Missing Pieces
Pretenderfanfiction.net

Who decides the challenges?

The challenges are put up by the group mod/owner Blade Mistress who readily accepts suggestions for challenges from members and non members. Challenges on Missing Pieces can also be lodged via an email to the group or posted on the Missing Pieces news board at www.pretendercentre.com/forum/


When is a new category for them put up?

The challenge lasts a fortnight, so when the challenge closes then the category is created here (if it hasn't already been created) and the stories uploaded.

 

Search

What is the difference between a simple and advanced search?

Nothing really. They both search the site, both do their jobs. One is just far, far more specific than the other is.

I used the simple search and it said 'No Result Found'; but I know that author exists! Why is it doing this to me?

The search is very specific so there are a few things that could have happened. Make sure you haven't:

- spelt the name wrong
- put in an underscore where a space is required
- put a space after the name
- not put in a correct space. For instance, merging a name together like BobBob when it should be Bob Bob will give an incorrect search result.

If the search doesn't work and you're sure that it's spelt right then more often than not it's the space thing. The search engine is so specific that it views the space as a character, so then when it searches it doesn't find any matches.

Example (where underscores are spaces):

Bob_ may not give a result.
Bob will.

Just go'back' and delete the space from after the name and search again.

I fixed that, but now it's saying,'More than 50 results found. Please try searching again, with more limiters chosen.'

The search has turned up too many results so it wants you to be mores specific. You could try using the advanced search, going through the story categories, or the author categories.


How does the advanced search work?

There are one or more categories you can use in the advanced search. You can just use one, or all. But being too specific sometimes turns up nothing because you've made a mistake, so be warned.

The options are:

Category; Indefinite time period, drabble etc.
Characters; this doesn't work. It's a bug in the script. We're working on fixing it.
Genre; romance, drama, angst
Rating; self explanatory.
Warning; if you're looking for something specific, for example sexual content or slash you can select it, leave the others blank, and just get those fics.
Searchterm; a summary search that can be used in conjunction with the other fields.

Is there any way to make your story unable to be found in the search?

No. And why would you want to? Honestly.

 

Favourites

How do I add a story to my favourites?

What is suppose to happen is that down the bottom of the story next to the Review option (while you're logged in) should be a Favourites option. Click that and it will add the story to your favourites and take you to your favourites page.

How do I add an author to my favourites?

Go to their profile (while logged in) and next to their name will be 'Add to Favouritesr'. Wasn't that hard?

How do I remove someone from my favourites?

Under 'Your Account' go to Manage Favourites and remove whichever ones you want.

 

Miscellaneous

Who decides the featured story?

We do. That is the Admins. Ideally it would be small list of recommendations, but Blade's story's currently up there so what does that tell you? In the future it will probably be lost stories from recovered authors, but at the moment we're using just a couple of stories as place cards. If we don't put something there the category sort of collapses and it doesn't look so good.

Can one of mine be the featured story, please?

At the moment we have no plans for such an option really. We would be swamped with authors who think their story is good enough. It would sort of turn the system into a petty competition and we don't want that. So, no.

The story 'featured' sucks. I could write better. Take it down. Now!

Then don't click the link. Remember kids, you are in charge of where your pointer goes.

Someone uploaded a story and now the'latest' links say that my story is the sequel to theirs! How come?

What happens is the story uploaded after yours has two links in it, probably to previous stories in the series or whatever. The script can handle one link, that's fine, it will give the author of that link as well. However, when we put in two links it goes a bit haywire and merges the two together. If you go to the'recently added' page then everything looks fine. What we usually try to do in such a situation is to move the links around to the end of the summary so that one or both links don't show up and cause havoc. There is unfortunately no way around this, and if it gets really bad we usually try to'bump' the stories off the'recently added' by uploading new stories. There is no other way to fix it, and we're aware of the problem.

When I upload does the story get checked over or something? Is it judged and can it be rejected?

No. The archive is not selective and the stories do not go into a release buffer. Once uploaded by you they will immediately appear on the front page and on the recently added page.

Why aren't the stories in alphabetical order under their categories?

The stories go in order of adding in the general categories like'alternate universe', not alphabetical. Sometimes you may see a bit of alphabetical order within an author's works because the archivists have added them in alphabetical order.

I don't understand what the 'non-fiction' section is. Help?

The non-fiction is for episode commentary or something that's not a story or poem. You can also put theories you have about the show there, or tips on writing.

Why are the story counters off? Some of the drabble categories say there are no stories but you go in there and there is a story!

When we first loaded up the script we had some server issues and script issues. For a while the categories wouldn't change their numbers, so then it worked, but the numbers were way off. We tried to reset the numbers but that just brought it all the way down to zero again. We don't play with that button any more.

edit: Hopefully with the new version the count should be corrected now.

Can I link to the site? Or an individual story?

Yes, you are more than welcome to link to us. It doesn't matter if you're linking to the main page, the archive, or an individual story. We're fine with that. We also have some banners and buttons (http://missing-pieces.org/linkus.php). To use these save your chosen picture to your hard drive and then upload it to your personal web space. The html to link will look like this only without the *'s. .

The webmistress email is bouncing and I need to contact someone! Who do I call?

Batman.

Kidding.

If you're desperate then try sending an email to jacci@pretendercentre.com we will get back to you as soon as we possibly can.

 

 

This soul stealing FAQ was written and coded by Blade Mistress. And if there's any problems she just doesn't want know. Well, she does, but not if it involves re-writes.

And then edited after the upgrade ate half the code, and then amended to suit version 3 by Jacci.