Why Finestories.com?

It’s simple, while storiesonline.net is very successful, it’s adults only and quite frankly it has some contents that even adults can’t handle. I’ve been asked by many authors and readers if I can do a no-sex storiesonline. Well Finestories.com is the answer.

What’s the difference between SOL and FS?

If a story has sex, then it doesn’t belong on FS. Simple rule of thumb is that if you can’t allow a 10 year old to read the story because of its sexual contents, then don’t post it on FS. It belongs on SOL.

Of course, many people may argue that it’s silly to disallow sex and yet have stories for adults due to violence and other contents, but it’s irrelevant. I’m not the one that created the current sexual contents policies that are prevalent in societies around the world.

I’m working to make Finestories.com the site that I can recommend to anybody without hesitation.

I added an ‘About’ page to Finestories, you can read it by clicking the site’s logo.

Will it be one charge for a premier membership on both site?

No. They’re independent sites. However, I will probably give good discount to those who purchase premier memberships for both sites.

However, the previous e-book readers that I have haven’t been updated for the iPad yet. Stanza, which is what I use on my iPhone, was bought a while ago by Amazon and I’m not sure if they’ll ever update it to take advantage of the iPad’s larger screen. eReader is still lagging on the large screen support too after being bought out by Barns & Noble.

I found a new e-book reader that works perfectly with the site. It’s called readMe and it’s a $1.99 app.

This program has a built in web browser that you can use to browse SOL and when you click the ePub link, it downloads the story and adds it to its library.

Update 2010-06-04: Stanza 3.0 was released today and it added support for the iPad’s large screen.

Alright, time for some decisions.

I guess after all 130+ comments, it’s agreed that the new system should be implemented. It will take a little while to do, but it will get done.

Some changes will be required, like the clear definition of what is filtered out and what’s not. What will fall under this filter is any story containing any of the codes ‘pedo’, ‘lolita’, ‘boy’, ‘gi’.

The definitions of those codes will be amended to make them crystal clear.

boy, gi will be persons under the age of consent.

pedo will be person over the age of consent initiating sexual contact with a person under the age of consent.

lolita will a person under the age of consent initiating sexual contact with a person over the age of consent.

Since this is part legal issue, we’ll define the age of consent at 14 years since this is the lowest legal age of consent anywhere. That’s how it was in canada and still is in some states and other places in the world. So ‘boy’ is any male 13 years of age or younger. ‘gi’ is any female 13 years of age or younger.

Since this system will rely on correct coding, I will add a link at the end of each story for readers to report missing codes. We’ll do our best to enforce proper coding for those four codes. I’ll also change the submission wizard to ask the question whether the story contains sexual contact between a person over the age of consent and another under the age of consent.

Since filtering out database results by codes is computing intensive, I won’t be opening the current category exclusion preferences system for free accounts. Each story will be flagged filtered or not according those codes when posted or when the codes change. So this filter will apply strictly to those 4 codes.

For those concerned about ‘censorship’, this isn’t censorship. This is choice. Censorship would be if somebody else gets to decide whether you would be allowed to read something or not. Choice is when you get to choose.

Update 2010-05-07: Due to feedback and reading various references, I reverted the definitions to 12 and under instead of 13 and under and rephrased the pedo and lolita definitions to be in harmony with the most popular definitions I found.

Pedo: An adult initiating sexual contact with a pre-pubescent child (boy or girl, 12 or under)
Lolita: A pre-pubescent child (boy or girl, 12 or younger) initiates sexual contact with an adult (I know lolita doesn’t work properly for boys, but what else can we use? Lolito?)

I added the ’12 or under’ bit to the pre-pubescent part to remove ambiguity. I don’t want to hear the line, ‘but my character got her period at 10′.

Recently, I’ve started receiving many requests to delete members accounts and received several messages of concern, all citing the proliferation of pedo stories on the site.

My long standing attitude towards this issue has been to support the freedom of speech of authors and oppose censorship for readers.

However, when an issue starts costing the site readers, I have to get concerned. Of course, removing such stories or refusing them is too big brother for me and I don’t like to put the needs of the majority ahead of the minority. The world has room for everybody and the system should be adjusted to find a solution that satisfies the largest number of readers possible.

Preliminary proposed solution: Have every reader choose whether they want to be exposed such contents. Not an opt-in or opt-out, there is no default. Each reader has to make the decision for themselves.

I can set up the site in a way to allow readers who are not interested in such content to never see it. And those who do want it, to see it as it is now.

It would work on the categories, so as long as authors properly tag their stories, the system would work.

Opinions? Other solutions?

Update 2010-05-06: I’ve made my decision. Please read the follow up post.

In the last three weeks it happened two times prior to this. One time a redirect iframe got injected into the database and the second time, another iframe got injected into the site’s index page. I cleaned them up each time after changing all my passwords from the database’s password to the sftp to the management. Everything! I changed each and every password only to get hacked again.

It turned out that the hosting company, Network Solutions got all their servers hacked. They’re battling the problem, but as far as I can tell, they’re losing the battle. The proof was yesterday’s intrusion.

However, this time, it happened just as Google was checking the site and found the malware on it and blacklisted the site. And since I host most of the images used on storiesonline.net here on storiesonline.org, SOL.net got partially blacklisted.

That was the straw.

I moved the domain to a new host (one that I trust much more) and started the site from scratch, just in case the old site still had some backdoors inserted somewhere in WordPress’s complex database structure. I created a fresh wordpress installation, along with a fresh new theme (do you like it?) and imported the articles through an xml file. As far as I can tell, nothing got lost other than the malware.

After that, I requested a new review from Google and the new site passed with flying colour. Now it’s just a matter of time  until all browsers fetch the new listings from Google and the warnings will go away.

I’ve decided to phase out support for externally linked stories. As of today, the ‘New External Story’ button in the site’s submission wizard is gone.

[Update: 2010-04-15]: Transition is now complete. There are no more externally linked stories on the site.

Impact:

Not much really. The certificate still works for encryption, so no data is ever compromised. All a user has to do is to make their browser accept the certificate temporarily (allow an exception) and all will be well.

What happened?

Why such a lapse in security? Well, this is interesting.

The current (expired) certificate was obtained from Entrust two years ago. It had a duration of two years. And as it turned out, Entrust has interesting new policies.

First: They only alerted me last Wednesday about the impending expiration of the certificate instead of their usual 30 days. So I didn’t remember to renew on time. It would have been fine if we simply renewed.

Second: Entrust’s new amazing policy of not accepting any purchases for less than $1000.

A single, standard URL certificate for 4 years is $538 with Entrust (it started at $299 per year in 2003). That’s what I usually get and the site doesn’t need any more than that. So if I were to keep dealing with Entrust, I would have to buy something else; something that I don’t need. I would have to invent a domain to get a certificate for it.

So, I decided to get a certificate from Verisign instead. They are much better priced anyway and they accept my insignificant business dealings of $356 for the same type of certificate for the same period of time.

However, certifying a site requires verification of the business entity behind the site and that takes 4 to 5 business days to finish and produce the certificate.

I started the process on Thursday, and hopefully we get the new certificate by tomorrow.

So for now, just accept the current expired certificate and everything would work as usual.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Update 2009-11-11 2:00 pm: The issue has been resolved and a new security certificate has been installed and activated.

I will be rolling out support in other pages gradually.

For now, if you stumble on bugs, let me know and I’ll correct them. Also, if you have other suggestions that could help, let me know.

However, the site is not back up to to its old normal self. We’re still missing the hefty hardware required for content search. We’re running on a single database server with large memory. The current speed comes mostly from the database being completely cached in the RAM. So disk access is strictly for flushing MySQL’s memory back to disk.

We’re now looking for either a decent disk array to hook up to the server, or a server with decent hard drive space and high processing capability to replace the current one. So content search (where you can search for stories according to text contained in them) is still missing.

Well, it turned out that the hosting location that I have the servers in, is in the process of being closed down. They didn’t give me prior warning. So there were people moving servers and racks to a new location (our turn will be on Friday).

Somebody knocked the power cord from the database server’s array and that took it offline. We spent the afternoon and the evening trying to recover and rebuild the array and each time it starts to work then reports a failing disk. After the third time and a report of a different disk failing, we figured that it’s the array itself that’s hosed and not the disks.

At midnight, we removed the array and replaced it with a server with some drives in it and restored the database from the morning’s backup. Due to this, we had to forego the Content Search function until we get a new solution.

So the net result is that we lost nearly 12 hours worth of data and an expensive piece of hardware.

Since we’re moving on Friday, we will deal with the Content search problem and the new hardware after the move.

So this is the first announcement that on Friday, June 19th, the site will be offline for few hours. We will need to move the servers physically to a new location and have the DNS entries updated to point to the new IP addresses. So that may take anywhere from two to six hours. Hopefully as close to the lower end as possible.

After that, we’ll need to get new hardware to replace the old one and when that happens, we’ll need to take the site offline again to make the replacement. But that will be about 15 days or so after the move. I’ll make the appropriate announcement when the time comes.

The lesson learned?

You can never have too much redundancy and backup backup backup…

Oh yeah, before I forget, the site will be offline again on Friday June 19th. Sorry for the inconvenience folks!