A couple Yuletide surfing/commenting tips
The heavy server load, which is impacting the usual Yuletide reading/commenting bacchanal, doesn't really seem to be getting much better at all as the day goes on. Alas. But I do have a couple of tips to offer that might help.
1. I've actually started right-clicking the comment link to open it in a new tab, which does take forever to load, but at least you'll get the field, and comments are posting fairly quickly for me thereafter. Please don't give up, because I think it'd be sad to let frustration get in the way of commenting to the writers. I do recommend copying your comment to your clipboard before you hit post, tho, because one of my comments did disappear, never to be seen again, and also the comments field does sometimes more or less disappear randomly as you scroll back up on the page. (No idea why.)
2. The search function is really difficult to use right now because of the slow loading of just about everything and the pages timing out and whatnot. But you could try my method, which is how I used to read through the old archive: load the list of fandoms and open a tab for the fandoms you really want to read. From there you can open tabs on the stories you want. This is also a good way to find your stories if you didn't get emails about them. You should probably wait on opening too many tabs, though; there are many people who apparently still haven't been able to get to their own stories, and too many people popping tabs will make that even harder.
3. The early recs are likely to be for stories that people are patient enough to wait for and are able to get to in their favorite fandoms, and since recs self-perpetuate, this year's first crop is likely to be a highly selective group of stories as recs are re-recced. I hate to think of the number of stories that could go unread or receive no comments due to sheer user frustration. Maybe that will get better the next few days. Anyway, if you are thinking of only making recs within AO3 itself instead of posting recs to your LJ, that might bear reconsidering. There are people in fandom who don't plan to be AO3 users outside of this challenge or who won't bother with trying to load anything not directly related to the fiction at this point.
4. Apparently there are people who think they aren't supposed to comment on the stories or it will reveal their author identity? I saw this wrong impression corrected by commenters in the yuletide journal, but I've seen it remarked on today also. Um, comment away! Go wild! You just can't answer comments on your own story, or you obviously give yourself away as the author. See #1 if the comment function is getting you down.
5. For serious complaints of the technical type, please see this post by your most excellent mod, elynross, re where to direct your inquiries.
Later, I will flail about how incredibly lucky I am to have received four stories (three in the archive and one as yet to be revealed in Madness) this year. I am a very, very lucky and happy girl.
Merry Christmas everyone!
1. I've actually started right-clicking the comment link to open it in a new tab, which does take forever to load, but at least you'll get the field, and comments are posting fairly quickly for me thereafter. Please don't give up, because I think it'd be sad to let frustration get in the way of commenting to the writers. I do recommend copying your comment to your clipboard before you hit post, tho, because one of my comments did disappear, never to be seen again, and also the comments field does sometimes more or less disappear randomly as you scroll back up on the page. (No idea why.)
2. The search function is really difficult to use right now because of the slow loading of just about everything and the pages timing out and whatnot. But you could try my method, which is how I used to read through the old archive: load the list of fandoms and open a tab for the fandoms you really want to read. From there you can open tabs on the stories you want. This is also a good way to find your stories if you didn't get emails about them. You should probably wait on opening too many tabs, though; there are many people who apparently still haven't been able to get to their own stories, and too many people popping tabs will make that even harder.
3. The early recs are likely to be for stories that people are patient enough to wait for and are able to get to in their favorite fandoms, and since recs self-perpetuate, this year's first crop is likely to be a highly selective group of stories as recs are re-recced. I hate to think of the number of stories that could go unread or receive no comments due to sheer user frustration. Maybe that will get better the next few days. Anyway, if you are thinking of only making recs within AO3 itself instead of posting recs to your LJ, that might bear reconsidering. There are people in fandom who don't plan to be AO3 users outside of this challenge or who won't bother with trying to load anything not directly related to the fiction at this point.
4. Apparently there are people who think they aren't supposed to comment on the stories or it will reveal their author identity? I saw this wrong impression corrected by commenters in the yuletide journal, but I've seen it remarked on today also. Um, comment away! Go wild! You just can't answer comments on your own story, or you obviously give yourself away as the author. See #1 if the comment function is getting you down.
5. For serious complaints of the technical type, please see this post by your most excellent mod, elynross, re where to direct your inquiries.
Later, I will flail about how incredibly lucky I am to have received four stories (three in the archive and one as yet to be revealed in Madness) this year. I am a very, very lucky and happy girl.
Merry Christmas everyone!