ClarkesworldMay 19, 2023
Back from a short vacation. Spent some time swatting at "AI" spam from the beach. Yeah, another spike. Bans are back up to February levels.
This says about all I need to:
http://neil-clarke.com/it-continues/
Chart is bans. Not total submissions.
Show threadClarkesworld
In short, spammers found another path to the site (old ones are still bouncing against the wall that helped in March/April) so, as expected, it's just getting worse. The difference between now and Feb is that we're better equipped. Volume will eventually break that too though.
May 19, 2023 at 1:32pmWeb
Show threadClarkesworldMay 19, 2023
I know some want to make this about the quality, but it's not present. This is more like someone turned off your spam filter. Try it sometime. It's not fun, useful, or a good use of time. I can't even begin to count the hours wasted dealing with this.
Show threadCamille Bacon-SmithMay 19, 2023
@clarkesworld Is it time to go back to printed mss sent via snail mail? And request an electronic submission at acceptance?
Show threadClarkesworldMay 19, 2023
@BaconSmith Won't work for us. We have a don't have a central office. Besides, it would be a deterrent for international submissions.
Show threadCamille Bacon-SmithMay 19, 2023
@clarkesworld Unfortunate. Making a quick buck could be the motive but it is also a sure way to attack literary cultures. Between all the book banning and story spamming, I am reminded of Fahrenheit 451.
Show threadGuitarsophistMay 19, 2023
@clarkesworld Just brainstorming here, but what if a legitimate submitter had to request a code word and any submission without the code would be automatically rejected? Andrew Burt at Critters sort of does that, at least with his email.
Show threadClarkesworldMay 19, 2023
@jredlund I don't see how that would stop any of the people doing this. These aren't scripted attacks. They are individual people.
Show threadGuitarsophistMay 19, 2023
@clarkesworld I suppose that whatever you do, the side hustle influencers would make another video about how to get around it. All they care about is views and followers. Creating a Captcha process wouldn't work. Even creating a pool of Clarkesworld authenticated writers wouldn't work because they would figure out how to get in. It is truly unfortunate. The best you can do, perhaps, is make submitters work harder so you have a little less to sort through.
Show threadClarkesworldMay 19, 2023
@jredlund Actually, a walled garden is the only guaranteed way to keep them out and there are some editors that already work that way. Soliciting fiction never felt right to us. It would certainly be easier, but new voices are too important to abandon like that. I feel some responsibility to fight to keep the doors open and not just poach the ones other editors worked hard to produce opportunities for.
Show threadGuitarsophistMay 19, 2023
@clarkesworld I have had the honor of being rejected by Clarksworld twice. I would be outside of that walled garden, so I appreciate your efforts to keep the wall down. There are lots of ways to improve as a fiction writer, but submitting to the slush pile is certainly one of them, or has been in the past.