What happens to reported arcs?

AmazingMOO · 06-23-2009 03:33 AM

I was up early this morning for work purposes, but got stuck waiting on server reboot, so I decided to log in and kill some time looking through AE missions.

I usually never do a mission that's not tagged (SFMA or HFMA) simply to avoid wading through the endless mountains of crap. ('Auto SK L54 Demon lt fm mission gives you quick xpez!') However a global chat acquaintance pointed out to me that there are lots of people who simply don't know to tag.

I picked '4 Stars' and started on about the 9th page. Quite a few missions do something strange. The appear as normal in the list, but then fail to put you in AE mode when you click the 'Play' button.

Its possible, I guess, that these are arcs that have been reported for one reason or another. Why would they still be in the list if they're not available to play, however?

It also occurs that a 'hide all arcs by this author' button would help eliminate a small measure the farm spam in the search window. Thoughts?

I did finally happen across a fun, short arc about weaponized salsa:

A Tex-Mex Mess by @Renderboy Arc ID: 127677

It's very funny, but not tagged. Go check it out.

TeChameleon · 06-23-2009 03:34 AM

They're still on the list because they're broken, not because they're banned; basically, one of the patches invalidated the arc for one reason or another, and the authour either hasn't found out yet, or hasn't had time to fix it.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head." Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates

MA Arcs: #12285, "Small Fears", #106553, "Trollbane", #12669, "How to Survive a Robot Uprising"

Eva Destruction · 06-23-2009 06:15 AM

Or they know it's broken, and don't know how to fix it. Or they fixed it, and it broke again.

So send the author a tell, because they may be unaware that their arc isn't working.

Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper

Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World

lionheart_fr · 06-23-2009 06:50 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Or they know it's broken, and don't know how to fix it. Or they fixed it, and it broke again.

So send the author a tell, because they may be unaware that their arc isn't working.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true. I had an arc break after a patch too. All I had to do was hit republish (without unpublishing) and it was back up and running. No idea what caused it to break.

JJDrakken · 06-23-2009 07:32 AM

Same here, I was made of aware of that, hit republished, it seem to fix it.

JJ

I delete more 50s, then you'll ever have.
http://www.pandora.com/people/jjdemon

Fleeting Whisper · 06-23-2009 11:19 AM

QR

According to pohsyb, there's supposed to be code to detect if the arc is invalidated, and not show it in the list... but that's apparently not working.

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

AmazingMOO · 06-23-2009 06:54 PM

Broken seems more likely than reported for some of the arcs I've seen this happen on, so I'm certainly willing to believe it. Thanks for the explanations!