Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, there were frequently so many new stories submitted that our then Fiction Archivist, Paolo, was not able to read through all of them in a single day and needed to ask for help. There was rarely a day without some new story being posted, usually several of them. For the first dozen years of the Eunuch Archive, there was an average of nearly three stories per day posted (and that includes the early years when the site was still very small and posts were few and made through a dial-up modem on Bboy’s home computer).

Recently, there are very few stories being submitted. For the past two weeks, there has been only a single story submitted per week, other than the continuing novel that our current Fiction Archivist, Cainanite, is writing. Once Angel is completed, there may not be enough new submissions to bother keeping the Fiction Archive going. It may only be preserved as a fossil of what once was an active enterprise….

One major problem is that authors receive no feedback on all the work they do. Reviews are extremely rare. I know several of the formerly prolific writers who have decided that the rewards of writing for the Eunuch Archive are not nearly sufficient for the time involved in writing a good story, one that goes through several drafts over the course of days before being ready to post.

If you, as a consumer of fiction, want to keep the Fiction Archive alive, it is up to you to reward those who write. Their only payment is your comments. It’s time for you to review new stories! In addition to the new stories, go back and write reviews of some of the older stories that you’ve enjoyed. Many of our former authors read the Archive regularly; they just no longer spend the time and effort to produce new fiction.

REWARD THOSE WHOSE WORK YOU ENJOY!

People will write what they want to write. Stories, comments, and otherwise.

I've written comments on things I've liked in the past, I don't think I need to repeat myself.

--LT

In no ways I want to complain, but, I almost stopped reading the archive.

In the good old days it "just worked". Now... it requires password, which I do not keep in memory (this is my own machine and account, I never logout from web services), and, to make matters worse, it occasionally forgets that I was logged in, even with the proper option.

To make matters even more worse, even if it remembers, that I am logged in, if I was absent for some time, it, instead of opening the link, redirects me to the index.

And this breaks the scenario, with dropping the link from PC to tablet, to comfortably read it, or converting it for e-reader.

I do not want to belittle the great work of those, who made a new story archive. And I do understand the need to protect the site.

PS. If this is inappropriate, please delete.

PPS. Sometimes I just do not know, how/what to write, and if a review is written, and I mostly agree with it... I just do not see the point of writing my own.

I sincerely desire to see the fiction archive going. I understand that a lot of people do not like that they have to sign into the system to view them, but it is the same password you use to post on the archive. It shouldn't be a great hardship.

I can tell from page counts that we still have an incredible amount of readers. The thread where I post links to the new stories gets a LOT of hits. Yet people even seem scared to click on the rating stars. If we get a written comment it is extremely rare.

I know all the authors want for a payment is a comment from the readers. It doesn't need to be much. Just a few words. Most authors have their email address at the top of the story so you can comment directly. Others can accept a private message. If you start a thread it will send them over the moon.

I didn't think a review would be so hard for our members.

NO!!! Please don't let the fiction archive die!!! PLEASE!!! I finally just started submitting stories after years of being a lurker, and it's a really big thing for me to be able to keep writing! Don't let it die! Please! That really wouldn't be fair to those of us who actually do the writing.

OMG Don't let it die!!!!!

The current state of the story board and the lack of feedback to the stories might not stop people from writing, but I think it does stop them from posting any of those stories. I can think of a couple of authors that have stories they've written on their hard drives they won't submit. It's partly because of the lack of response, and it's partly because of the extra steps it takes to submit stories, stories that are no longer anonymous, since they have to email them.

I realize why we require log in to read stories: free access led to the site being shut down; but I'll bet we have only a fraction of the people reading the stories that once were.

When I submitted stories, the main feedback I got was how many times the story was read, the story hits. The rating stars just don't cut it with me as feedback, and maybe one post on the boards, usually by the same person, doesn't cut it either. We used to discuss stories on the boards. Does anyone remember what it was like back in 2003 or so?

I would also like to see a fresh list of what is acceptable and what isn't. While I highly appreciate the work Cainanite is doing - without him, no new stories would be submitted - I don't know what he'll accept and what he won't. Paolo had his own set of rules, and they were different from the founder's rules.

For instance, it makes no sense to me that a kid can get fucked and cut, but he can't be killed. Has anyone seen Hunger Games? I'm certainly not advocating snuff stories, but not being able to kill someone once in a while in a story is too limiting I believe.

What will you and will you not allow?

Hell, I have book length stories I've written but not submitted, and I have no intention of submitting them. I write them; they are castration stories, because I like writing castration stories; but they sit on my hard drive until I get around to deleting them.

I think we have two distinct classes of members: those that read stories and those that post to the message boards. Unfortunately, I don't think those reading the stories will see these posts asking for feedback.

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 27, 2012 3:47 pm I can tell from page counts that we still have an incredible amount of readers.

Is there a hit count on the story pages now? If there is, it must be fairly new. What I see at the bottom, which might be page counts, reflects but a few paltry hits, although I realize that, if the counter is new, it's probably only counting from when it was installed.

I used to see a hit count on some of my more popular stories that exceeded 10,000 hits. An average story had 5000 or more hits. Years ago, I totaled them up and had 3/4 million hits. That encouraged me to write. Looking at the bottom of my stories and seeing a hundred hits doesn't do much for me. For that, they can stay on my hard drive.

Slammr (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:22 pm Is there a hit count on the story pages now? If there is, it must be fairly new. What I see at the bottom, which might be page counts, reflects but a few paltry hits, although I realize that, if the counter is new, it's probably only counting from when it was installed.

I used to see a hit count on some of my more popular stories that exceeded 10,000 hits. An average story had 5000 or more hits. Years ago, I totaled them up and had 3/4 million hits. That encouraged me to write. Looking at the bottom of my stories and seeing a hundred hits doesn't do much for me. For that, they can stay on my hard drive.

The way the current count works (there is a glitch in the code somewhere), it updates at midnight every night. If you see a hundred hits, that is just how many hits you've had since the previous midnight.

Out of a hundred hits in a day, how much feedback do you see?

People ARE reading the stories. They just are not posting any kind of feedback.

I do agree, though. The sign in function does disuade some people. I don't know what to do. I know that when I discovered the archive, I was too afraid to become a member and post in the forums, but I read the stories almost daily. No doubt there are a lot of people like me, that just skip the stories altogether out of fear for their privacy.

Maybe we should have another talk about keeping the stories secured behind a password. Maybe there is a script we could write, that when you click on a story, it merely warns you that it is mature content. and gives you the option to back out. I'm sure that could be accomplished without the need for a sign in.

Something to talk about.

Well, I agree with whoever said it's a huge hassle now. There is not even a link to the archive once one is in the forum. If I want to go to the archive, I have to open a new window, go to my original bookmark again, select the archive, then enter my name and password again. Surfing the archive used to be easy. Now it's not. It's really that simple. I would start with at least a link to the archive from inside the forum.

Elizabeth